The Transition and How it Went For You

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I was diagnosed at 3-4 years of age with autism since people noticed a lot of my signs. I medically first got diagnosed at 3 and a half years of age then diagnosed at school later on at 4 years of age. I guess i got diagnosed twice in such a short time period. If you have been early diagnosed with autism, no matter age gender, what happened afterwards? I mean, what kinds of support did you get after? And how is dealing with your autism like now, is it still challenging to deal with some of your autism symptoms? How did you or how are you transitioning into adult life?

I'm currently on my way to transition from high school and child-minor focused autism services to college, adult life and adult services for my autism. And i've been extremely nervous about what my day would look like when i'm out of school, because i think my routine will be drastically changed after i graduate from high school and things are different for adults. I've been worried for a while now too since i'm afraid i won't also be considered eligible for a developmental services agency because i don't have an Intellectual Disability despite them saying developmental disabilities, such as autism, are also accepted on their website.

However, i am going to therapy after therapy this year and the next year before i graduate. I go to some controversial therapies for life skills, but i also will start to go to speech therapy every other week to work on my speech. Apparently i have a lot of problems that weren't known of and that i wasn't aware of before i came, and for the therapist explaining it to me, i am very thankful for. That doesn't seem like a big issue in comparison to my other issues, which are my behaviour concerns, life skills, and some mental problems especially attention and organization. I blame my executive functioning, my memory and organization skill issues on my ADHD.

And it doesn't seem to help me out with adult life skills a lot, but it does help a lot with my behaviour as it's the main problem that my parents think is the biggest thing holding me back from being an independent adult. I don't know much and i think i'd be overwhelmed pretty quickly if i transitioned immediately from a routine to having to do everything myself without help or even living with someone so i think i'd also get lonely after a while.

But the summer of this year, my mom suggests that i try out doing some things by myself and other stuff. I have no idea why she wants for me to try this out suddenly, but i hope we do get somewhere in deciding for my future during the summer at least because my mom also promised that we'd discuss and maybe potentially decide for good what our choice would be. I hope that discussion happens and we're well aware of the future, especially for me as it is really worrying me currently.

So, for me, i answer this question by saying that it's really a big concern for me and that it's something i am almost constantly worrying about. But i don't think there will be a lot of problems as we have planned for this beforehand, as in last year already.

Hey KaitEli — thanks for sharing all this. I relate more than you might think, even though I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 44. So in a weird way, I’m 18 with 26 years’ experience — just without the discount railcard.

I didn’t “transition” so much as crash-land into the adult world without a map, compass or seatbelt. No support growing up, no understanding — just a long chain of people telling me I was bright but lazy, awkward, or “too intense.” Turns out I was just autistic, with ADHD thrown in for extra seasoning.

You mentioned therapies and life skills — I’d have jumped at the chance for that kind of help back then. These days I’d jump at the chance to use my skills to help others, especially family. But most people don’t book me for anything — not even those who know what I can do. Then when I do get stuck into something I love — like archiving, organising, fixing problems nobody else wants to touch — I get told I’ve got “too much time on my hands.” Make it make sense.

You're right to be nervous about what’s ahead. The adult world’s full of paperwork, grey areas, and people who’ll pretend to understand but really don’t. But it sounds like you’re already doing the hardest bit: thinking about it honestly. That’s rare.

You’re not behind. You’re just on a path that might not be fully paved yet. Sometimes we have to build the road as we walk it. Keep going.

– Mike

I entered the adult world with my head in the clouds and having no clue of what I wanted to do. All I was interested in was passing my driving test and having a social life and flirting with men.

I was very late diagnosed so I didn't even know anything was "wrong" with me. I wasn't at all worried about switching from school to a job because I was much better at hands-on work than the hands-off world of school where I had to understand and learn tons of information direct from the spoken word and then regurgitate it correctly for exams. That had become very stressful for me because I was crap at following lessons and lectures, and this horrible day of reckoning called the exams was always looming over my head and scaring me because I was falling behind so much in the work. It was a long time ago and at my school if you weren't doing well they just viewed you as lazy and stupid, and left you to sink. The only "help" they gave me was the occasional caning, detention or lines for not doing the homework.

I pulled out of the downward spiral by taking the text books home, shutting myself in my room, and reading them till I knew enough to pass the exams. I didn't do any of that till a few weeks before the final exams because it was so hard, and like I say there was no positive help from the teachers. I only did it at all because I was so scared of failing the exams, letting my parents down, and ending up with a bottom-of-the-pile job. While ever the exams were somewhere in the future I didn't tackle it. Luckily I was always intelligent so I was able to fix the problem in my own way.

So at the end of all that drudgery I was qualified enough to get a reasonably good job. I didn't go to university because I figured I'd just be out of my depth again and I was so sick of academic pressure. As expected, I was much happier doing a practical hands-on job, and I was good at it. No more homework clogging up my evenings. We'd had to do 3 pieces of homework every weekday and 4 at the weekends. I'd made a mess of most of it but it had still taken up a lot of my time trying to do the impossible and putting it off till the last minute. The pressure had spoiled my enjoyment of my time outside school, and now at last with a job I was free of all that. And I didn't have to wear that cumbersome ugly uniform any more.

So really in my case there was nothing to deal with except the release from a system that had never suited me in the first place. I just kind of drifted into a science job because that fitted my qualifications. I wasn't very ambitious about rising through the ranks but I was good at my work so I got promoted a couple of times. With the right kind of help I could probably have got a higher position but it was always enough for me and I didn't want the pressure of anything more grandiose. It wasn't all plain sailing but I got away with it and retired as soon as I could afford to. I've never defined myself by my job, I just developed myself through my private life and saw the job simply as a way of getting money and a necessary evil. Of course I enjoyed some of it.

There was no help after the diagnosis. They don't do that for adults, not free anyway. I just used the diagnosis to help stop my employer from trying to force me to do things that were Aspie-unfriendly.