Getting a diagnosis at age 39...

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If anyone with personal experience or knowledge of this situation could offer any advice and answer a few questions I would greatly appreciate it.

My entire chiildhood my parents took me to psychiatrists, schools had me tested for learning disabilities, etc, etc, and in the 70's and 80's the answer was always "there is something going on here but we cant find what it is." Social problems, bullying, etc, without going into too much detail a lot of what I now know to be somewhat milder autistic traits. My aunt who is also a retired psychiatric nurse has a son who was diagnosed as having Autism in the 70's and later Asperger's on the more severe side of the spectrum for Aspergers which is why I think they recognized autism before Aspergers was widely known. She, my aunt, has described many many traits I have in common with my cousin, and I've ignored and denied it most of my life. For the past 5 years of research and obsessing over it, I've come t accept that I do in fact share a lot, not everything, but a lot of traits with my cousin, and several that we do not share.

I just recently found out they opened an adult autism department at the University of Washington medical center. I've been on SSI most of my life, and they do in fact take my medicaid plan. I've requested a referral from my primary care physician, who suspects some kind of PDD but admits he has no training in the matter. That is being done right now. So I am going to get to go see a psychiatrist and psychologist who are Autism specialists and have all the testing done. Can anyone give me any advice on how to prepare for this? Should I bring family members and people who know me very well? Anything anyone can think of would be a great help.
Thank you in advance.

First, Welcome
Second, Washington State seems to be a pretty cool place - recreational weed and an an adult autism program!

Third, it sounds like you are in good hands.

When I was diagnosed, the psychiatrist asked my Mom to come to an appointment with me and she asked her a lot of questions (which was annoying and embarrassing.) But she got a lot of interesting information from her, which helped in my diagnosis.

Think ahead of time of the things you want to bring up and memorize them so that you don't forget to tell the doctors.

Your story sounds a lot like mine. Kudos for you for taking this big step on the journey!

I went to visit my therapist a couple times first to get familiar. The first was with my spouse and the 2nd time on my own. On the third we did the paper test for the DSM-IV diagnosis and all. I continued seeing him for more visits to talk about the diagnosis and life issues.

I am really glad I did get my diagnosis. It made a lot of things clear about my life too. Moving forward from it, it helped me see things in a better context and grow as a person.

Thank you for the replies. Memorizing should be no problem. One of the first strange things they found out about me is I could learn everything the teacher taught in the class while staring out the window and daydreaming, and not doing any homework. I could ace the tests but never could sit (adhd) and do the homework, so I was an F student that could score high on all the tests. I haven't figured what that is all about yet. And that sounds like a good idea. I'll bring my mother with me, I am so not looking forward to her telling the doctor all the deviant things boys do, but if it will help, I guess I'll have to get through it haha.