Late diagnosis changes everything...

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I'd be really interested to know how people have responded to their diagnoses if they came quite late.

Mine was in my early forties and previously I had worked really hard to be like everyone else, whilst always feeling different, and beat myself up for not being as *able* despite having the intelligence etc...

Now I wonder where my real strengths and weaknesses lie and what I could do about them. How I can adjust my life to fit with the *real* me... I'd be really interested to know what other people have done with their new-found knowledge...

Hi,

How did you find out why you are different? Did you diagnose yourself first? I diagnosed myself by coinsidence when I was 37 and a half. 5 months later it was confirmed during the assesment.

I think I need to change my career. I was always very logical and good with information but somehow ended up working in social care... partly due to circumstances, partly due to the fact that I decided this kind of job will help me to improve my social skills.

I also understood that I need to put more effort to communicate in relationships, even if I don't know how to go about it, it's better to try and say something that is not perfect than to pretend that everything is fine.

Hope you are feeling ok now?

It's still very much "sinking in" for me after diagnosis a couple of months ago at 45 y.o.

The most positive aspect for me has been reviewing the events of my life before now. In particular those events that for many years I have, as you say, "beaten myself up" for. I am learning to be kind to myself, and find "forgiveness" for the self-hatred that for so long kept me mired in depression. My counsellor has been wonderful, and has reassured me that making peace with my past is the best first step to take before stressing myself out about the future.

[quote="carbonmonoxide"]Hi,

How did you find out why you are different? ...

I sensed something was different about me from very earlry on but it's taken til recently, seeing patterns emerging in relationships and reading about Asperger's because of my mother that made me think - "this sounds exaclty like me". I then went to my GP who referred me and I saw a Psychiatrist who confirmed that I'm 'definitely on the spectrum'. I've read that a lot of ASD females self-diagnose at around 40 and then seek an assessment to have it confirmed.

What do you think you might change to, career-wise?

And I am feeling calmer, thanks for asking. I was having a panic attack earlier and it's so hard when you're on your own I find - I can't calm myself down. My puppy came and lay on me and licked my face (which he never does) and that helped massively too

I was diagnosed at 40, and it helped me a lot with the self-blame.

It makes perfect sense that an autistic person would have struggled with the problems I've had all my life, and it makes zero sense that an NT would fail as badly as I did, for no reason whatsoever. So I've learned to forgive myself for basically blundering my way through life, not understanding the world around me, or how to cope with it.

These days I choose an approach that works for me, and I'm a lot happier, even if I'm not 'normal'!

After having researched myself and autism for 19 months before my August 2015 diagnosis, I was unfazed by the result ... until, one by one, each of my characteristics resurfaced (as they are expected to do) and caused me to relive and re-examine each in turn. I have learned that there is little I can do to change or mitigate many of my characteristics. Still, at this point in my life, several of my characteristics have been managed well throughout my life.

It partially or totally explained nearly every major event in my life. It told me there were others out there with the same core traits. It explained to me that a lot of my problems were not charactor flaws but a matter of bieng born that way.

I look back on it as a 2nd birthday.

Hi. Diagnosed 2 months ago by a psychiatrist who was very pleasant. I chose to go private (uk) as i have a little boy and wanted no records on computer file that might be linked to me or him after Google get their hands on the rest of the NHS files one day. Unnecessarily paranoid i know. If my little boys grows up like me then i'll get him any help he needs.
My curiosity was roused after seeing how amazingly and impeccably a house had been tidied that i'm helping to renovate, by someone i was told had asperger's. Apparently she simply had to tidy it after she visited to drop something off. I've never met her, but i know she's a head teacher with 2 autistic sons.

So very typically of me i Googled asperger's and quickly found the ASQ test. I scored 39 and set about finding someone to talk to about this. The Psychiatrist chatted to me for about an hour and discussed the results of the tests which included an empathy test too. Diagnosis ' Autistic Personality Traits - non disorder '.
Well i'm 42 and have had a very bumpy ride through life, i've just finished reading my 9th book about Austism/Aspergers so finally have some answers about the bumps.

The bumps being : Bullied at school, Speaking the truth all too often, fleeting eye contact, speech impediment, anxiety, poor social ability, working 20 yrs in a job where i lead a team every day and hate every minute of it, boring people to death, constantly interrupting, poor short term memory, all my friends were the nerds at school.

The benefits being : Being fab at DIY and never leaving a job unfinished, poor social ability so i get on with useful things rather than wasting my time chit chatting and going out, making sure everyone in my team at work does the job absolutely right,i can give the clearest verbal instructions of anyone i know, being on time every time, never wasting money-everything i buy is completely researched.

The thing that's taking longest to figure out though is knowing now that i've been thinking differently all this time. My whole perception is shaped differently from NTs. The world i see, hear, touch, taste and smell is not the world that NTs percieve. The Autistic Brain -Temple Grandin helps to explain some of this. I've spent my whole life acting to fit in and now i'm trying to figure out what the real me is like without the acting. I've never not acted before.
Heyho that's my disjointed rant over for now.
Take care

My professional diagnosis came in my late 20s.

Who'd ever thought a simple label would explain all my lifelong suffering in attempting to explain to myself what was wrong with me?

And all it took was a total psychological breakdown that resulted in my entire perception of existence being annhilated like an empire crumbling before ones own eyes.

37 years old, was diagnosed 4 days ago.

Right now it feels like it is sinking in in a nice way. I have always given myself such a hard time over being such a 'failure' and for the past 96 hours I sort of feel a little better about it, as if the quirks are just me, so hey ho.

I do really want a new career though and maybe this could help me focus more on where I could go from here. Problem is I am genuinely useless at everything!

I was diagnosed two years ago when I was 37. It basically came out of the blue, I hadn't heard much about autism before. It took a while to sink in, but it has really opened up a new perspective for me. So much in my past life now seems to make sense and to appear logical. I'm trying to focus on the positive aspects of it all rather than the negatives. I'm still at the very beginning, but right now I feel more comfortable being me and I think a lot of it has to do with my diagnosis.

Incidentally I have recently written a short piece reflecting on the first two years after my diagnosis. If you're interested, you can read it here:

https://medium.com/@OuterSpaceBoy/every ... .qof7wa1qq

When I read this on the old OASIS website...