very late diagnosis I am OLD

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Diagnosed 2019 just before my 68th birthday, I just turned 69, I am writing a blog about my experience seeking diagnosis at this old age, my growing up and living almost all of my life not knowing my diagnosis, and how diagnosis is changing my life for the better even at this late stage of life. https://Oldladywithautism.blog/author/debrabrisch3436/

Congratulations, I found out at 58, it really really helped me also

Nice. Are things starting to make sense now you know what is happening?

yes, after all these years, so much of the past is finally understandable. I feel like I have healed a lot emotionally as I have begun to sort out all those painful things from my past and now I can see how autism had its hidden way in a lot of it! I am learning how to do some self accommodations and have learned a lot about my neurology and I am beginning to understand my neurological struggles. I am amazed that I made it this far without knowing.. I am a survivor! I am so relieved to learn everything was not "all my fault" all these years. Having this new and amazing insight to my past has been a gift and a blessing. PS I am so glad to find other older members here, I was a bit worried when I started posting that most would be in their 20s and 30s... I would be interested to learn the average ages of members... so nice to find others and not feel like the "lone ranger".

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to Wrong Planet. I feel the same as you; I was worried it would be all young people.

Upon reading about autism presentation in older successful women, the light bulb lit. Suddenly my life made sense. Learning about autism has been a blessing for me.

I was diagnosed at age 3.

But I’m 1.5 months from being 60....so all this somewhat applies to me.

Welcome.

Alpena is a nice part of Michigan.

It's always beneficial to be diagnosed. I was 45. It's helped me a great deal, and explained a great many puzzling things ever since I first toddled around the garden. The twelve years since diagnosis made a good deal of sense not only to me but to those friends and family close to me who had no frame of reference before.

In the uk it looks like there has been a push to allow adults diagnosis. It is not easy to get an official NHS diagnosis, which is the only one that has to be recognised in law.

Piecing together the past as one does, I think doctors in the past spotted it in kids but diagnosed nothing and put nothing on the medical records. My guess is that this was because autistic symptoms sometimes clear up in kids, and also to avoid the stigma of giving the mark of something wrong in someone's head - and this reinforced by the fear and threat of Homes, Workhouses and Psychiatric Hospitals.

On the one hand doctors then called autism "Mad Child Disease" and on the other hand there was Bettelheim's Refrigerator Mother theory. That was living between a rock and a very hard place for the Junior Autist.

But one goes on.

Hi and a very warm welcome to you .

Welcome to Wrong Planet . Although, I had read about Asperger's when I was in college, I never told anyone how I fit the condition so well until I was 62. Since then I have been learning a lot about myself and others on the spectrum. Don't know how much it would have helped to look into ASD at an earlier point in my life. In the 2000s, when WP was started, is probably the earliest it would have helped.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to WP! The locals seem like nice folk to me.

I was diagnosed in 2019 just before my 65th birthday. And, as someone who had already had a lot of birthdays, I did not see the diagnosis as an indication of problems I would have to get by but rather of problems I did get by.

After the psychologist told me my diagnosis she asked what I thought about it. My response:

(1) I thought it was wonderful news! So much made sense! (Apparently a sentiment we share.)

(2) Maybe I can use the information to get my medical providers to communicate in a manner more useful to me. For instance, see:
"Primary Care for Adults on the Autism Spectrum" and AASPIRE Healthcare Toolkit. However, so far, I have not had much success with this--I can keep hoping, though.

(3) Ooooo! Maybe this can be a new "special interest"?!

(4) Maybe, sometimes, when my Aspieness creates some awkwardness knowledge of the diagnosis might help good friends understand why. (However, even before we left the psychologist's office my bride was tired of hearing "I have a doctor's note for that!!" )