The realization that you're autistic as an adult

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Hello,
I'm new here and I just need to share my thoughts and feelings on the subject because I don't have a lot of friends to talk to about it, and even if I were to, they wouldn't understand. But I, like surely a lot of previously undiagnosed adults, just had this aha-moment that I'm most likely autistic. Of course, there's never any true certainty until you're officially diagnosed, but a couple of weeks ago something really clicked into place in my mind. I have suspected I could have autism since I was a teenager because nothing else seemed to adequately describe the intense difficulty I felt with social relationships, but just like many other children who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s, I just couldn't recognize myself in the stereotype especially attributed to Asperger's. I think this was especially compounded by the fact that I was born female even though I today identify as male.

Yet there was always a gnawing feeling in the back of my head that I could be autistic even though I could never articulate why beyond my difficulty with social relationships. It was much easier to attribute this feeling to something like depression or trauma because I valued truth, and I know that it's all too easy to read a description of a mental health condition online and think that could be you. I didn't want to claim a title for myself that wasn't truthful for no other reason than I could relate to it, because it seemed dishonest.

Moving forward several years, the one thing I always struggled with the most as an adult living by myself was the fatigue I felt especially surrounding basic life upkeep such as chores. I even went to therapy about this and was given antidepressants but the only thing that gave me was a nasty side effect with no other benefits. So clearly it was not related to my mood, so instead it was suggested to me that it was a result of holding trauma in my body because of my traumatic childhood so all I had to do was try to let some of that out. But after another round of therapy I still felt the same way, even though I do think I have worked through a lot of my trauma.

Living life as an adult just seemed very difficult so I eventually chalked it up to stress, especially after I did suffer from a major burnout episode because of an incredibly stressful work environment. The burnout made me more aware of my own limitations though, and to pay more attention to them. I began to therefore reconstruct my life based on what I feel I can and cannot do, and it just hit me how boxed in I am based on my energy levels, but not just that, how little my lifestyle has changed since I moved out over 10 years ago (I'm 35 today). I may have a better paying job and a nicer place to call my home, but beyond that, very little has changed. And this is despite I think I have changed a lot as a person. But I still spend most of my time when I am not working at home, I am happy to be by myself where I can freely indulge in my interests and any attempt to break that little bubble requires a lot of effort and planning. A lot of the time I end up doing nothing because the stress of say, going to see my family in a different city, is just too much. I worry if I will have the energy to not just deal with intercity travel but also energy left to actually socialize with them. And then I can sometimes feel a bit of a twang from not being able to do something I find more enjoyable even though I know it's important to see my family.

So some people would maybe even call my lifestyle repetitive, because I tend to fall back on the same activities and topics within those activities because they're comforting to me. So for example, even though I've gotten more interested in politics in recent years it still fuels my interest about human society and social injustice, and when I play video games I may try out new ones once in a while, but I eventually still go back to familiar titles and genres, and sometimes even when I want to try out something new, it's like nothing clicks and it seems uninteresting to me so I just toss it to the side. It's almost like I must force myself to like something, because once I get more focused on the game I usually do enjoy it, but getting over that threshold can be hard.

And having worked with children with autism in the past and obviously studied the topic a fair bit due to myself suspected having Asperger's at different points in my life, I realized that's a pretty stereotype trait to have. And once I saw that, I saw a lot of other things as well that I thought were just personal quirks I had but would not necessarily fit under the diagnosis of autism. Of course, like I think is typical as well, I'm currently now obsessed thinking and learning about autism. It's been over 2 weeks and I wish my mind could just. Let. It. Go. Because it's impacting the rest of my daily life in a prohibitive way. I'm so excited about this so I just want to share everything I've found out about myself and talk what it means to be autistic with others to see how my experiences line up with theirs, but I also feel the loneliness of not having anyone close to me to speak to about it. And even if I did, would they really stand me talking about it every time we spoke? And while I can adapt to their needs, I also feel a sadness that I can't talk about it. God, I'm such a meme lol.

So here I am, ready to talk about autism. (Sorry, I moved my post because I didn't see there was a proper introduction area before!)

Welcome to WP! I think you'll like it here.

I'm a bit older than you. I was unhappy much of my working life, sometimes very unhappy. (In the last year or so I've come across the term "High-functioning Depression"...I think I spent years there.) But, for me, working was not the destination, it was how I could get to the destination: comfortable retirement. I retired when I was 56 and retirement is wonderful!!

I don't even know how to think about retirement except I know I don't want to keep feeling like I do when I feel really bad and have to deal with that until I'm 67 which is the official retirement age in my country, and still try to act like I have a normal life on the outside.

I can't wait until I can self-refer myself to the local private clinic in my area because I feel I just need someone to support me when I feel this way. I am not sure if I need work accommodation or something else, I think therapy would probably be enough to be honest, but that would at least hopefully make life more bearable.

It's insane that I've gone through so many therapists including an official evaluation for gender dysphoria which did include a bunch both personality and cognitive-related tests, and they did not pick up on that I am very sure I have alexithymia and obviously now autism. I don't know if it's because I just didn't fit the stereotype or because of something else.

It sucks it costs a lot of money but the only other option is to go through the public healthcare system and that takes many years, and I want help now, not 2-3 years from now, because the current burnout I'm suffering from albeit a lot milder than the first, made me realize how much I actually need help when it's really bad.

I'm afraid I can't help with making work more palatable. I couldn't even figure out how to do that for myself. I didn't even know I was Autistic so formal accommodations were never a consideration. I made what minor adjustments I could to make work less onerous...and remembered I wasn't going to be there forever, it was just some unpleasantness to be endured until I could retire.

I'll admit one reason I wanted to retire early is that I was generally feeling so miserable that I thought I might only live long enough to retire if I retired early.

Instead of accommodations I did minor adjustments, for example: music and headphones, and some simple toys on my desk.

And distractions when away from work. I like watching science fiction and have accumulated a significant number of movies.

Now I'd also recommend WP as a distraction.

Yeah, I completely understand! I mean, there are still many years left to go so maybe it will become better, who knows. But I admit given how difficult full-time work has been for me especially after the first burnout which made me even more sensitive to stress, the prospect of doing that until I'm 67 doesn't sound nice lol.

I think for me the bigger problem is that once I start getting stressed out it ends up quickly into downward cycle because the more stressed out I become, the more time I need to wind down which means I usually get less sleep and that causes more stress and so on. I am not sure how what to do about it because my brain just needs so much time to relax if it's been a really hectic day at work. I've always had trouble falling asleep as a child. My grandmother who I often slept in the same room with while growing up, could fall asleep in 5 min while I tossed and turned for hours sometimes. Her snoring did not help LOL.

But thank you, I am extremely bad at responding to social pleasantries, my mind just jumps over them a lot of the time, but I hope it will help to calm down my obsession some. I've always known I could become extremely obsessed or fixated on a particular topic or activity I took strong interest in but I thought it was because I had an addictive personality i.e. the sort of personality that is observed among addicts where just one slot machine game or a bit of alcohol can make them addicted though I've never been addicted to anything else but WoW, and that was mostly because I was suffering from a major depressive episode. But now I know it's called a special interest. Sounds way better than an obsession or addiction!

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

You might be in the right place. There are test available on the internet that can provide you with a fairly accurate analysis and help you determine whether you fit. So my first recommendation is to take one or more of these tests and see how you score.

I have a type of Autism called Asperger's Syndrome. I never age. I am still a child deep down inside. When other people changed from childhood into adulthood around age 12, I still remained a child inside. As I grew up I learned that I could live two lives. I could break apart. I would work in the NT world and earn a living but after work I would live in my ND world. I have two sides, like a coin. I can flip between them. As a result, I do not feel stress, nor breakdowns. I never stop being ME.

Humans are very unique beings because we have multiple brains. One exist on the left side of our skull. For most people it is the dominant brain, the day time brain. But we also have a support brain which exist on the right side of our skull. It is our night time brain that exist in REM and NREM sleep. But humans are some of the most advanced species that have ever existed on our planet or any planet in the universe. This is because we have two sets of brains. Around age 12 these two sides combine and we enter adulthood. But in my case I died around age 3 or 4 when I was attacked by a large bull. I weighed around 15 pounds and the bull weighed over a thousand pounds. It was like being attacked by a dinosaur. I died. About an hour or two later, I came to, but it was my sleep brain. I stood next to my dead body. I saw my parents in utter fear. A voice spoke out of nowhere and said, "Live or Die, Choose". I could not stand the fear within my parents and I said LIVE. I came back but as an entirely different person. It was my right side of my brain that came back, my sleep brain. Eventually my left side brain came back but it filled the void and became my night time brain. It was a brain flip.

I suspect that the human species has many people who experienced similar events in their lives. If you are autistic, you are probably not alone. If you search around, you will probably uncover them. About half of the people in the world are extroverts. When they are stressed out, they gather into a group, the bigger the better, and begin to talk and talk and talk and soon their stress is melted away. But around half the people in the world are introverts. They recharge their batteries by being alone. They may play a video game or read a book. They recharge themselves by being alone. So perhaps the best advice I can offer is find an introvert or two and become friends. You do not need many. One or two will do. If you find a good one, they will remain friends for a very long time.

welcome! for me it was a huge relief and it explained almost all my failures, struggles and painful events of my past. Nobody knew! Diagnosed at age 68. Life has got better as I learn more about autism and my own strengths and weaknesses and I figure out ways to "self accommodate" to make every day life easier. Glad you are with us.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

I found that playing a quick round of golf in the middle of the week would be a great stress reliever when the weather was good enough to do so.

The big difficulty with getting work accommodations is that nobody really understands the autism spectrum well enough to provide assistance without getting some of it wrong. I think it is better to just ask for what you need like someone asking for a better chair because they hurt their back.

Welcome to WP

I first became aware of my autism when I was a teen. I heard the word autism a lot, and since I spend much of my time on the computer, I looked it up.