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This summer I found out I’m autistic. I’m 60 years old.
My daughter swears I’m autistic. I was talking to her this morning and said, “I spent every year with my desk right by the the teacher’s desk. I would have wondered if they all got together and planned it, but that’s where I was at, multiple schools in different states.”
She replied, “Dad, go get diagnosed. Seriously.”
Do you find it helpful to have a diagnosis, or would you have preferred to just be "weird"?
Did the discovery have any deep impact on your life?
For context: I'm asking this because I'm socially close to a woman roughly in your age range that shows clear signs of autism, and I don't know if I should encourage her to get diagnosed.
Late diagnosis sucks in a way. You finally understand why you’ve had so many difficulties in life. Why you maybe didn’t fit in, why people treated you differently, etc. I mean, it’s such a relief when you understand why you had all those issues, but the other side of that coin is that you also understand how much of your life was lost to the untreated and misunderstood part of you. Maybe people get physical and/or verbal abuse as children because parents can’t get a diagnosis because they don’t understand, or think you can be forced to be “normal”. Peers don’t get you, you’re the wierd kid, friendships are difficult. Missing out on connections that can help move your life forward. Lots of stress and anxiety.
It good to know now, but it hurts to know that life could have probably been different if you’d been understood and been offered tools to help yourself.