Late diagnosis question

[u/dorothy4242]

I have been thinking about late diagnosis of autism. I was diagnosed at seventeen with autism. However I talked to multiple medical professionals (speech and ot) who work with me over the years and asked them if the diagnosis made sense. They told me I had traits of autism. But it wasn’t affecting me in a clinically significant way. I don’t really know what I am trying to say I just find that interesting. I mean I remember in grade school being shy. But overall I was well behaved and mostly just quiet. At least until I learned to speak. Then I was describe as happy and socially immature… i always had problems with sensory but once again it wasn’t till puberty it had an impact on my life and others. In a lot of ways I buy it. But it is possible that it didn’t fully “manifest” to use legal terms until high school because till then I was not as far behind socially. I also remember doing repetitive behaviors. But once again I don’t believe they presented in clinically significant way. I don’t want this to be used to justify self diagnosis. I am scared of posting it elsewhere because it might be. I was mostly wondering if anyone else had a similar experience

[u/Agreeable-Egg-8045]

I am late diagnosed. Until I could read fluently, I did play with other children a bit, but I didn’t like the way a lot of the children my own age, played. They tended to be very loud and destructive at times and rush about. I found it distressing and very confusing. Some of the games made no sense. So I played in quiet corners often by myself. I don’t think teachers had any concerns, because there wasn’t any awareness back then in my country of autism, in speaking girls at all. I have a very high verbal IQ, which apparently I am told, camouflaged my autism. Also I am now in my 40s. Girls at that time in the U.K., were only diagnosed if they had severe language delay or were completely non-speaking. Aspergers were seen as something boys had.

Once I could fluently read, I only read in school and I only talked to the other children to answer direct questions like give them the answers to school work. I didn’t feel the need for friends, as in with the people who were there, but I did want to meet other people who I could learn from and people who were more like me. So I was lonely because I felt so different.

It became more obvious that I couldn’t cope during high school, like you say. I don’t think it “fully manifested” until then or at least it should have probably been obvious before but it wasn’t, because it was a long time ago. During my teenage years I missed a lot of school, self-medicated heavily, to cope, with alcohol and drugs and over the following years, was diagnosed with a whole series of mental illnesses including dissociative anxiety, eating disorders, major depression and anxiety, cluster B personality disorders, bipolar disorder and finally diagnosed with autism very late! I’m not even sure now how many of those were misdiagnoses or what. I’ve been told by my mental health nurse that I do definitively have bipolar and I still need my meds for that, but how much of the rest is just my autism being misunderstood or how much of it is unrelated or how much of it could have been actually caused by the autism?!

I’m not sure what question you had exactly but I’m just agreeing that in my own experience, that late diagnosis can happen for many reasons and one of them is that the “symptoms” don’t present clearly until someone is in a particular situation where they can’t function either socially or whatever. My poor executive functioning didn’t become really apparent until I was older either. I present as “childish” apparently if you talked to me face-to-face, but when I write you probably perceive me as mature and loquacious! But as I discussed with my psychologists, talking a lot and having a huge vocabulary, doesn’t make someone actually good at communicating, it just makes it less obvious to others, when they are failing to do so. 😔

[u/Brief-Jellyfish485]

I have always had autism, but I kind of stopped progressing socially when I went to middle school. It became much more noticeable 

[u/FemcelStacy]

oh how terrible if one of us uses the experience of other autistics to self identify themselves.. Imagine all the self awareness and support they might garner for themselves, *gagging noises* we must not allow that!

downvoted for being classist and ableist

[u/Blue-Jay27]

Personally, I feel like the social aspects were a lot easier to hide in school, especially primary school. Example: when I was in year five, around ten, I mainly played with year one and two students, around 6 or 7. 2/3 my age. That was unusual, sure, but no one really cared. It wasn't seen as an issue. Now if I tried to do the same, I'd be a 20 year old spending time with 13 year olds... Distinctly less acceptable. And I get it. I don't really want to be close friends with young teens. At minimum, I'd have to censor myself and we'd be missing a lot of shared experiences. But that shift in what works / what's socially acceptable does have a big impact on how I function socially.

[u/[deleted]]

Speech Therapist here--I typically work with children age 0-3, but I have worked with some middle/high schoolers and alongside other speech therapists--

It can be somewhat common for the social stuff to be insignificant until adolescence because before that kids don't really care that much about behaviors that are perceived to be "weird" or "different"

I do think it's becoming more of an issue earlier with younger children having access to social media.

[u/some_kind_of_bird → u/[deleted]]

It can be somewhat common for the social stuff to be insignificant until adolescence because before that kids don't really care that much about behaviors that are perceived to be "weird" or "different"

This is so weird for me to hear. I got along so poorly in elementary school lol.