You’re not alone. My kids are autistic, I am clearly autistic, my mum has a lot of traits, as did my grandfather before her. Four generations, only my kids officially diagnosed.
This week I’ve seen a lot of maliciously gleeful comments about how the only REAL autism is profound autism, and anyone else is either a faker or a malingerer, essentially.
Well excuse me if I didn’t personally ask for Asperger’s (formerly a separate and very distinct category) to be lumped in under the umbrella term ASD. And spare me the “Asperger was a Nazi” stuff. That should have paid no part in erasing a very real profile of autism. Rename it if you like, just don’t erase it, because erasing it doesn’t mean these people don’t exist (and continue to be born!)
According to the likes of Dr Ute, any woman who managed to evade getting diagnosed well into adulthood never needed a diagnosis, because if you can present yourself well enough to fly under the radar, you can’t be on the spectrum. This is crazy to me. Dr Ute clearly has very little idea of how blatant my autistic traits have always been, right back to very early childhood. The fact it was never recognised is no fault of mine.
I (mid 30s) strongly suspect I have some form of it because I have been struggling a lot with how I process things and my interpersonal relationships etc. I've hit a wall mentally, emotionally, and I have always been what I consider a bit quirky but actually I stim a lot when I get home, after a day at work or being outside. Reading about masking rings all the bells, and struggles I had at school and in my personal life make sense in light of the realisation. It's not wanting a label to be cool, I genuinely have struggled and beat myself up over the years. I was well behaved at school so I was ignored. It was a
crappy school that had behavioural/respect problems so others' educational needs got swept under the carpet because staff were fighting fire all the time. I got to my final year at uni before I broke down because I was struggling to cope with the course. Only then did I get an assessment for dyslexia that found I had significant issues with my working memory that affected my coursework. This was like 18 years ago.
The problem I find is that especially for girls, is if you are well behaved and do your homework and don't cause trouble your learning difficulties or ADHD or Autism traits are missed. School was so loud amd stressful amd I would come home and basically sit and rock in my bedroom and scratch my scalp to ribbons and it would take ages for my brain to calm after the day. My parents put it down to stress but never got me seen to.
Now, I recognise the same thing when work has been bad. My mind races all the way home and I have to fidget and sing (like bizarre selective vocal tics that embarrass me) and decompress when I get home. But I don't do any of that (except fidget with my hands) at work. It's that I have learned to mask and come home and take time to let it all out.
This past year I've seen videos of folk doing the same and talking about their traits and I'm like this...is me... It feels like a revelation.
But I got through school and I hold down a job so on the one hand I don't want to pay



for a private diagnosis when I can 'function', equally I don't want to queue up for an NHS diagnosis because I'd feel guilty. I have always felt guilty about taking up space in life and have poor feelings of self worth, but I also feel very black and white about justice things. Like the whole gender ideology issue matters because my brain hurts that this blatant lie (TWAW) is being inflicted on us.
I may still seek a diagnosis in the future when I can convince myself I deserve to be seen, but I definitely know have something because my whole life experiences point to it and I am so tired about everything.
It actually hurts my very soul and brain when people try to lie about the immutability of sex because we all can see and know it's biological fact.
Also to add I think my Dad is very much on the spectrum as his behaviours and quirks ring many bells. So I reckon it's always been in many families it's just only being understood very recently.