Diagnosis at 40.
I always know I was not fitting in, but didn’t really grasp why until late 30s. Lack of understanding what autism is kept me looking elsewhere for answers.
I got diagnosed with adhd in 2009, and tried meds for a while (vyvanse ftl), but I couldn’t sleep, so I stopped. Then I got distracted and forgot I had it. Got re-diagnosed, along with autism, in like 2022 or something. I’m on adderall now and it’s fine I guess.
I was 40 years old when the puzzle pieces of my life finally started to come together.
(I know a lot of autistic people don’t love the old puzzle piece logo, but for me, it’s the most apt metaphor I’ve ever seen.)
I realized during my teenager years when everyone around me started drifting apart, they no longer found me interesting as an entertainment monkey. I got a diagnosis once I started struggling keeping jobs and wasn’t successful in college. It really makes me sad how normies talk about family who struggle with employment. Like I somehow chose this nightmare.
I was 37 when I was diagnosed as autistic after self identifying the previous year. I also suspect I am ADHD as well but I’ve never sought a professional diagnosis for it. I always felt different, like an alien observing another culture even as a little kid. All my closest friends growing up were either autistic or ADHD.
I was 45 when I realized that the way my mind works differently than most people I know is not just me being a hard person to be around, it is a function of the wiring in my brain.
I was always a super high performer in school so a lot of adults just put up with the many many signs that something was different.
When I was young doctors didn’t really diagnose adhd or autism, forget that lovely blend of AuDHD that seems to be my personal flavour. And now that I am older my family doctor says ridiculous shit like ‘Adults don’t get adhd or autism so you are fine.’
I’ve started using coping mechanisms from meeting other AuDHD folks and they are helping to a very small extent. I hope to continue learning about the ways people deal with their own wiring without access to meds.
I think I was 40 when it finally clicked, so two years ago? Maybe a year or two earlier. I was diagnosed with ADHD years before it clicked in my head what it entailed.
ADHD was first diagnosed when i was around 8, pretty quickly as well based on old records. Mostly because it was rather stereotypical representation of it at that time. But it was completely ignored by my mother at the time as it can’t be and the therapist is wrong. So nothing came from it.
I was rediagnosed around 28-29 and ASD added in as well, due to ADHD symptoms becoming less noticable or better managed/masked and ASD symptoms becoming more obvious.
I really didn’t consider myself that out of place, from my perspective everyone else were the odd ones.
Around 38ish? I never realized that there was something to explain why I am the way I am, I just internalized everything. But after my son was diagnosed with ADHD, I looked more into it and felt like in the matrix where Neo gets wooshed into the white room.
Exactly the same.
Yep. My boy was initially non verbal and diagnosed ASD when he was 3 and I was 30. The process of understanding what he is going through as he grows and learns opened my eyes to my own lives experience as so many things just started clicking into place. It has been an enlightening journey.
Absolutely, it’s like wool has been pulled off your eyes. Or that moment you leave the vault in a fallout game, and your eyes adjust to seeing natural light for the first time.
Like most on here, I knew (and others wouldn’t let me forget as a kid) that I was different and didn’t understand most other people since the start. I didn’t realize it was autism (or even what that meant in internal experience) until I was in my mid-40s.
50ish
I was about 41 or 42. I always knew I was different and weird but no one ever said hey it might be this or that. No, just got he’s a weird guy most of my life. Realized it after reading through an autism forum.
Lexam Same. I was 41 when I put the pieces together, but I’d been ostracised most of my life, and only ever seemed to make friends with rhe weird kids or the adults wity ADHD.
Then my step-son was suspected of having ADHD, and a few searches later Google/YouTube seemed to put the pueces together for me.
[the term should be “neurodivergent” - neurodiverse is everyone as far as I know]
I knew I was different™ since being 10 years old. Invited the whole class to my birthday and it was a fucking no show. No one person!
Had issues to get the social behavior performances before but that’s when I realized.
But the term “neurodivergence” didn’t cross me 'til Covid hitted. In my family only my brother got an ASD diagnostic since back then it’s been only diagnosed for “boys with hyperfixations”. My sister got hers last year being close to 40 y.o. Same for me.
But I’ve known forever. It’s just relieving now to know “it’s just me processing life different” as a neurodivergent person instead of me being weird or akward or not fit for life
My 50s. It explains way too much.
Early 40’ies. I’m mid 50’ies now, and still not formally diagnosed, and I don’t particularly care either.
32ish when people around me started getting diagnoses and I began looking into it. Got diagnosed at 34 with ADHD. I identify strongly with autistic experience as well. The doctor who did the initial evaluation agreed there probably are autistic traits there too and it might be worth looking into, but they couldn’t help with it in that clinic. It’s really difficult to get evaluated in a public clinic so I’ve decided to let it be for now.
