Age of Diagnosis

[Thesaurusrex]

I was diagnosed last year at 30 years of age. As a child I was quite blatantly, obviously autistic, but back in the early 80's in New Zealand, Autism was seen strictly as a 'boys' thing. So no one was looking really, and to add to that I was raised fairly poor. I kind of just slipped under the radar.
Later when I got to high school I really, really struggled, but because I was highly intelligent and talented, everyone just thought that I was slacking off and that I needed to try harder. I failed despite my efforts and my love for academia.

It's frustrating when I think that if I was born a boy rather than a girl, or just born a little later, there's a very good chance I would have gotten the help I needed and done a lot better in life. I've lost good friends too, whom I wouldn't have lost if it had been known I was autistic.

I was born late 80's in NZ, and like you I can look back at my school years and read end-of-year school reports and see that it was quite clear. I also dropped out of high school before NCEA 1 because I couldn't cope with the social jungle that was an all-girl's school, and found my schoolwork was lacking in intellectual challenge, but later went on to university.
IME we both would have to have been born much later in our country to have received any diagnosis at an early age - even now it seems many psychologists [here] are reluctant to apply an autism spectrum diagnosis to a female patient.

 

[rx7chick]

Age 55, 12 years ago. It was a most welcome revelation, and one of the most positive things I have experienced. When I was a child in the early 50's there was zero understanding of anything. The extreme and relentless levels of anxiety I experienced at school prevented me not only from using my high IQ, but even knowing I had one, or had any strong capabilities. I didn't find out what I was capable of intellectually until I was in my 30s. There was absolutely no help for me with my struggles in school, either academically or socially. I was just punished all the time, and the "great disappointment" to my parents, because, "why can you just be normal?" It was a lonely nightmare that never ended. If I had had support and compassion, I could have done something significant, like a PhD in physics. But I was consumed with just trying to survive emotionally and not suicide out. Now as an adult, I have found peace and serenity and no longer try to be what I am not.

 

[Myrtonos]

I was diagnosed with PDD back in kindergarten, not sure which age. Many, but not all milder cases were diagnosed later than me, and I believe that these cases differ from me in other ways, many of them aren't as obviously autistic even to those who know them personally, for example. In my case, I have been told that having an aide in class was a condition for my attending a mainstream school, and I am told that I could not have attended a mainstream school if aides weren't an option. Yet there are many other on the same spectrum, who did attend mainstream schools before aides were an option, most of them diagnosed later in life.
Is there anyone on this forum who is not a mainstream case?

 

[Hope88]

I was 25. Feel like the system let me down as for years when I tried to find out why I felt different I kept getting diagnosed with depression but it was really shut downs and meltdowns. Going back over school reports from when I was 7 the teacher kept mentioning "autistic tendencies" but doctors didn't look into it as according to him "girls can't have Aspergers". Shows what he knew. :S

 

[Sofi]

I was diagnosed when I was 4 years old along with sensory processing disorder. I was non-verbal at that point.

 

[lamb7]

I was 54, and am 57 now. I so wish I could've known when young. It would helped so much. I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to seem neurotypical. It's exhausting. I only do it at work now.

 

[Ericho]

Don't quite remember, but I think it was eighteen.

 

[forstem99]

Officially at 46. Last year. I recognised the symptoms in myself on reading about Aspergers about 7 years previously.

To be honest its had a depressing effect. My self-confidence has deteriorated; I feel intrinsically defective and unchangeable.
Perhaps if I had access to professional help things might have been different this last year. (I was offered a diagnosis but no follow up support).

My cousin's boy was diagnosed at aged 1 year and she and her husband are getting all the help for him they can. It is wonderful to see what is available now for small children (and the devoted love she has for him).

 

[fuzz]

At age 33. I found the full recognition of my symptoms to be a big relief

I am 23 and do not yet have an official diagnosis. Finding a doctor is proving very difficult. If anyone has some advice on the process, I'd greatly appreciate if you messaged me!

Which country do you live in?

 

[Grace13]

Mamma mia.... Is it possible to be so mad?

 

[nbtxdude]

I was 39 and entering college for the second time and was looking into CBT for social anxiety and depression and ended up getting diagnosed. I had no idea what HFA was, but now I know that it fits me to a T....

 

[apt-get]

I was diagnosed in the 4th grade.

 

[Cinnamon115]

I don't really remember when I was diagnosed. I remember being diagnosed with ADHD when I was 8, and a couple of years or so later I was diagnosed with Aspergers.

 

[asnlifecoach]

Did you guys hear about the device that can identify Autism as early as 9 months? It is based on eye contact and measuring that eye contact in fractions of a second.

 

[DogwoodTree]

I self-dx'd a month before turning 41.

I went through a whole range of other possibilities, trying to figure out what the h*** was wrong with me...was dx'd with depression, anxiety, and PTSD back when I was in college, thought I had worked through that, covered it up well for about 2 decades, then hit burnout. This time around I was thinking bipolar for a while with extreme C-PTSD...the C-PTSD still applies, but looks like it was both complicating and covering up the underlying AS.

 

[The Old One]

I

Out of curiosity, at what age were you diagnosed with autism or Asperger's? I was diagnosed rather late at least it seems late from what I've been told, at age 19, and this has created some difficulties in treatment, it was hard finding a doctor willing to test me, then even harder to find one to begin treatment as from what I hear it's usually diagnosed much earlier.

There were a number of factors responsible for my late diagnosis, most prominently a small grade school without the resources to address such an issue, did anybody else have an unusually late diagnosis?

I was 65 when I received my diagnosis.
There was not a lot of knowledge about high functioning autism "way back then", when I was a young. On the contrary, "deviant behavior" often got you into trouble! Not a lot of people had the intellect to know what they were dealing with. One learned very quickly that it was not an advantage to be so honest all the time!
Certainly, my life would have been different if I had some kind of counseling during my life but I just kept on trying!
It was hard to find friends, though.....

 

[Cyrano]

My son from my first marriage was diagnosed in 1993. When I was informed of this, I read what was available in the library where I lived -- not a whole lot -- and asked a friend of mine who worked in the medical field if she could find out more. (Research on esoteric subjects was a lot harder 20 years ago, before the Internet!) Based on what she learned, I made an appointment with a doctor and we discussed things, and he gave me some tests. He saw me again a couple of weeks later and made official what I had suspected after reading about Asperger's: that I had Asperger's Syndrome, though the patient work of two female friends who had spent years teaching me how to mimic normals' behavior and read faces (general note: movies, especially movies from the early sound era where the exaggerated pantomime of the silent cinema had not yet disappeared in favor of a more realistic acting style, are excellent for this purpose) meant I was better off than many.

I was 38 at the time of diagnosis. It at least helped explain why major portions of my life had been hellish.

 

[DonRojo]

Out of curiosity, at what age were you diagnosed with autism or Asperger's? I was diagnosed rather late at least it seems late from what I've been told, at age 19, and this has created some difficulties in treatment, it was hard finding a doctor willing to test me, then even harder to find one to begin treatment as from what I hear it's usually diagnosed much earlier.

There were a number of factors responsible for my late diagnosis, most prominently a small grade school without the resources to address such an issue, did anybody else have an unusually late diagnosis?

I was diagnosed right at about 34. (now 36). First I got schizophrenia. But when I found out they made up the last symptom to reach the minimum criteria.....slowly the ball started rolling. Very hard fight. I did found out that this mistake is quite common though. I am also so much asperger that almost nobody would believe it and one specialist after the other had no idea. Actually it was a very old guru on a visit from retirement that suggested the idea to everybody. The medical description doesn't help. But what did help was that my aunt, a basic school teacher noticed I looked a lot like the children she had to look out for. And when I met my first other autistic, my inside was screaming with happiness. You are me. You are me! You are doing everything I spend so much time of not showing in public. But what you are doing is exactly what I want to do!

Be warned though. There seems to be a huge difference between the younger generation and the older. They are now paying attention to the new generation. And I have a lot of hope for them. (or maybe my future kids). But the older generation does not have the same luck. Also realize that a lot of psychiatrist and psychologist seem to have the condition as a footnote in there study. So, they are not as much an expert as they seem. If they had given me that condition, in the first year of my psychology study, things might have been different. I wish you all good luck out there. But most of all, in my experience. Knowing is really helping. Showing maybe an whole other thing . But thank patient doctor confidentiality for that. Knowing that you are not that rare and often accused misfit, but actually just different. (not better or worse)....really helped for me.

 

[Andrew206]

I was diagnosed at 3.

 

[Steve666]

I was diagnosed when I was 52. It came as a bit of a shock, but at the same time it has put a lot of my past into focus and I now know why certain things happened in my past.
I am now comfortable with who I am and I no longer try to be the person I think other people wasn't me to be. I no longer wear those masks!
Looking back, Asperger's has had some positive effects on my life. For instance, I don't think I could do the job I do, as well as I do, if I was NT.
The worst bit? Easy.............. Relationships. I really wish I was better at then. All I can see is a bit of a lonely retirement.