If I’ve gone 38 years before someone suggested I seek diagnosis , is it because it’s different in women or is it cos I hide it well.
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Both probably, women tend to hide it better
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Could be because you hide it well. Could be because previous pdocs etc have seen the symptoms as part of your psychiatric diagnosis.
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Im 35. I was a weird 2 year old. Like i would just stand in the corner and not interact. I didnt make eye contact either which was pointed out by some development person. At 10 some dr said i might be autistic. But then they referred me to a psychiatrist who said at age 11 that i had psychosis. Then at 16 they said schizophrenia. Im 35 now and i had to see a psychologist for disability. He said i have schizophrenia and autism. I think it got looked over for so long cause i was diagnosed with psychosis so young . Idk what to think of it. I see why he said i have autism. He said i have all the symptoms. But a lot overlaps with schizophrenia so idk. I guess it doesnt change anything.
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I guess for me it will come as a sense of relief , because it will explain my childhood. And I can stop trying to hard to be someone I’m not
I was 32 when I got this diagnosis
The psychologist fast tracked it
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I was 62 when I got the diagnosis. A diagnosis I still wouldn’t have if I hadn’t moved to be near my daughter,and thus come under a new pdoc. I’d been trying in vain since at least the early 2000s to get my mental health team in Essex to see that there was more going on than severe mental illness. It was actually my daughter, who was with me at my 1st psych appointment here in Wiltshire, who raised the subject of autism.
It took 7 months from getting the referral to being dxed. Has it made a big difference re those things health ‘experts’ would regards as signs of improvement? Without doubt-no. However my mental health has definitely been better.The damage done by many years of being misunderstood and maligned is impossible to quantify, but thankfully life is better now.
Better, but not perfect. My daughter started a medical negligence claim on my behalf re the paramedics and GPs response to the falls I had in Oct 2021. To say that those being claimed against are fighting ‘dirty’ is to put it mildly. My history of severe mental illness and being autistic is being weaponised to dismiss/downplay the poor response to those falls. Sadly I’m not the only severely mentally ill person to receive such a response to a physical problem.
We tend to die younger, not just because of our autism and/or mental illness related lifestyles, but because of the stigmatising attitude from GPs etc to any physical problems we have.
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I can see that. My GP doesnt take me seriously at all.
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