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Anyway. I saw a meme today that said "Autism is where people are mad at you your whole life, and ADHD is where people are disappointed in you your whole life."
That's a whole level of unhappiness for living a life to its best. I can recognise myself in the planning for social situations but in my 60's others have more call on medical help (see comment on Suffolk's woeful mental health team above) and I'll struggle on trying not to piss too many people off.
Yes in my 50s
It's not a super power
It makes normal life involving other people impossible.
You will annoy pretty much everyone.
Masking skills evaporate very quickly after diagnosis
You will review every decision you ever made
Wouldn't wish it on a living soul
My other half thinks I do it on purpose...... ffs
How do you get diagnosed? Last I heard there was a 7 year wait to get one on the NHS, in my area at least (London)
Some friends of mine have gone through this process in the last few years. With her to be honest it does make a lot of sense and I think has really helped her. It was a bit of a classic drunk men set the world's to rights kinda night but they both reckoned I am probably somewhere in the same area.
I'm a bit resistant / hesitant to take it any further as broadly speaking not sure it's worth it? What with the depression and the aphantasia I know my brains a bit odd so not sure any formal diagnosis would add much.
It would probably explain a lot about my childhood behaviour though and maybe help my mum accept it probably wasn't her fault I was a bit of a nightmare.
Going back 50 years - I was packed off to residential education which was admittedly of the highest quality possible.
It did not prepare me for a life of rejection and near unemployability, which for the most time I considered to be entirely my fault. It is definitely not a superpower.
I watched this the other day, thought it was a very interesting take on Autism/Neurodivergence.
(I set the speed to 1.25x he has slightly over long pauses 😀 )
Don't worry about the obviously AI generated thumbnail if you're bothered by it, there's very little of that content in the video.
Stats wise it's currently a 2-3 year wait for children's autism / ADHD assessments in Gloucestershire and currently it's 3% of children formally diagnosed as autistic.
I might start wearing headphones all the time and flapping or something, so that people will be a bit more sympathetic when I absolutely can't be bothered to do admin or any other task if I'm not suddenly massively interested in it.