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Middle Aged and Autistic

How a diagnosis at 43 taught me who I really was.

By Natalie ForrestPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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Middle Aged and Autistic
Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash

When I was nine years old, I came home from school crying because one of my classmates called me a weirdo. It wasn’t the first time this had happened and it definitely wouldn’t be the last. I cannot even remember what I had done that time. It was “something strange” in a long line of other “strange things” that Natalie did.

This became a pattern throughout middle, junior high and high school. Words like freak and weirdo were very common when other kids would respond to something I had said or done. It hurt each time they said what they said, and I will admit that I knew I was different somehow. I wasn’t interested in the things that other kids my age were interested in. I obsessed over things that didn’t seem to bother my classmates. I had very few friends and spent all of my free time with my dogs and reading many, many books.

I was a very good student — in the subjects that I liked. I was artistic and creative and flourished in English, creative writing, painting and drawing. I got into a good college, where I pursued an art major. My art classes should have been easy for me. Everyone told me that I had talent, but I was unable to follow the instructions of my instructors. What they wanted me to do wasn’t what I was used to and any deviation in my schedule led to me have a complete meltdown. I had no one to talk to about this because I hadn’t managed to make any friends and I always seemed to exasperate my professors. After two months, I dropped out.

After several low paying retail jobs, where I was constantly anxious and very unhappy, I decided to seek help. I went to see a psychologist and began to be treated for depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. After making marginal progress, I decided to return to college, this time as an English and education major. This time my classes made more sense and my meltdowns were fewer and fewer. I met my best friend in a Shakespeare class. (She is still my best friend over 20 years later.) I was moving forward, but I still felt out of step, different, not completely accepted or understood. Not even by myself.

After earning a degree in English Literature, I earned an education masters, then a master’s in library science. I was now seeing two therapists: a psychologist and a psychiatric nurse who prescribed my medications. Shortly after beginning my medication regimen and after losing a library job, I found myself on permanent disability as a result of mental illness. I followed this path for nearly seven years before one of my therapists said something that shocked me. She told me that she thought I had Autism Spectrum Disorder. Everything went blurry. What was she saying? I was Autistic? How could that be? Wouldn’t someone have known before now?

I told my mother what my therapist said as soon as I got home. She paused for a moment and then said, “I saw a documentary about Autism about ten years ago and I said to myself, that’s my daughter.” I was shocked. Shocked and angry. Why the hell hadn’t someone said something sooner? Why hadn’t my own mother said something? I didn’t want to be autistic. I had adjusted, for the most part, to being mentally ill. Why did everything have to change again?

I was angry and in denial. I told very few people about my diagnosis. I preferred to believe that I wasn’t autistic and that’s how I lived for that year. Then I started to read about Autism Spectrum Disorder. I learned that more males than females were diagnosed. I learned that females on the autism spectrum were very often not diagnosed because they could “mask” or “pass” as normal. I learned that many females weren’t diagnosed until they were adults, very often when their own children were being diagnosed. I learned that there was a word for people like me: neuroatypical. And just like that, everything fell into place. The awkwardness, the anxiety, the inability to relate to most of my peers, my obsessions and my meltdowns. I wasn’t a freak or a weirdo. My brain was wired differently. I was a grown woman who had just found out she was on the Autism Spectrum.

At 43, I wondered what good knowing all of this now would do me. Today, children in public school with an autism diagnosis can have education plans tailored to their learning. They also have a lot longer to process their disorder. In all truth, when I went to school, if I had been diagnosed I would most likely have been placed in a class for students with severe disabilities. I wouldn’t have gotten the education that I needed because autism was still such an unknown back then.

My youth and adolescence had been difficult because no one could point to what was going on with me. As a young adult I struggled with social norms, expectations from employers who had no idea how to deal with me and the feeling that I had missed out on all the “normal” things that other young adults had already experienced. But at 43, I knew why my mind functioned the way it did and I had answers to questions that couldn’t be answered before.

I received my official diagnosis at 43 and I still don’t know if that matters all that much. But now I have an online community of other females who understand what it’s like to be like me and I feel slightly better about myself. I may have been practically middle aged when I found out about my autism but knowing that I have it has made my life a little bit better.

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About the Creator

Natalie Forrest

Writer of many different things. Dog and cat lover. Cheese-a-Holic. Neurodiverse and proud. Possesser of more books than I can ever read. Introvert with a salty vocabulary. Very proud aunt. Under 5’3”.

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