In the autistic community we believe in self-diagnosis. It’s a strange one, yes. And yes, I can feel you clutching your pearls about it. Please relax. Everything will be just fine!
Late diagnosis of autism in adults is complicated. Typically when it comes to females it is even more complicated. Currently very few psychologists are equipped to help so your options are pretty much figure it out for yourself or spend all of your money shopping for the right doctor.
The last time I checked the stats, 1 in 60 Americans was considered to be autistic. That’s a pretty high number, right? The thing is, though: Only 1 in 4 of those 1 in 60 is female. But we now know that autism is not an almost-exclusively male neurotype and that it affects males and females equally. Which means that the stats should rather be considered to be 1 in 40.
That’s a lot of folks flying under the radar. Most likely if your atipicalities are not externally obvious enough you’re going to spend a lot of time secretly asking yourself wtf is wrong with me while being oblivious to the fact that there’s a square hole for you to go and fit into over there. Please stop trying to squash yourself into this completely wrong place! (more…)