new to the chat

[Rainbow1990]

Hi my name is Sarah in 34 years old and a mum of 4 children. I am currently thinking of talking to someone regarding my thoughts that I maybe autistic. Has anyone done this at my age? I’m not sure how I feel about it but I think it would help and allow me to understand ME x

[QuietButBold]

Welcome to the chat and community.

In time, you will very likely encounter people who have approached assessment for an Autism diagnosis - drawn from within every conceivable decade of adulthood - including those many decades senior in age group to your situation - it is never too late.

The below webpage includes information which might help you to think further about whether or not it might be the right next step for you too:

autism.org.uk/advice-and-gu...

There is a lot of guidance available these days on the topic (books, podcasts, websites and YouTube videos etc.). It is good to guard against getting too overloaded by the wealth of information along your journey of potential Autism discovery.

As a community, Neurodivergent / Autistic people tend to be welcoming to both those self- identified and formally diagnosed - so please do not be concerned on that front.

Women, and some other under-represented groups, may be more prone to being later identified as Autistic - so once again, you would not be in as rare a situation as you might have perhaps worried.

Your local public Library is most likely to have books / e-books and audio books specifically about Autism and women.

As you are a busy Mum of 4 children; maybe an audio book, or podcast, might be a practical / less tiring way to fit in exploring some relevant topics?

In common with many Neurodivergent people, I find I tend to be a visual learner - so I enjoy bite-sized YouTube videos to challenge me to think about things in a bit more detail. One video series I often checkout is an Australian one called "Autism From The Inside" by Paul Micallef. Here is a 15 minute example; "How to spot autism in High Masking Autistic Women - What’s behind the mask?":

m.youtube.com/watch?v=oYycp...(Not working as expected?)

[Bee-bop]

Hi Rainbow1990,

My 31 year old recently decided to go through the autism assessment. My youngest daughter has a diagnosis of ASD and my middle daughter has Dyspraxia, Dyslexia and Dyscalculia. My middle daughter also went through the autism assessment (as she was asked a couple ov times if sge was ASD) where we were told it was Dyspraxia and not autism although there are many similarities.