How can a autistic person go undiagnosed till adulthood?

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How could I be undiagnosed yet? I am 22 and I am positive I am aspie. I am waiting to see a professional in a month, but I experience all the traits of a normal aspie. I can't understand how my parents didn't pick up on my symptoms. Could people know I am autistic but keep it hidden from me? I don't understand because I know I am mentally challenged. People never take me serious. It's obvious when I speak, and I am very slow at everything. How come nobody tells I am slow or there's something wrong with me?

I made it all the way to 30 before figuring it out.. but I'm not slow.

Maybe they noticed various things about you as different but never realized they were all connected traits from one condition?

Maybe they didn't know?

Maybe they just accepted you for who you are exactly as you are and never gave it much though that there might be a specific diagnosis that explains your differences?

Maybe they knew there was something different but didn't know what and decided not to bring it to your attention in order not to stigmatize you or create negative can't-do thinking in your head? Maybe they thought they were doing the best thing for you by not saying anything about any differences they noticed?

You'll have to ask them these questions if you want to know their answers.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

Classic autism is usually diagnosed in childhood due to the disabling effects of it being very obvious. Asperger's and mild PDD-NOS can often just be written off as being a shy child or an awkward teenager or whatever. Personally, I am going to see a psychologist in April and I'd like to get either a definite yes or no about having mild autism, but my parents seemed to be mostly accepting of my highly introverted and focused nature in childhood, probably due to neither of them being partial to sport and both in their 50s, now 60s. I guess they appreciated the quiet more than being bothered by it.

because people are good at hiding it and developing coping skills. I guess if it is not picked up at an early age then in many cases it can just be seen as that persons quirks, and lets be honest, everyone out there has quirks so why question one persons above any other

i am 33 and waiting for a formal diagnosis

I know how you feel. I'm 27 and have not been diagnosed but know I'm an aspie. Nobody picked it up because my parents thought I was just slower developmentally, and uncoordinated as a child. Nobody actually put it all together and thought to check out what was going on or ask me what I felt. People just left me alone and thought I'll be fine.

Aspergers is not well known and as soon as people hear 'autism; or 'slower than other children,' parents tend to ignore it and hope their child grows out of it.

People need to be aware of aspergers and autism and know it's not a disease or anything to be afraid of.

For me, it was several reasons:
- My older brother is almost certainly on the spectrum and both my parents have traits so the idea of what was "normal" in my family was skewed. My unusual behaviors didn't stand out as much.
- I excelled at school. Even though I came home and cried every day, had huge amounts of anxiety, faked sick to stay home etc it was never picked up on as a problem at school because I got good grades. I followed the rules vehemently and never put a toe out of line.
- AS is still a relatively new diagnosis (at least, it was until they got rid of it) so not everybody would have been aware of it when you were younger like they are nowadays.

Yeah, I feel the same about myself, too. How could my parents not have suspected some disorder in my brain? Not that my parents are neglectful or anything. I couldn't ask for better parents actually. I guess it could be that they didn't want to admit something was wrong with me or they weren't even aware of the existence of such disorders.

If you are not affected intellectually and are capable of communicating for practical purposes, then maybe people won't even think about a disorder. Instead, they will only think of it as being different, weird, eccentric etc - just different personality. Even if you are a bit slow, they might only think of it as being clumsy or something. I'm sure your parents weren't pretending they didn't know what was going on.

Perhaps your parents didn't recognize the warning signs?

I was identified as autistic in childhood, but my parents weren't having any of it so no one ever looked into it.

There are people on this forum who didn't speak until years after what is expected and they didn't get diagnosed until adulthood either. It's not so simple as apparent severity. Other factors play a role as well.

I knew my son was 'quirky' and was really surprised when the developmental paediatrician mentioned autism - hindsight is 20/20 after all

I'm 24 and am in a similar position. AS wasn't well known when I was in primary school. My dad is on the spectrum (as are most of the men on his side of the family) but "he's just an engineer" and wouldn't notice s**t and I'm pretty sure my mum is OCD and wouldn't admit their is anything wrong with her perfect son - it's a great combination. My family is also just used to me being weird because they are a bit too. I did well at school so that covered up that whole thing. There was lots of evidence but it just was never enough at once to be noticed. I never put it together just like everyone else - I even got arrested over a meltdown! I just happened to watching TV when I heard about AS.

It wasn't until I had to work full-time that I just broke down and couldn't live like this anymore. I'm about to pursue a proper diagnosis - I just told my parents I want a new diagnosis, whatever it is, I just want to find out.

If truth be told I am getting myself pretty worked up about getting a diagnosis at the moment.

My doc told me she believes I have AS and reading up on it and doing the AQ test shows that I guess I do but i find it hard to accept. No one in my family has anything like this and I am worried that telling them will have people see me as an oddball.

i am also worried that that they will see me as making it up as I have become so good as hiding it away and not telling anyone about things.

On one hand getting a formal diagnosis would help as I think I would stop giving myself such a hard time about not coping well with things but on the other hand I don't want people to think I am 'odd'.

I guess I find it hard to see myself with AS as I live quite a 'normal' life.

AS is usually hereditary. Probably your parents thought "he is just like..." That is what my husband used to say about our daughter's quirks, that she was "just like him". We only started looking for a diagnosis for our girl when she started to have serious issues at school, to the point that she was not accepted for the following school year in the school she attended when she was in first grade. That bad her issues were. Probably yours were not that bad and they just thought you were "slow" or "excentric" or "peculiar" or something like that. If there is background in your family about your kind of behavior it is understandable, because back then people was not diagnosed so they didnt know it was a "problem" that needed attention. My husband found out "what he had had a name" when our daughter was diagnosed with AS.

I didn't figure it out until I turned 29 although I knew I was 'different' for many, many years. My parents recently admitted that they knew I was VERY mildly autistic but considered it so minor as to not worry about. While at 30 I agree and might no longer meet the criteria, as a child and teen I was 100% definitely a moderate to severe Aspie. How experts didn't pick up on it (despite it not existing in the DSM until 1992) I'll never figure out but when my pediatrician wrote that a almost mute child is a 'class clown' I don't put much faith in experts.

I wonder if parents simply refuse to accept a child has Autism. I talked to my girlfriends parents recently and they admitted she has ALL the autistic signs but still said they doubted she had (classic) Autism even though it's pretty darn obvious to me.