Thank you Donald J Trump!

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A few months ago, the day before my 60th birthday i received my official diagnosis of ASD.
60 years of wondering why i am a complete "Wack job!" - Donald Trump could have diagnosed my in 60 seconds.
Have spent a few days reading many peoples stories on this site and have been shocked to realise almost every part of who i am is not unique to me but very much part of a an incredible community. Its a bit late in life for me to get help but i can find some solace that i am not alone.

Hi Merria2 welcome to wrong planet . but am wondering ? why you might credit such a man as D. Rump for your diagnosis ? Occasionally Asüies take wording very literally .

I was ten years younger after being fast tracked so I only had a 4½ year wait. (Waiting lists vary according to where one lives in the UK as some poeple have had a 16 year wait).

Is quite a discovery. The worst case scenarios are when one mentally crashes due to living for so long and pushing oneself way too hard. If one had known what was going on one would have eased back a bit and asked for time off work so one could recover etc which could avoid more serious breakdowns. (What gets me is why do people need a diagnosis before they can get help or get time to recover etc?
I heard a guy who is a doctor of doctors in psycologists specializing in autism (The doctor meaning a mental qualification as well as a job role if that makes sense? Innother words, he was one of the worlds leading experts in the field), and he decided to do a study going round the world using local psychologists (As they knew the local traits that only locals have) to do a blanket assessment of hundreds of people who were not told it was an autism assessment. (They were told if they recognized the tests to not tell anyone and come and see them to avoid anyone else knowing they were being assessed for autism). Now they tested adults of various people groups right round thr world in this study, and what he found was interesting.
No matter what country or people group that was tested or if they tested hundreds or if hey ested thousands, the result came back similar in that it always gave them a 6% result. He said sometimes it was 5.9% and sometimes 6.1% but rarely did it fluctuate more than the 6% result they were getting. It dispelled the myth that there were more autistic people amongst certain types of people living in certain places. He then asked the question "If wherever I go I test gives similar results, what are the various countries diagnosed rates in percentage of their population and why is it so different from my results?
His work them went into answering those questions and he found that the countries with the best mental health systems had results above 3% of the population with the average being 2½% in the western world with good healthcare systems in place. In 3rd world countries it was as low as 2% or even less of the adult population and he reasoned that this was not the diagnosing experts fault but rather due to either e poor not being able to afford a diagnosis, or if the Healthcare was government provided, that they restricted the numbers going forward for assessment due to poor education about autism as a cost cutting measure (Or poor access to be assessed etc). In other words, one could tell if one was living in a 3rd world country as the diagnosed results were less than 2½ percent of the population in that country.
It was a fascinating talk he gave as he also was able to help people get jobs as one young man wanted to join the police force as he wanted to specialize on the detective side of things and he was told he could not because he was diagnosed with autism. He wrote to them on the young man's behalf stating that if he was to assess the police force, he would guarantee a larger than average figure amongst the police officers who specialized in that line of work including some who had made it to the top of their field. The police force panicked as if he started to look into it as he threatened to, many would have to leave the force due to the police force rules that were set in place.
They just gave the guy a job without question as they knew this guy had the authority to call for an assessment on their officers if he wanted to take it further.

The 6% is interesting because it means in most countries, there are more undiagnosed autistic people than diagnosed out there. It is why so many are diagnosed later in life often in a crisis situation which could have been avoided.

What diagnosing does in the UK is to give the individual a chance to recover or to get help if they need it. This is a real blessing but I really feel for those in a similar situation as I had been in for much of my life not knowing what is wrong so unable to ask for help.