It all makes sense now...

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My name is Frank, and I'm 49 years old. For the first half of my life I struggled trying to fit in, for the second half I accepted being different.

Since I was a teenager, I realised that I connect better to children than to adults and subsequently became a childcare worker. I seem to relate particularly well to autistic children (and vice versa).

I am currently working with an autistic child and therefore did a lot of research on the topic. And the more I read about it, the more I found that many of the symptoms apply to myself. While I have always stated that I had autistic traits, I started to notice that it was more than just that.

My main issues are anxiety in the workplace and what has been seen as shyness - the fear of approaching people, both due to the fact that I've no idea what others think of me.

Last week I asked my GP for a referral to get diagnosed. He asked me for an essay on the reasons for my suspicion as well as a paragraph on how others perceive me. As I wasn't able to answer the latter part, I had my sister answer that question. After I handed it in, together with a statement of my parents about my childhood behaviour and experiences, he was convinced and will refer me to a psychologist for a diagnosis, but he told me that this is unlikely to happen before the New Year.

Realising that I must be on the autistic spectrum (most likely Aspergers) made many things fall into place, and my family see it the same way. Considering that I've learnt to function in an "almost normal" way, I don't think I will go into therapy, but getting diagnosed will make it easier for others to understand me.

Welcome to WP, Frank! Your story is a familiar one here, many of us have had very similar experiences, discovering the name of our disability after decades of living with it, thinking it was just our own personal set of quirks and difficulties. It's a cathartic and exhilarating epiphany to suddenly understand why one has felt so alienated from the mainstream all one's life.

Thanks very much. It makes one wonder how many others are out there who still don't know what's going on with them. (Now that I'm aware, a few other suspects spring to mind )

Yes, I suspect that several of my friends over the years became such good friends because they were themselves on or nearly on the autism spectrum and thus could comprehend my alternative point of view, when neurotypical people just thought I was an oddball freak. My best friends have always been nerds and geeks like myself.

A couple of people in particular I worked with over the years I'm certain were undiagnosed Aspergians, simply because their behaviors were as textbook AS as my own. When I was first diagnosed, I spent nearly two years trying to find one of them, because I knew he was having the same problems I'd had with a career crumbling out from under him and no skills at anything else and qualifying for Disability was the lifeline that had kept me from homelessness. Unfortunately, before I could track him down, he committed suicide.

That's a terrible tragedy. I think there should be a lot more awareness about it to help find all those unfortunates who are still unaware of having AS.

I haven't remembered any dreams in about a decade, but there's a fragment of one I had last night which I still recall: I was on the corridor of a fancy hotel. The corridor had a hip-high barrier and did not connect to any door or exit, and I was the only one on it. In order to join the other guests, after exploring all other possibilities, I decided to do something unconventional and jumped over the barrier, half wishing no one would notice, half wishing they would so I could get into a conversation. When I was on the other side, nobody paid attention, and I wasn't sure whether they didn't see me or just decided to ignore me.

That's a very Aspie-ish dream, isn't it?

I guess so, and I reckon it perfectly reflects my state of mind.

I just flicked through the poetry collections I wrote over the past decades, and I think if any psychologist had come across them, I might have been diagnosed ages ago