> Just last month, at the age of thirty-three, I was officially diagnosed as autistic by the NHS. Could some things in my life have been easier if I had been di

> Just last month, at the age of thirty-three, I was officially diagnosed as autistic by the NHS. Could some things in my life have been easier if I had been diagnosed earlier? Certainly. I'm glad your case is in the good side of the spectrum. > On the other hand, out of all the diagnoses to have missed, autism was a lucky break. It's not degenerative. Lucky you, but autism IS degenerative in many cases, early intervention is the best shot for those kids. > I didn't get more autistic from thirty years of not taking my autism meds. THERE ARE NO AUTISM MEDS AND SHOULD KNOW. > I was never in any danger of dying of autism. This. You don't die of autism, right. So you will have normal life expectancy, 70, 80 years. If you have a non-functional form of ASD, you will be a dead-weight for society for the rest of your life. > I'm not saying that hoopism did anything wrong. That is one very lucky daughter to have such an involved patent. I'm merely saying that you're not going to ruin your child's life if you don't catch it right away. It seems like parents are under a lot of pressure and I just wanted to say, as someone who has been on the other side of it, that your kids aren't going to hate you if you accidentally miss this one. I'm not afraid that my son will hate me, I'm afraid he wont be able to take care of himself and I will hate myself for not being here forever to take care of him. Am I under a lot of pressure? YOU BET. * please don't talk about this until you have kids of your own. You can't possibly know. * please never say anything to stop a parent from looking for early intervention just because you did very well without it. * a lot of people bullshit about being in the spectrum, please never do this.