I speak autism. Even if you don’t want to learn my language, please understand I’m not always able to speak yours. #AutismAwarenessDay
— Leigh Forbes (@spectrum_life) April 2, 2013
Having autism is all about being plagued by light, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, words you don’t understand, and people who don’t care.
— Leigh Forbes (@spectrum_life) April 2, 2013
You wouldn’t roll your eyes at a deaf person, because he didn’t understand what you said. Please show a care for autistic people too. #WAAD
— Leigh Forbes (@spectrum_life) April 2, 2013
Autism exists across a wide range of abilities: from those who can’t speak, to successful businessmen. And women. Assume nothing. #WAAD
— Leigh Forbes (@spectrum_life) April 2, 2013
I am autistic. You say I’m annoying and intolerant. Come and live in my world for just five minutes. Then you can say what you like. #WAAD
— Leigh Forbes (@spectrum_life) April 2, 2013
I have autism. If you think I talk too much or too loudly, telling everyone else about it won’t help. Just tell me instead. #WAAD
— Leigh Forbes (@spectrum_life) April 2, 2013
You know when you talk about “that weird woman” and how she’s “really odd”? That’s me. And I’m not. You just don’t know me. #WAAD #autism
— Leigh Forbes (@spectrum_life) April 2, 2013
Hi, I know this post is from over a year ago, but in the interests of accuracy and of raising mutual awareness, I feel obliged to point out that tweet number 3 is sadly wrong – people’s attitudes towards deaf/HoH people can be just as bad as their attitudes towards autism*. (Even if a person wears hearing aids, most people won’t notice them, and those who do notice usually assume they restore perfect hearing.) In the same way that Aspies are apparently ‘fussy’, ‘oversensitive’, or ‘self-centred’, deaf people are apparently ‘rude’, ‘standoffish’, or ‘just plain stupid’. So while the reasons differ, deaf/HoH people and autistic people alike can face equal frustrations trying to communicate, and equal magnitudes of ignorance. [/end tangent]
*genuinely, eye-rolling at a person mishearing or misunderstanding is very common!
I’m in my late 20s, and I suspect I might be on the spectrum. I’ve been reading extensively about it, and it seems like now a lot of things in my life make sudden sense: my inability to know flirting, or understand death, or needing to explain things in details and going on in tangents–and lots of other things I thought were just part of my personality. But I don’t have sensory problems, unless they’re in what I’d consider extreme conditions, like a concert or a club environment. Also, my interests are usually intense, but they don’t last very much.
So I’m hesitant to go to a doctor. I’m thinking I might be exaggerating, or I might be trying to use AS as an excuse for not being very good at basic things in life. Or I might just be reaching. But I was as honest as possibly in all those online tests I’ve taken. I know they’re not definitive, but it still bothers me.
What makes me suspect I have AS is reading other person’s routines or every day things. I can relate to much of it. The list of official symptoms are a bit vague, but personal experiences make more sense to me.
Please can someone advise me if it is normal to be diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder in forties
Hi Yvonne, I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 40, and I know of other people in their 50s and 60s who have only recently been diagnosed. Knowledge of ASDs has grown considerably over the last twenty years, and the medical profession is now starting to realise how widespread it really is. My own GP, for example, was under the illusion that an adult woman was “very unlikely” to have autism. He was wrong. So, a diagnosis in your 40s is perfectly normal.