If you think you’re going to need formal and legal accommodations in your workplace or career then it would be a good idea to get an official diagnosis. I had a late diagnosis at 38 myself.

I was diagnosed around 11 or 12, but my father warned me (like a threat) that I wasn’t to let it interfere with my school work. I got no help with it, and I did not trust therapists so I was not in therapy. I largely ignored it, it was an interesting fact about me that most people couldn’t pick up on and so were surprised to learn.

Around 32-33 I was berating myself for the nth time why I can’t just be normal and go out to bars and clubs and have fun socialising, or why I always seem to say the wrong thing at work, and it hit me like a tonne of bricks that being on the spectrum isn’t just some funny little quirk. I thought back over everything I could remember, started looking up studies on adult outcomes for autism, and found in them the pattern of my life (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3769945/ will get you started, if you’re interested). It explained so much about myself and made it possible for me to get a handle on some of the things that have made life harder.

At work, for example, I can now step away if a conversation is overwhelming me. And I know that fidgeting like “flapping my knees” (I dunno… Feet together on the ground, I swing my knees out and back together without hitting, in sync; my parents used to yell at me for it) is actually “stimming”, and I shouldn’t stop myself from doing it. I know I don’t have a temper, I have very specific triggers for meltdowns - amongst which is not feeling understood/able to communicate. Quite a common one, that. I can feel a meltdown coming now that I know what to watch for, and this makes it easier to walk myself back from the edge. This is important because I do harm to myself, when I have an episode. There’s a video floating about the internet of some asshole harassing the front desk clerk at a hotel and the poor kid starts hitting himself in the head repeatedly while the cunt behind the camera shouts at and berates him more… I saw myself, in that kid.

My relationships have suffered because I was unaware of symptoms that presented themselves through negative behaviours. This i don’t feel like going into very much, but suffice it to say I’ve become a better partner, and my partner is better able to support me in the ways I need as well.

I would recommend getting tested, personally. If you are indeed on the spectrum, knowing the details will help you and those around you make accommodations, and your life will probably get subtly easier in just about every way.

I think the majority of adults get tested are to A) work towards narrowing down therapies that work well did them, B) access funding from disability programs with the government. Do you have any desire to do either those things?

The question you need to ask yourself is, “what will be the benefit to me for being officially diagnosed as autistic / not autistic?”

For myself, I’m very much happy to just consider that I might be autistic and keeping this in mind helps me when I’m interacting with others. I personally don’t see the benefit of owning a piece of paper with “CERTIFIED AUTIST” written on it.

PS, you don’t need to apologise for potentially being offensive, your question is quite clearly in good faith and anyone that’s going to ignore that to pick the bones out using the wrong terminology or anything like that can fuck off

Full disclosure: I have not been officially tested by a doctor, myself, because depending upon your insurance, it can be pretty expensive. So money could certainly be one very valid reason to not get tested. On the other side of that, my wife and I did choose to have our kids tested, so that they can take advantage of options that such a diagnosis opens up within the public school system. You obviously aren’t looking towards that path, yourself, but that doesn’t mean it is entirely without value.

That said, I did take the online test, which is primarily targeted at an adult audience and which (unsurprisingly) showed very strong indicators that I’m also autistic. I would suggest starting there. The way I look at it, knowledge is a tool; you get to decide how (or if) to use that tool. And when the barrier to obtaining that knowledge is low, it’s worth the effort to step forward and see where that knowledge takes you.

The website with online tests is linked under helpful resources in the collection of links in the sidebar, but I’ll also go ahead and link directly to that website right here for your convenience: https://embrace-autism.com/autism-tests/

The ten question test is merely a subset of the fifty question test; if you’re at all distressed about the process, feel free to start at the short test. (I took both, and they both scored me extremely highly.)

If you’re fine as you are, then there may well be no point. Just make sure you actually are fine, rather than getting by at the expense of your own happiness/sense of belonging/burning out.

For me, diagnosis was almost an act of desperation after 15+ years of depression and anxiety that no amount of medication or therapy seemed to help. I didn’t go through a self-identification journey or anything, it was suggested off-hand by a therapist who offered to write a referral. I forgot about it for several years, finally followed-up and got assessed and diagnosed in 2021. And to start with, knowing did nothing, but now that I’ve started exploring adjustments for autism it has made one hell of a difference. Which also means that if you do have struggles you may not need a formal diagnosis to work out how to alleviate them, though if it would qualify you for official support services or workplace accommodations it may be worth considering.

I had my assessment aged 29. It was a multi-hour conversation with two assessors via videocall (would have been face-to-face, but pandemic). I had my mum with me to attest to my behaviour as a child, though she left the room for about half of the time. Part of it was casual conversation, part was more interview-style with questions for both me and my mum, then there were story-telling exercises based on different kinds of prompts. I was a lot more honest during the conversational parts than I usually am in social situations, precisely because they were there to assess my actual mental state, not the socially-polite front I put up.

I’m 43 now. Had lots of issues my whole life. By mother was a teacher and had me tested for everything in middle school. Was diagnosed with a whole array of learning disabilities. Was granted accommodations for them all. Only actually needed a couple of them.

My best (really only) friend, suggested I work at the Anderson Center for Autism, where he was a teacher. It took a couple months for me to notice, I understood the kids more than I understood “normal” people. And suddenly my whole childhood made sense.

Separately, within a couple years, my mother and sister (case worker in a prison) told me they realised the same thing through their own jobs.

But at this point I have a stable career and life. An official diagnosis wouldn’t do anything for me. Though it may have been helpful in school.