Are “the late diagnosed” becoming extinct?

Recently I have written an article about how I taught myself to blend in and be like everyone else, just so I could survive . It occurred to me while writing this that being a late diagnosed Asperger could be something that will completely disappear in the not so distant future. A few years ago the ratio for Aspergers was something like 1 in 100 people, last week I read that it was one in every 75. This isn’t because Aspergers is on the rise and more and more are being born with it, but it is more that the NHS and other organisations around the world are getting better at recognising it and diagnosing it. Children are getting diagnosed as early as 4 years old and I am coming across more and more parents who have children with AS. On a side not some parents seem to be outing their children to the world, without even considering whether they child wants the world to know. I keep hearing parents just casually bringing it up in conversations in supermarkets and on the street. This stuff really annoys me (but that’s a different problem for a different post).

Anyway back to the point of this post, I was diagnosed when I was 27. That means that for 27 years everybody who came into contact with me didn’t know I was different. Which when it came to authority figures like teachers and bosses, they didn’t know to treat me different and know that there was a good reason for my disruptive behaviour. So I was raised like an NT, so instead of my strange behaviour being accommodated for I was punished instead, detentions, referrals, recorded meetings, being fired etc. Since diagnosis I have tried to unlearn this behaviour and it has been a long and stressful process so far.

So as I stated at the start of this post my type of Aspergers is disappearing. The late diagnosed will become less and less as people get diagnosed from a young age. When someone is diagnosed as a child they grow up in a sort of protective bubble. Everyone else, once they know, get to understand their traits, their tics everything. So they know what to do and what not to do when they interact. That Aspie will grow to be who they want and get all the support they need as they go through their life. The earlier they are diagnosed the more they learn about their condition. People like me “the late diagnosed” raised themselves to know that they were different but not know why. The late diagnosed that I have met seem to fit in to two categories, like they had two choices growing up, either become a complete recluse, seen in the NT world as someone who is odd and a shut in. Or they are like me they taught themselves as many NT traits as possible so they could have an average existence keeping below the radar. Just thinking my sensory problems, social anxieties, meltdowns and empathy issues were things I had created and could get rid of if I so chose to do so.

The unit that diagnosed me only diagnoses the adult Aspergers which probably means in time they will no longer exist as a unit. As Aspergers becomes more and more recognisable people will not slip through the net, and live a confused and stressful life. I don’t think there are any adults yet, who were diagnosed at an age as young as four. I would be interested in what kind of person they would be, in comparison to the average late diagnosed. What path they have chosen in life and how they have developed. I have often wondered who I would be now and who I would be had I been diagnosed back in 1989. All the adults I have spoken to have had a hard time of things, struggling through school and most of them not able to hold down a job. It’s only since diagnosis have they been able to get help and start getting things on track, they have learnt all their traits and triggers and have a much easier time of things. I think the late diagnosed Asperger in comparison to the early diagnosed, will have completely different traits. I kind of think that it will all most be like two different syndromes all together. Anyone AS or NT is a product of their environment, if you have Aspergers and are raised with that knowledge you will be different to an Aspie who was raised without. I have spoken to some young people who were diagnosed at an early age and I don’t feel a similarity or that we have as much in common with the late diagnosed. The late diagnosed seem to carry much more stress and anxiety by everyday situations. It’s doesn’t feel like I and the early diagnosed have the same condition and that is probably a good thing.