It's common for those more 'high-functioning' - i.e. more able to 'mask' in society - to not receive a diagnosis until much later in life. Anthony Hopkins was not diagnosed til late in his life [1].

I mentioned it already elsewhere in this thread, but if you want to explore things further it may be worth taking the RAADS-R [2]. While the test itself, and self diagnosis in general, is in no way comprehensive, it may help, and can be the first step towards a diagnosis.

[1] https://eu.desertsun.com/story/life/entertainment/people/bru...

[2] https://aspietests.org/

I took one a while back that was 25 or over need to go see a specialist, I scored 43.

I never did, I function fine and one advantage to been a programmer is none-techies expect you to be eccentric.

I don't think I am but it's good top cover.

> At the Culver City office, overhead lights bothered one or two colleagues so much that everyone agreed to work without artificial lights, so that often, by the end of the day, they are all working in pitch darkness, rectangles of soft, bright light from their computers illuminating their faces.

Oh crap. I chose the quiet office without windows over the noisy office with windows, then I took all but one of the bulbs out of the overheads and put a lamp on my desk.

The email thing hit a bit too close to home, I always worry about the tone and whether I'm been too blunt, my boss has commented (not disparagingly) that I can be direct, I asked if that meant rude but apparently not, just direct.

Wait, does anyone not worry about the tone if the relationship is not super-casual?

I rarely worry about tone in any established relationship. I don't feel like that is particularly unusual.

To add, its not even something that presents itself the same way at different stages of life. Many high functioning folks had a lot of very classic troubles early in life with sensory overload, anxiety and missing social cues, but have eventually developed filters and coping mechanisms to have a lot less of a problem as they grow older, even to the extent that its a "hidden" feature that causes trouble to the person but nobody would suspect. It comes out in the form of staying home for an anxiety attack, depression, or occasional social cue slips.

Holly... scored 151, should i go and do something with this?

I don't know about the scores/thresholds of this particular test, but the best way to know for sure is getting evaluated by a trained professional.

I got 173 lol

It's a spectrum so you are on it pretty much by definition. It just depends on the degree. I also have a lot of autistic traits but I also have extrovert traits and I am also shy. We should stop labelling people on one dimension.

I've seen posts from families with autistic children saying, effectively, "just because it's a spectrum doesn't mean you're on it".

Personally that seems wrong, it seems like particular traits compound together and that people exhibit fewer/more of those traits to a greater/lesser degree.

Not sure what the professional psychs think about it currently?

dunno, have a look..

https://mirror.cat/1a9OzXi