Відео

Hello Struan, thanks so much for sharing your process. I love the idea of our ‘messes becoming our message’. I’m 49 and have just been diagnosed, my three emotions would be ‘confusion, elation and exhaustion’. I completely relate to the ‘push-pull’ aspect of having a duel diagnosis and feeling many conflicting emotions throughout my life, which is why ‘confusion’ stands out to me, due to feeling and experiencing two conflicting things, all of the time. I’m reframing my narrative too, in a sense making process. Fortunately like you, I’m very passionate about learning more and being an advocate which I think is coming from knowing that this is it now and there’s no turning back. You can’t put the Genie back in the bottle and unknow what we now about ourselves, and why would we want to? I know I’m experiencing two narratives too, my old addiction, anxiety, panic and depression narrative and my new autism and ADHD narrative, which makes a lot more sense of course. Just yes and nodding to everything you have said. Listening to you is very liberating and empowering. I lined things up meticulously as a child and adolescent too. I still do this.

Did my AQ test 1 Yr ago and scored 40. Still waiting to hear anything else. 49 yrs old

Love to see more content from you, its very helping for me. Thank you for your effort. Have a nice day.

Thank you for this video! It’s the first video I’ve seen by you, and I immediately subscribed.

Hi Struan, happy New Year!

As you were describing your teachers reports it was like listening to my own from school. The teachers all said the same thing, but not one even bothered to try and dig further as to what was affecting us

I think you explained well, but it is not "opinion' that i react to. It is factual distortion to harm of ancient or fresh or questing! It often feels exclusionary for my own 'community' to silence and devalue or often attack and erase for for correct diagnosis of autistic low-grade imbecile in the 1950s (obviously subject to eugenics Laws) All vocal verbal late diagnosed female (PhD or working on that) exclude/silence most intensely. I think some programming deal..... but you offer nothing to any of my label. Only to use demand we obtain catagorically impossible behaviors to protect your feeling paradigm. Or vanish😢 The whole concept needs reworked and i will discuss with any off these sites (DM) regardless of cost to me but can't do dissimulate/ pretense social gaming to protect a false poison 'nice' frosting.

I'm totally incapable of comprehending essentially all that, much less accomplish any ........ but you got me on the squashing. I done did that to survive! ❤

24.44 is that common? i remember crying about not wanting to die when very young as well and akin thoughts throughout the years fears of others dying as well before even the teen years

Had my assessment last week, feel like I've completely embarrassed myself lol, i paced up and down in the waiting room, switch water machine off, due to the noise took batteries out the clock, due to the ticking. Ripped to shredds assessment room layout, picture on piss, lamp leaning, to many multi shapped chairs with different textures, assessment table to low and no clear space walkway lol. I couldn't pronounce my words, and paused several times. The ssessment lady told her story with her 5 items, then it was my turn, 1 man, 1 square block,1 faulk, 1 comb and 1 card,all of which the 1 man used his items on his block😂 assessment lady probably what the absolutely fuck 😅.

currently 19 yrs old as i’m writing this. i’ve always had this “different, alien, out of place” feeling, but i’m so used to masking and appearing as normal as possible that i blamed my coping struggles on anxiety and low self esteem. after talking with some neurodivergent friends for a while that have seen me at my highest and lowest, they all agree that i am neurodivergent. after doing my own research, i can see it too. i hope to gather the courage to pursue a formal diagnosis somehow… thanks so much for making this series!! courage to all of us fighting battles each day ❤️‍🩹

I'm 54 and have my assessment on the 2nd of Dec . (I'm Scottish too). Waited 18 mths on the NHS . I am so terrified ! Thank you for your video. I am just scared they say I am a) autistic and that's like wow! or b) not and just a bloody horrible person and no one likes me. The burn out is bad isn't it?.

Thank you so much for posting this. It's been really helpful and I really enjoyed (resonated) your angry detour through the end of late stage capitalism. This video really helped condense a topic I've been over reaserching for a few weeks as I get ready to go to my own HR dept after 8 months of trying to gain traction via informal routes.

When i started dropping the mask, i noticed a linerating feeling of relief. I also noticed my tolerance for stimulation went down. Now i know to give grace to myself. Youre video is affirming

Thank you for this. I've been in a terrible place with my depression after trying to switch jobs. Also with RSD with someone, it wasn't even a rejection but sure did feel like it. I really think I have ASD and inattentive adhd. I haven't been working for a month and been hyperfocused on learning about autism because ever since I was a child, I went through IEP. Special education. Also being bullied from elementary all the way to high school for being weird and different. I was always on my own doing my own thing. Just felt like an outcast. My mom was there for me for school conferences about how I learned things differently and how my behavior was too. Also very hyperactive and was a "problem child". Also been through a a class to help me get a job at a workforce place for students with disabilities and a transition center too. So I've been through a lot. I'm tired of feeling this way and overthinking everything, going down a deep spiral into a deeper rabbit hole. Also, after quitting drinking, smoking and doing drugs, I was starting to get sensory issues really bad from my previous job before unexpected changes happened. So, this resonates with me. It's like being stuck in a Chinese finger trap, just can't get out to doing the things I really need to do. Again, thank you for this. I have a interview tomorrow, so wish me luck. Hopefully that helps getting me going again. I forgot to do my laundry. Was supposed to do that the other day, but I said "nope". Oh I didn't mention that I've been having meltdowns almost every day. I was able to regulate myself through some of them, but other ones I could barely move. I fell asleep really quick. I live with my mom and her seeing me like this is not good. Loved this video 🤘🤘. Well done

I have done about ten autism screening tools and they all say I am very probably autistic. My autistic friends say I'm probably autistic. I've just had a formal ADHD assessment and the psychiatrist's post-assessment letter says ASD features were present at interview and that if I went for formal diagnosis it would likely confirm ASD. And yet, I am still worried that the diagnosis will be negative, that I will forget things, over camouflage, or my ADHD will fail to tick the right ASD boxes etc. I think the reason is because a diagnosis would explain so much and without it, I will be back to square one. I also don't trust authority - which is interesting because I used to be a cop.

I hear people on forums trying to get out of jobs like cleaning toilets because they have Autism. Nobody is going to like you at work if you go in demanding too much. If you tell someone you can't do a job, someone else has to step up and do it for you, and they are probably busy with their own work. So be careful what you ask for at work. Even though things are sometimes hard, I don't ask for much. The other employee's and managers seem to like me, and the manager calls me in when he has extra hours he needs to fill.

Medication for Autism has really worked for me. I know it doesn't for everyone, but it seems to make my experience more mellow. Even if I agree with you on the social versus the medical model, meds have a place for some people, I guess.

Thank you so much for this. I've come across your channel and this video after spending hours online trying to unsuccessfully find out about the ADOS-2 and suddenly thinking about looking on UA-cam. I've cried whilst watching it, I'm female and diagnosed last year aged 51 with ADHD. I started a new job in September last year, (a couple of months before my diagnosis), and it's highlighted so many autistic traits, the pressures of masking these for the following 10 months resulted in burnout in July and me being off work until the end of September. I related to so much you said, similar experiences of work, burnout, and then the issues with masking, executive function, imposter syndrome and trying to find myself. I've my ADOS-2 assessment next Friday, and just listening to your experiences on this one video has helped me feel better and more accepting that I am highly probably autistic as well as ADHD.

I've been wanting to leave a comment on your channel for a while, but I needed to watch all the videos first, because apparently, if you are autistic you need to do things in a certain order and if you don't, it feels like the entire world might disintegrate or that any meaning we have built is lost. Welcome to Autistic planet. Maybe I should have challenged myself to comment on earlier videos as thoughts came up. I wanted to say that I resonate with a lot of what you say in your videos and I think you are very brave to be putting yourself out there like this, especially as a middle aged man. As men, we are not encouraged to share our experiences honestly or to be reflective about our actions and choices. I was also diagnosed with Autism quite late in life. I suspect I also have ADHD, but having spent so much time trying to understand and 'fix' my autism, I am frankly quite daunted by going through another diagnosis and spending more time and money and energy fighting the system to get yet another label, which I am not sure might serve any purpose or not. I tend to massively overshare when I tell my story these days, so I edited the original post. Not sure if it a universal experience of autistics to swing between either not being able to communicate or to not be able to stop doing so. My late autism diagnosis came in the middle of I guess what you would call a mid life crisis, after I left my wife and met someone else. I then went back and eventually got divorced but I rediscovered my passion for painting in between. What I want to know from others on here, is if their finding out they are ADHD or autistic also came during major life changes? Thanks. Good job on these videos, man.

Thankyou so much for keeping at it ! I've followed all your talks and as a 52 year old just discovering I am adhd and most probably autistic. I can't explain how much they have helped me on so many levels . Thankyou , thankyou

I got a private assessment - I still don’t 100% know, I don’t know if an “official” one would help. The guy who did mine also does nhs ones too so it’s silly. Impostor syndrome is strong.

Late diagnosed here.Thank you for all your hard work and efforts in your videos.This is so powerful,helpful and also reassuring.

Bang on mate.👍🙂❤️

Hey Struan, hope you're doing OK.

Sorry if this is a long comment, but I wanted to tell people about my Autism diagnosis so far. I spoke to my college at the time about the issues I was struggling with (Mum encouraged me to do this because no one took me seriously. No one listened. We spoke to SENAR at the college and Mum told them that she thought I had Autism. SENAR said that we needed to speak to the GP and they are the ones who recommended that we speak with the GP. We spoke to them and I was referred. I was on the waiting list for 19 months, before I had an assessment. We had to have it pushed forward because things were getting to be so bad. I had the ADOS assessment, but i'm not sure which one of the two it was. I had to do some stories using pictures and when the person asked me to say what I could see, I took that very literally and said what I saw. I was asked if I knew the difference between friends and acquaintances and then about relationships and what that meant. After that, I had to tell another story using five pictures that the person showed me (that was hard but I did it, eventually). The other part of the assessment was talking to Mum about my childhood and what I was like then, what I'm like now, medical history, when my Autism signs started showing and then the last part of the assessment was about mental health. It was hard, but I'm glad Mum helped me. They said it would be around two weeks until I get the diagnosis. But, for me now, I should get the diagnosis in about ten days or so, now.

I unmasked in late 2023 & I’m still struggling with employment opportunities.

Another great video.Thank you.I have always had an issue with thinking on my feet together with everything you have talked about.Much appreciated as I have just received my diagnosis 2 days ago.

Thank you for your videos which are greatly appreciated.I have just received my diagnosis.Living life as a passenger rather than a driver really resonates with me.I’m 67.A lot to take in.

I'm taking the assessment tomorrow and I'm TERRIFIED. Thank you for your video, it reassures me a bit

This really helped I'm just going through the process after debating for months, had the developmental history done and waiting to see if I will be put through the ados 2 assessment

I guess there is no neurotypical world, almost all the people chronically live in this state of autonomous nervous system dysfunction, just keeping the movement between the all rage of responses flight fight freeze fawn faint and at least 6 of mixed states ... unfortunately

Im terrified I messed up BAD. I don’t like surprises, I don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen. There was no way on this godforsaken planet that I wasn’t going to look up the entire ADOS -2 test before being given it. So of course I looked it up. And I’m a smart woman, so I realized this test was never really gonna work on me. I would know immediately what they’d be looking for. It feels like such a crappy test. And I feel like I messed up my chances of ever truly knowing. I’m thinking maybe if I get a different assessment with a different test? I still don’t have the results from mine but I know I already screwed this one up. I don’t think I can trust whatever result it gives me. Not unless it is honestly very justified when the report is given. I just don’t know how nobody ever thinks about this small little detail??? What autistic person likes doing things without knowing what’s going to happen first???!!! Like. No. There was never a single chance I wasn’t gonna look that test up. God. I feel so stupid. But like they should’ve thought about that?!!?!

Recently diagnosed at 65. For me...I S seems to be about how long i have been wearing a mask to survive and navigate the world outside of my self perception that has always known i was different but i didn't understand why. I know things about myself that i didn't realize were features of asd, and much that i didn't know that i'm now discovering. I'm also discovering that my asd is not unconnected from all that has transpired in the ways of dysfunction and the tragedies born out of attempts to fit into the group not knowing that i was presenting a facade that did not match my internal perceptions of self. If this makes sense to anyone, please respond. The masks are being removed now finally and i realize that i am the same person i was at the age of 4 coming from foster care. I have not had alcohol now for 15 years after 40 years of cognitive therapy so this has really helped me, to understand that my perceptions of my self have always been distorted that i am not fundamentally wrong, just intrinsically different. ? I am finding that i like my true different self or the features that i am becoming more comfortable expressing. These features part of my true empathic self and are my truth of authenticity that is emerging. So, there's that.🙂

I’m almost 60, yet still had to come searching online for these exact words to explain where I am at, and why I’ve been so extremely frustrated for DECADES now. I am currently in seriously overwhelming trauma therapy for other trauma issues, but my therapist, like many before her, keeps mixing up childhood trauma, with basic autism traits most neurodivergent individuals seem to have. She recently announced that I’m fawning. A word I’ve never heard before. Normally I wouldn’t care so much, or be so emotionally frustrated, but her notes and diagnosis are passed on to all my other medical doctors, who will automatically want to add/change medications only based on her “expertise”. But, she is wrong about WHY I am fawning, and it matters a lot to me, and my future medical treatment. Thank you for explaining 59 years of my life so simply, and in under 16 minutes. 🙌🏼❣️🙌🏼 I literally spent four hours of talking a bit, leaving to process what I just said, then coming back to my husband over and over again last night just trying to verbalize what you were able to achieve in this video. I wish I saw your video first, and could’ve saved a lot of anxiety for me, and overwhelming information for my husband. Poor guy, I usually don’t share such huge emotions, yet alone want to allow myself to sound so clingy and desperate the way I did. But as I told him when I begged for his time to just sit there and listen to me vent, I’ve reached my limit of what I can process and handle. Sometimes it’s simply too much, and it’s overwhelming when even multiple trained professionals don’t have the answers. There’s a reason people on the spectrum don’t have the life expectancy of our peers. Thank you for sending this out to the universe!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Hi Struan, I’ve been binge-watching your playlist videos and have been resonating so much with what you describe. Thank you so much. I’m a bit concerned that the output trails and disappears, but have been relieved to see you have replied to comments. Hang in there ❤. I’m 58 and recently discovered AuDHD. It’s all been complicated. I like me, but I’ve struggled hugely with the experience of being me. Listening to your posts has been really validating, so again, thank you.

Omg what you said about split personality hit hard that was me my whole life At home i was so happy at school awful

I'm currently going through a grievance as after declaring they provided a screening for other things but on the results questioned my capabilities which has had an awful impact on me

This really resonates with me.Thank you for this

Thank you so much for your honesty and openness. I’m waiting for an ASC (definitely not D) assessment, which is probably many months away. I have an ADHD diagnosis. I feel very anxious about the process and your video has helped. I usually research the living daylights out of everything I do…..which probably fits the profile. It’s been really useful to have such an excellent description of what I might expect. I’m 62 and have been masking all my life and worry that I might be too good at it by now. I hope the assessors can see past the mask to the very troubled person underneath.

You’d make a good therapist, Struan …youre really empathic and kind…and the way you do these videos is so helpful…I feel tons better since watching them…I’m waiting for my diagnosis test in the next 6 months I’m told …but when I did the tests you’ve referred to, I can now do them more honestly (not playing it down). Thank you

This series has been very informative. There definitely some traits that overlap with autism, and some very frustratingly so. Thank you for such an in-depth analysis.

I really enjoy these types of videos, especially now that I'm awaiting my own diagnosis. Both of my brothers have ADHD and at least half my uncles and an aunt, my father likely has autism and my half-sister too. I've never considered myself hyperactive, but with your explanations so in-depth I now don't think I'd be surprised if I was diagnosed AuDHD. Girls are great at masking autism, it makes sense that AHDH would affect them differently than males, also. Thank you for a great explanation of this, again I really appreciate it. I'm trying to absorb as much info as I can so I can go in to my diagnosis prepared, and your videos (including your experiences through childhood) have made me remember so much that I'd pushed to the back of my mind.

48:21 Exactly. I feel cheated, almost betrayed.

The people who ask why we need a diagnosis so late in life have never had to mask their entire lives. They don't know how painful and exhausting and lonely life has been.

"I've kind of sleepwalked through much of my life, ridiculously trying to be happy by trying to make the world happy with me, using entirely the wrong operating manual." 😩 This is exactly how it feels. It's like almost everyone else got handed a completely different manual for how to live life.

This has been very fascinating to listen to. I had very similar experiences as a child. The school system here when I was a child in the 80s and 90s seems very much the same your schools did in terms of children needing help, I was just considered a lazy student who was making my own life harder by not trying hard enough in school. I was actually pretty good at sports when I tried, but I hated attending my practices and games because I never got on with any of the kids; my mom made me mostly to have a sort of free childcare. I was hyper-focused on X-Men, and one of only 2 school friends when I was about 9 or 10 was also hyper-focused on X-Men. I collected the comics, the cards, I had binders with those plastic protectors to keep them in. I was also more interested in books than kids, and besides X-Men I was obsessed with the Sweet Valley books and became obsessed with twins. When I got into middle school (that's between ages 11-13 here in the US), I became obsessed with the Babysitter's Club books so much that I wanted to form my own Babysitter's Club, and I was SO focused on that, that I even asked the girls in my class if they wanted to join me, even though none of them were my friends and most outright seemed to hate me. It's not as impressive as your neighborhood watch group, but I actually forgot I'd tried to do that until you brought your little group as a kid. Pop music was huge for me too, especially as I became a teenager. Music was actually a way I could stim without seeming too weird, it probably just seemed like I was a kid who really loved to sing. A couple years later, I was obsessed with the boy band Hanson and Stephen King books. And like you, I've always been so interested in space. The possibility of life on other planets, how solar systems seemed to function like larger versions of molecules and atoms, how people used to navigate via star mapping and told time by the sun and shadows. I really think if I'd been encouraged to run with that obsession, I, too, might be an astrophysicist right now. I'm still pretty obsessed with space. I've watched only a couple other channels where they talked about their childhoods, and while some of the focuses were different, the experiences were all pretty much the same. I think you said it was a therapist or psychologist who said if you'd been a child in today's world you'd be instantly classified as autistic? That seems to be a reoccurring theme with late-diagnosed adults. It's crazy how slow society and research has changed in regards to neuro-divergent people that diagnosing things like autism has really only even been acknowledged as something other than typical or not just laziness since the 1940s. Personally I think if we have the brains and technology to keep people alive in a station in space for years at a time, then we should've had the brains and technology to start spotting and helping people with autism from the time the first astronauts started living in space.

8:33 This really makes me think of parts work (IFS) therapy, perhaps some of the neural patterns in the brain might have more ingrained traits from either one than some other parts/thought patterns. It is a balancing act for sure. (Edit. 16:36 Also, having watched further I want to mention that parts work doesn’t equal “split personality” as such, it just indicates that human brains operate with different patterns of thinking in different life situations. As a specific trauma response DID is an extreme manifestation of the naturally varied and even conflicting thought patterns and survival mechanisms that everyone has in the brain, whether neurodivergent or more typical 😅)

Apparently being ND makes you incapable of understanding yourself. I KNOW I'm autistic. I'm getting a diagnosis so I can get services and find a job that will be more accommodating. And to the point of your "personality" while doing your videos I invite you to be your authentic self. You don't need to mask if you don't want to. I'm so over not being myself in order to make others feels more comfortable. What about how I feel?

I really appreciate this video. I'm waiting to meet for my assessment, and I'm 41. It's already nerve-wracking. I keep wanting to type out a list of everything I've struggled with, like you did, but I know I'm going to be a wreck doing even that. I have a feeling I'm going to cry during my actual assessment. I friggin cried over the phone when I left a message asking for an assessment. I think if I had known when I was much younger, it wouldn't be so rough to deal with the diagnosis. But getting a diagnosis after I've lived 41 years just feels like I've been cheated. I can only think about the help I could have gotten that could have made it easier for me to get through school and to keep a job longer than four months. I've been told I shouldn't blame my mom, whom I'm living with now because I cannot keep a job to live on my own. But it's very hard NOT to blame my mom when she put so much emphasis on my youngest brother getting help with his ADHD and ignoring every time I had to drop out of school (in 2nd grade, 10th grade, and only four months of community college) and struggling so hard to make friends and to even get meager passing grades in school. My mom just (and still) wanted me to be the "problem child" so she had someone to play the victim with all the time. She still yells at me for "yelling" when I can't hear it myself. My own daughter is autistic (and lives with us) and there almost no difference between her and I. Yet my mom still acts like I'm just a lazy good-for-nothing and trying to make her life hard. It's so hard to NOT blame my mom when she's purposely denied me the chance to get the help I've clearly needed my whole life. I just hope I can get through my assessment without crying the whole time so I can get the diagnosis and get some freakin help with life.