Advice on poss ND issues with DH

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Hope it’s ok to ask these questions as I’m really worried about DH and don’t know what to do. This is long.

I know that no one can be diagnosed with anything over the internet however, DH has a number of issues that are making me think that he must be on Autism spectrum/have Asperger’s or something. (sorry if I get the terms wrong..I’m a novice).

DH is 56. I met him in my 20s. I liked his quirky personality. It made me laugh that he had no small talk. Anyway fast forward to 2023 and I can see his quirkiness has been no picnic.

-He’s diagnosed very dyslexic.
-Was ‘remedial’ all through school. Yet managed to do well as an adult in a creative field.
-Cannot multi task. He can’t be interrupted when doing any task as has to start again.
-Socially anxious. Struggles in these situations. Has only 2 trusted friends.
-Has fallen out a lot with people over the years. He misconstrues them. Then gets paranoid thinking they are talking behind his back. Eg he suggested a neighbour was actively smirking at him. When I looked, the guy looked open and smiling.
-Comes across as rude or abrupt. Self absorbed.

These are just some issues. He’s frustrated with life. I feel sorry for him as he hates being the way he is. I feel it’s not just male awkwardness but more. It makes him depressed. I think he should seek help but he thinks he’s just a bit ‘shit at life’. And too old. Also that no one could help.

People who know more than I, does it sound like something? Any advice on how he can seek help?

Thank you.

That does sound very...familiar, on all counts. And, as far as I'm aware, not only is dyslexia a ND condition, it's also a common comorbidity with ADHD and autism.

How open is he to the possibility that he's autistic? Would he, for example, spend 15 minutes on an online test? If so, this one's more accurate than most and gives really detailed results:

https://rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

Just click the "I ACCEPT" button rather than signing up/logging in. It might even help if you take the test separately, so you can compare/contrast.

It's not a diagnosis, of course, but it's a useful tool on the journey to figuring out where you stand.

Thankyou for replying. That test looks really useful. I will speak to him about it.

I have been doing a bit of reading about masking. I shared it with DH and he was shocked at parallels with his coping mechanism s.

That's very, very common. It could well be worth him disappearing down the YouTube rabbit hole for a bit, because there are some great channels out there dedicated to the journey of discovery (or not). I had so many "I thought I was the only one!" moments when I did it.

Yo Samdy Sam is a great channel, that'd certainly be my starting place. She also has a Discord server for paid subscribers - that was the most valuable part for me, but he's probably a fair way from there at this point.

It's worth noting that a lot of autistic YouTubers talk about autism in women being different from autism in men. That's not strictly true - there's a growing feeling that, actually, what's been described as "female autism presentation" is actually "early-masking/late-diagnosed autism presentation", because a surprising proportion (albeit anecdotal) of men diagnosed in their 30s onwards also have the exact same presentation - it seems to be a consequence of learning to mask heavily early on in life, rather than gender (but the social behaviour of girls forces early masking, hence the possible/maybe conflation of the presentation with gender).

The point being...it's worth his while not ignoring videos which talk about "female autism", because it's pretty likely he'll identify with an awful lot of what's said there (if he's autistic).

Something else for him to consider is that blending in with the world takes a lot of energy for autistic people, and that energy tends to dwindle with age. I find that, in my mid-40s, I'm much less able to mask and "just deal with it" than I was in my 20s and 30s, to the point where I often need DP to be there as my support monkey. Whether it's lack of energy, or lack of bandwidth, or just a plain lack of willingness to comply with a world that's generally unwilling to bend even a little to give me a hand...or a combination of all of the above...I just can't do it so much as I used to.

Thankyou!

i am encouraging him to go to gp but realistically would he get referred for assessment? How much would it cost to go private? Thank you.

It varies wildly - anything from £800 to £2500, and (from the anecdotal experiences of others) it's rather unclear what's responsible for that spread other than the size of the company and operating costs.

In-person is obviously more expensive than remote, though.

Thankyou