Adult Autism
Autism in adults who are verbally fluent, successful, and employed is routinely missed — not because it is mild, but because they became very good at compensating.
Why this belongs in a practice for professionals
Adults now being assessed for autism are disproportionately the people this practice is built for: intelligent, high-functioning, often senior, and exhausted in a way they have never been able to explain. Many have been treated for anxiety or depression for years without anyone asking what was underneath it.
The overlap with ADHD is substantial, and a large share of people with one have features of the other. Treating one while missing the other tends to leave a remainder nobody can account for.
What this writing covers
How autism presents in capable adults, what masking costs over years, why autistic burnout does not respond to an ordinary holiday, and how autism and ADHD interact. Not a diagnosis — online questionnaires can prompt the question but cannot answer it — but enough to know whether the question is worth asking.
Autism diagnosed in adulthood: why capable people get missed
The diagnosis was not missed because it was mild. It was missed because you were good at compensating.
Masking: the cost of performing normal at work
Every meeting is two jobs: the meeting, and the performance of finding meetings easy.
Autistic burnout is not ordinary burnout
A holiday does not fix it, and pushing through makes it worse.
Autism and ADHD together
For years they could not be diagnosed together. Clinically, they turn up together constantly.