Most people spend years chasing an autism diagnosis, with many framing their eventual diagnosis as the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel that was treaded with difficulty.
That difficulty is real, and I understand why being diagnosed with autism in adulthood can both provide answers and open opportunities for reflection, but when I was diagnosed at 38, very little changed.
A diagnosis is helpful, but it is not a destination to aim for, nor the solution and it will certainly not provide a handbook to thriving in a society that has not been built to support neurodivergent people.
My Journey to Getting Diagnosed, and Why It Changed So Little
I already knew I was different, and getting diagnosed in my late 30s only attached a name to that difference, but sadly, the support I expected to get after that did not follow.
That is not the narrative you usually hear. The expected story is one of relief, grief, a reframing of everything—a before and after, clapping and cheering and eventually moving forward, but my experience was quite the opposite, and I think it is more common than it gets said out loud.
For most of my adult life, I had been quietly collecting evidence that the problem was me. I thought that I was too sensitive, too intense, too much, and too quickly socially exhausted to hack the “real world.”
I had spent years in and out of employment, never lasting more than six months in a full-time role before burnout set in, never quite fitting the architecture of conventional workplaces, no matter how hard I tried to reshape myself to fit them. I got a BSc in nutrition and exercise science, and a full professional history followed, albeit in bi-annual chunks, but yet, I somehow always felt like a shoe that did not quite fit.
When the autism diagnosis finally arrived in 2020, it gave the difference I had felt and the difficulty I had experienced a name. But what it did not give me was the support I assumed would follow, and for all the reflecting on my past struggles it has prompted, a diagnosis does not automatically build a different future.
The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) offered me an online support group, but I felt deeply uncomfortable in it. And then I stopped mentioning the diagnosis for a few years, because the responses I got from people who knew ranged from “you don’t look autistic” to “that’s not an excuse” to being ignored or dismissed entirely.
The external validation I had spent years seeking—from systems and from people who were never designed to see me—did not arrive when I finally had the proper terminology to define myself.
What that experience actually taught me is that an autism diagnosis is not a solution to a problem. What actually moved things forward and helped me begin to thrive was not a label.
It was understanding why I processed demands differently, why social situations cost more energy than they appeared to, and why consistency was harder for me than knowledge. Understanding the mechanisms behind the label was what created the practical shift. The diagnosis gave me a map, but knowing the name of where you have been does not tell you how to get somewhere new. That part requires a different kind of work entirely.
I am now 44, and I am also the sole carer for both of my parents, who both have dementia. Life has not grown simpler, but it has grown somewhat clearer. And out of all of it, the misdiagnosed years, the burnout, the caregiving, the hard-won self-knowledge, I am building something.
It is called Mirror Movement, and it is a nervous system regulation and identity app, neurodivergent centered but built for everyone. Its premise is straightforward and, I believe, essential; nothing changes until your identity does, and identity cannot change on a nervous system running in survival mode. Mirror Movement is the platform I needed and could not find.
If you are sitting with a late diagnosis and wondering why it has not “fixed” things or met your expectations, know that you were never broken. You were unsupported. Now that you have the name, the proper language, the next question is what you are going to do with it.
Naomi Crooks, 44, is a nutritionist, former personal trainer, and the founder of Mirror Movement, a nervous system regulation and identity platform. You can follow her on Instagram at @move.like.nay. She is based in London, England.
