This week Tallulah Willis, daughter of well-known actors, announced that she was diagnosed at the age of 30 and shared the relief that this late diagnosis brought with it. In my eyes, her article has enormous importance for many adults and children who are introverted, or strange or those who stick to the routine and the familiar.
These are often very functional, smart and charming people. Why diagnose them? Why fix what isn’t broken?
So, this brave young woman stood up and gave them a voice and explained what mental health professionals know and many adults find out too late.
Paradoxically, the high functioning, the obedience to the rules, the high intelligence, the attachment to the routine and above all – the inability to describe their inner world – actually work against them and lead to their diagnosis in old age. A lack of communication ability is first of all a difficulty in explaining the difficulty, making it visible to those around.
After the diagnosis and treatment at any age, the same people share the terrible feelings they “successfully” hid – anxiety, shame, a feeling that they are strange, a constant vague feeling that they and the environment do not understand each other. Constant tension. Tallulah also describes these feelings in a typical way and states that she went through years of depression, low self-confidence, eating disorders, difficulty interpreting the environment which leads to detachment and loneliness.
The signs that require a referral for diagnosis in adulthood are:
- Difficulty interpreting social situations and difficulty understanding the norms of the environment.
- Difficulty describing one’s own feelings and difficulty understanding the feelings of others.
- Rigidity, clinging to routine and difficulty adapting to changes.
- Weirdness.
- Narrow interests.
- Repetitive behaviours.
- Chronic feeling of melancholy and self-doubt.
- Isolation, even though the person is interested in social connections.
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