I have been very busy living. My autism seems to be less of an issue lately. I find myself focusing on overcoming a depressed mood. I believe my depression springs from the loss of my identity when I was first diagnosed. Now, I am dealing with impotency due to a medication. So, it’s a slow climb, in terms of building self esteem.
I am beginning to see myself as an autistic 76 year old man/child. I say man-child because I am chronologically an old guy, while at the same time, some of my behaviours are child-like. My lack of common sense, my difficulty seeing the gestalt or big picture and my defensiveness are some behaviours that stand out as child-like. These are related to my autism. I have accepted them as who I am. I work on them, especially the defensiveness, as being less defensive is a positive outcome. I believe that awareness and acceptance are the key to healthy adjustment to a autistic life. I would like to hear from others on these points.
THE AGEING AUTISTIC 
glad you are posting again, there are so few older autistic voices out in the wold of internet. It seems to me it is difficult to tell where simple ageing and autistic struggles can be separated. I agree about defensiveness. It seems reasonable for us to have developed defensiveness as a way to survive all the “corrections” and critical comments, punishments, etc that we had experienced for most of our lives. Once I began to understand my autism and how it interfered with my ability to understand intent and motivations of others I started to look back and understand how most of my life had been misunderstanding after misunderstanding on both my part and the others i interacted with. I have known about my autism for almost 4 years now and am learning more every day how deeply it affects everything in my life, and always had. It is such a relief to know I am not the bad, deliberately mean, unreasonable, cruel, evil being I felt I was being painted all those years. Now I know I am autistic I am beginning to see things in a different way. In so many ways the bewildered child is leaving along with all the hurt from those years of struggle. I still have a kid’s heart and a kid’s interest in many things, but seeing things from knowing about autism has really allowed me to open up and stop being defensive, and learn new ways to do things and I see things and understand them better. I am finding peace in knowing finally after all these years that I am autistic (and always have been). I just got a formal diagnois about 6 weeks ago, at the age of 68. You are not alone! keep posting, I love hearing from you!
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