I apologize this is really long… hopefully it explains some things that will help.
I feel like he has only been asking about was I obsessed with an odd toy as a child (like something that wasn't even a toy or wasn't a toy that a normal kid would be playing with for as long).
Or did I refuse to eat things as a child.
This is because Autism is primarily defined by when certain traits first appeared. It is a childhood condition/syndrome whose effects persist into adulthood.
I have two [adult] kids with autism.
The first was diagnosed with what was then still called infantile or Kanner’s Autism. The most severe type. He was informally diagnosed at about 14 months old (without the pediatrician telling me she had noted this) and he was given the full diagnosis at 20 months old by a child psychiatrist who looked over the notes and surveys the pediatrician had sent him, as well as the things they had me fill out ahead of time.
We showed up at the office and C was taken into a side room with a one way mirror I could watch him thru, and they attempted to administer what I call a “baby IQ test”. It was designed to look for cognitive delay. And even though I knew he was not “retarded” (still the term then)… that was the final result of that test: “Severely & profoundly retarded”. The words rang thru my brain like a cannon blast had gone off right next to me. They went on to tell me he was also severely autistic and to list all the things he would never do: he would never say mama or dada; he would never say he loved me; he would never meaningfully communicate his thoughts; he would never be able to emotionally self-regulate; he would never be potty-trained; he would never graduate high school… it went on and on and on.
I left crying so hard that it was upsetting C. We went home, and I poured over his baby book looking at the milestones he had already achieved (10-12 words— used repeatedly and appropriately— including mama, dada, baba, butz [bus], bawrr [ball], cat, tiss [kiss]…) but had lost several months before.
I called the early intervention program (EIP) and arranged for their evaluation and they enrolled him. They agreed with some things the psychiatrist had diagnosed, but they explained that because of how the test works (the scoring) he “failed” because he refused to do certain tasks in the time allotted. This meant he scored zero on most tasks which made him appear cognitively delayed.
EIP started him into three times weekly preschool plus speech therapy 2x weekly. Eventually, they referred us to the Neuropsychiatric Clinic at the children’s hospital. We met the greatest doctor there who started him on some meds and within weeks he was kind of a different kid. For one thing, he slept through the night for the first time ever at 3 years old!
Eventually, with lots of therapy and special education, he has gone on to become VERY high-functioning. He is very verbal, he says I love you all the time, he is potty-trained AND he not only graduated High School… he graduated from College with two degrees. He is even Married with a daughter!! His wife grew up with an autistic sister, so she understands his backward compliments that could seem offensive if you didn’t know better, and other quirks that she knows to ask what he means before assuming he’s being a jerk. Even his daughter is learning to ask him before getting her feelings hurt— a good life skill if you ask me.
Kid #2 (B) was harder. His symptoms were so, so different. His started with feeding difficulties as an infant and what we were told was OCD. We managed with EIP for speech delays that were thought to be a result of the feeding issues. And eventually trying medication and cognitive behavioral therapy for the OCD. He was hospitalized multiple times for the feeding problems, and was tube fed for a long time (3+ years).
Finally at age 9, his OCD was at a point where he could no longer function. He was put into an inpatient program and there he was diagnosed first with Asperger’s, and later Autism when they reviewed the case history and saw symptoms that appeared at ages 3-5.
As soon as he was admitted to the inpatient program, we notified the neuropsych clinic, and requested that C’s doc be involved in the dx. They were able to take him off all of his meds and put him on other, better, fewer meds while still an inpatient so the transition was a lot easier at home.
Of all the things I had prepared mentally for them to diagnose, Autism was definitely not on the list. Heck, I would’ve expected almost
anything else. So I was very resistant to it. Not because of being in denial, but just because he was so completely different of a presentation than C.
Over time, I realized that there was actually a LOT in common. Things I hadn’t really seen, because we already knew how to cope with a lot of the rigid routines, & inability to shift from one activity to another, to name a couple.
He is also very high-functioning following so much time working on helping him re-train his brain. He has graduated HS and college and is also married. They still don’t know if they want to roll the dice on kids.
And my mom says she can't recall anything odd but she admits to me after the appt that she was working full time with 3 kids and kinda just did what she had to so doesn't really feel like she would have picked up on stuff.
This is understandable, especially trying to look back over 3 dozen years ago. I would bet that at the time she did notice some things that made her think
but if your behavior wasn’t completely up-ending the household, and she figured out how to get through it— I wouldn’t really think it’s that unusual that she wouldn’t recall it now. I find that trying to remember things that happened 15-20 years ago to my two youngest neurotypical kids is very difficult. And as happens to most later kids, their baby books are unfortunately incomplete. I find myself remembering things about my youngest in relationship to what was going on with their older brothers.
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So all of this is to say— the effect that Autism has in your life now is something that the psychiatrist can address later.
If you want the diagnosis, the discussion is going to necessarily be centered on childhood, because that’s when Autism starts.
I get wanting the diagnosis. But in the end, psychiatrists medically manage mental health symptoms. The same symptoms can result from many different diagnoses. The treatment is virtually always the same no matter the etiology. Perseverance and inability to adapt thought processes is controlled primarily through using SSRI and other medications, followed by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It doesn’t matter if this comes from AS disorders or from OCD or generalized Anxiety.
My advice is that you tell the psychiatrist that you want to discuss the effects you are experiencing and have experienced in your life at some point. Understand that the process has to follow a stepwise approach from childhood to adulthood. But you can let the Dr know that you’re somewhat anxious about your ongoing symptoms not being addressed. He should be willing to tell you when he will get to that discussion.
My boys’ psychiatrists don’t really even consider their Autism dx’s anymore. They look at what the symptoms are and the effects that has in their day to day life. Autism is just a footnote at this point.
. I’ve often wondered if I have OCD due to some of my anxiety around being on time and the unknown, or things needing to be a certain way. 
