Brain health · Sanctum

Recognised late, often through a child

It often clicks sideways. Your child is assessed and you see yourself in every line. Or you read another late-recognised person’s story and your whole life rearranges itself in an afternoon. The recognition arrives, finally, through someone else.

This is one of the most common routes in, because these conditions run in families and were missed in a whole generation. Sitting in your child’s feedback, or reading a stranger’s account, you recognise the pattern in yourself that no one ever named, sometimes for the first time in fifty years.

Because the recognition comes informally rather than from a clinic, people doubt it, and wonder if they are imagining it or jumping on a bandwagon. They are usually not. That jolt of seeing yourself is worth taking seriously, not talking yourself out of.

We take late, sideways recognition as a valid starting point, because for many people it is the first time the pattern has ever been seen. None of this is a diagnosis. It is what we explore with you.

Written by Dr Asad RaffiConsultant Psychiatrist · Founder & Medical Director