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Gaining a diagnosis late in life can sometimes open the door to a new world of kinship and self-understanding. Anita Lesko was diagnosed with autism at 50 years old, and for her, it was a revelation. “It was as if the whole puzzle of my entire life, all the pieces, suddenly fell together and made a whole picture,” she says. Lesko, a nurse anesthesiologist, had been told she could be fired because the hospital staff said she was not a “team player”: She often ate lunch alone and objected to heavy-metal music in the operating room, which she found distracting.

Lesko’s diagnosis allowed her to educate the staff about her quirks. Realizing that there must be others like her, she started a support group for adults with autism. There she met Abraham Nielsen, a 25-year-old man with autism, and formed a deep friendship: “We totally understand each other. We’re on the same wavelength,” she says. After a year and a half, they decided to take it further. Lesko doesn’t let anybody touch her, but Nielsen is somehow an exception. “We just can’t touch each other enough—hugging and romance and everything. No one else can come near me,” she says, laughing.

Lesko and Nielsen got married in September at an “all-autism” wedding: All members of the wedding party and many of the 200 guests are on the spectrum. They held the open wedding at an autism conference because, Lesko says, people with autism never get invited to anything. It was the first wedding she herself had ever attended.

Scott’s life, too, has changed dramatically since his diagnosis. Living with only one housemate has given him freedom and a sense of independence he had never experienced before. But he has yet to find a job and, without the structured social activities of the group home, he is sometimes lonely.

He attends group activities with adults who have mental illness, but he is the only participant with autism. “You have to be able to interact, and communicate, and talk, and rap, and all that in order to fit in,” he observes. “If I can’t do that, I’m left out.” He chats with people he meets in his new apartment building but has yet to find someone—other than his roommate and his aides—who will join him on his excursions to Hardee’s or the science museum.

When asked what he thinks a story about adults with autism should cover, he bursts with advice for others in his situation.

“Even if you know you’re not going to be everything society wants you to be or asks you to be, you can still go out and eat,” he says. “Don’t always feel sorry for yourself all the time … You can be around people as much as you’re capable of. You can have a job. Find something to do with yourself, whether it’s working with wood, or a craft or photography.”

Scott no longer makes carvings, but he has embraced photography and takes pictures with his Minolta on excursions around town. He has filled scrapbooks with photos of whatever catches his fancy, from rainbows and Canada geese to his lava lamp and the outside of Home Depot.

Scott’s favorite photo hangs on Leila’s wall, and she is framing a copy for his own apartment. It’s a slightly blurry shot of a basset hound in the back of passing pickup truck. As the truck speeds past, the hound leans into the breeze, its long ears and jowls blown back by the force of the wind. It looks like a picture of joy.

This article appears courtesy of Spectrum .

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