Struggle with Diagnosis?

[Nervous Rex]

I think I felt defeated. Like I'd spent a lifetime fighting a battle only to find out I was in the wrong field. Thing is, that took a bit of time to work out, because my first instinct was "so, now I find out that I cannot win and I never could". But I was actually fighting the wrong battles, because I didn't know the battles I could win. The feelings that understanding triggers are a mixed bunch.

First of all it's regret and perhaps bitterness for missed opportunity, missed chances, for tears of frustration that never needed to be shed. But then, I thought, would i want to be someone else? Perhaps, but I couldn't think of wanting an NT brain; frankly that seems repulsive: worrying about celebs, who said what about who, etc. And so it's a feeling of relief. That part of my life is done. For whatever reason, that was how it had to be for me to end up here, and I am here. I can't second guess why it all happened that way, but that struggle of fighting the wrong battles is DONE!!! Woohoo!!!! I mean sure, sometimes I get sucked back in to trying to do politics (and failing) trying to be cool (and failing) trying to schmooze (and failing), but I can have the epiphany again and again: "don't need to do this".

And finally, it's the recognition that you have your own armoury of weapons, that others don't have. That's not some "2e" thing, it's that removing some perspectives on the world frees the mind to understand things differently. We truly have an uncommon view. Other people don't have it, can't have it, as much as they might want to they can't see the way we do. And we can use that, we just have to have the self-belief to do so, and be able to pick ourselves up when others get spooked or envious. And, for those of us diagnosed later in life, who have been fighting with all strength for DECADES, we have to find the energy. Give yourself the time you need, but have in mind that you will be getting back on your horse soon, and off into battle.... just the right one this time.

Beautifully written.

A diagnosis is not a list of inabilities. It's a list of differences.

 

[Nervous Rex]

I also am dealing with not knowing for so long and how super duper awful that was, a lot, and how I wish I'd understood my parents were also autistic, because not understanding their failure to respond to my adolescent needs for support threw me into a world of hurt, for, basically, the rest of my life and if I had of understood autism and how they are it, I wouldn't have felt so hurt, so rejected and so thrown into the "too hard basket" that I was. My brother said that, a few years ago, how he watched them do that to me and yeah, that's what happened and I'm still not completely over that trauma.

I went through a lot of the same thing. I was diagnosed at age 48 and for about two years afterward, I obsessed over who might have known before I did and didn't tell me or what my life might have been like had I known earlier.

I know my mother took me at a very young age to a relative who was a school counselor at the time to have me evaluated, so they clearly knew something was up. I just think that there wasn't enough widespread awareness of autism 50 years ago. So...they knew I was different but didn't know why, how different, or what to do about it.

And I also have to admit that I myself probably wasn't ready to find out until I was 48. I had been in counseling for a few years before and had told the counselor on my first appointment, "Don't tell me if I have some sort of disorder - that would crush me. I want to believe that I can change and overcome my problems." I am certain now that that counselor knew I was autistic from day one and respected my wishes by not telling me. It was more than ten years after that event that I was ready to find out for myself.

So, in the end, I remember that I found out when I was ready to find out.

 

[SeanF]

I went through a lot of the same thing. I was diagnosed at age 48 and for about two years afterward, I obsessed over who might have known before I did and didn't tell me or what my life might have been like had I known earlier.

I know my mother took me at a very young age to a relative who was a school counselor at the time to have me evaluated, so they clearly knew something was up. I just think that there wasn't enough widespread awareness of autism 50 years ago. So...they knew I was different but didn't know why, how different, or what to do about it.

And I also have to admit that I myself probably wasn't ready to find out until I was 48. I had been in counseling for a few years before and had told the counselor on my first appointment, "Don't tell me if I have some sort of disorder - that would crush me. I want to believe that I can change and overcome my problems." I am certain now that that counselor knew I was autistic from day one and respected my wishes by not telling me. It was more than ten years after that event that I was ready to find out for myself.

So, in the end, I remember that I found out when I was ready to find out.

Solid point. And I can see that being true in my own journey as well. I am not sure I would have accept this early in life either.