Are there any women here? #2

This is a root and branch (pardon the pun), fresh-start, clean slate thread...and continuation of the Are there any women here? post 

:) 

Parents
  • I'm still here in the long grass and I hope the discussions will continue as it's still reassuring to read other people talk about life in a way I understand.  I do hope also that men like Lonewarrior and others who identify with a more female iteration of autism feel free to comment too, not all men are the stereotype either.

    Does anyone else feel completely trapped in their lives, or are you in stable, even happy relationships and jobs that have survived the revelation of being autistic?  For the most part I'm behaving exactly as I always have because I see no alternative for survival, but some days I feel sure I'm just shy of breaking completely. ()

  • Rather than feeling trapped in my life, I just feel a bit stuck at the moment. Not just since my diagnosis though, that only happened at the start of January, but for the past three years really. My HFA diagnosis seems to mostly explain why I've been feeling so stuck for so long but it's not really helped with any inspiration or motivation (or whatever it is I need) to become unstuck. 

    I'm in a stable relationship (about 17-ish years now) and the children are grown / growing up so they're not 'full-time' anymore. I just always imagined that by this stage I'd, well ... 'know what I want to be when I grow up' by now, and I don't. I've spent the past 7 months or so attending to my health and getting to the bottom of a lot of things (hence the autism diagnosis) and that's all good, going well and all that ... but I'm just bored bored bored now. 

    I don't really understand what, if anything, I'm supposed to be doing with this diagnosis? I'm learning more and more about it every day, it does explain a lot and makes me feel a lot better about a lot of things, but what are we actually supposed to DO with this new knowledge? Ach, sorry. I'm probably just having a blue day today.    

  • I felt a bit like that Endymion after I got my diagnosis last October. I thought I was going to feel delighted when I actually got the diagnosis, but I didn’t feel much at all. But after talking on here and learning more, after many realisations followed by grief and all of that and eventually I just kind of started accepting it. I think I thought I had already accepted it, but some of the things that happened post diagnosis made me realise that I hadn’t actually really accepted it, actually I hadn’t really thought about accepting it, I had just assumed I had, I think. But as I learned more and with more and more rest and with less and less contact with the outside world, it all kind of started to take on a life of its own. I’m looking into starting a masters degree in autism which looks really really interesting and that will lead to a PhD in the same subject. It’s like all my previous hopes and dreams began to wash away but in their wake, slowly but surely new plans are arising. I’ve still got a lot to do before I do anything, meaning I have many years of ‘stuff’ to sort out and clear out and I’ll be spending time building my fitness up gettimg my eating under control and eating regularly and stuff like that but I sense an exciting future ahead, much better than before because this time, I’ve got no fitting in to do, I can live my life my way. I told my mum and sister tonight that I’m not going to my nieces wedding, which felt weird, because she’s spending thousands and my family are all big into parties and stuff. I’ll miss not seeing all the family and friends but I’d rather catch up with them at funerals to be honest, I find people less interested in how they look etc at funerals. So yeah, I told them, they didn’t make a big deal about it, in fact they didn’t say anything at all. They’ll talk about me behind my back but I don’t mind that, I’d rather they say it behind my back rather than to my face because really, there’s nothing for it. I’m just not into parties. That’s one more step forward into no masking. Next to tell my sons girlfriend I won’t be going to the party she’s organised for him. He’ll wish I was there and I’ll bet I’ll have to sit and listen all about it but that’l be my part, I’ll listen and be all interested, so long as he doesn’t take too long to tell me all about it! 

Reply
  • I felt a bit like that Endymion after I got my diagnosis last October. I thought I was going to feel delighted when I actually got the diagnosis, but I didn’t feel much at all. But after talking on here and learning more, after many realisations followed by grief and all of that and eventually I just kind of started accepting it. I think I thought I had already accepted it, but some of the things that happened post diagnosis made me realise that I hadn’t actually really accepted it, actually I hadn’t really thought about accepting it, I had just assumed I had, I think. But as I learned more and with more and more rest and with less and less contact with the outside world, it all kind of started to take on a life of its own. I’m looking into starting a masters degree in autism which looks really really interesting and that will lead to a PhD in the same subject. It’s like all my previous hopes and dreams began to wash away but in their wake, slowly but surely new plans are arising. I’ve still got a lot to do before I do anything, meaning I have many years of ‘stuff’ to sort out and clear out and I’ll be spending time building my fitness up gettimg my eating under control and eating regularly and stuff like that but I sense an exciting future ahead, much better than before because this time, I’ve got no fitting in to do, I can live my life my way. I told my mum and sister tonight that I’m not going to my nieces wedding, which felt weird, because she’s spending thousands and my family are all big into parties and stuff. I’ll miss not seeing all the family and friends but I’d rather catch up with them at funerals to be honest, I find people less interested in how they look etc at funerals. So yeah, I told them, they didn’t make a big deal about it, in fact they didn’t say anything at all. They’ll talk about me behind my back but I don’t mind that, I’d rather they say it behind my back rather than to my face because really, there’s nothing for it. I’m just not into parties. That’s one more step forward into no masking. Next to tell my sons girlfriend I won’t be going to the party she’s organised for him. He’ll wish I was there and I’ll bet I’ll have to sit and listen all about it but that’l be my part, I’ll listen and be all interested, so long as he doesn’t take too long to tell me all about it! 

Children
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