Hi Everyone,
I am new to the site and just wanted to share my story. Dont really feel abke to talk to anyone around me as even when I try they just dont seem to get what I am trying to say. Not actually having a formal diagnosis yet I feel very much in limbo but the more research I have done, the more I feel that autism fits and allows me to actually make sense of and contextualise my life.
I have always been 'odd' or strange and just felt like I jave never really fit in. I always put it down to things that happened in my childhood. I was not an easy upbringing losing my nan at 8 and alcholics and drug addicts bringing me up, it's no wonder I'm messed up.
A desire to strike out and create a real family of my own resulted in me marrying the first woman I had a serious relationship with, even though inside I knew it would not last. But I had given her my word we would marry before we had our second child and then a few weeks later was staring at a positive test. "I guess that means we're getting married then." Not the most romantic of proposals.
Fast forward 4 years and another baby and the inevitable happens she found someone else amd the marriage broke down. I went off the rails and had a mental break down and was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I never really thought this fit me but I was happy to have an explanation for this feeling of being on the outside looking in on my life.
I took all the tablets, went to all the therapists and groups, but nothing really changed. So eventually I decided I just had to pretend I was ok.
So I begun to rebuild my life. Retrained as a teacher and in the spring of 2015, had my eureka moment. I was attending am ASC training course and the trainer happened to mention people in my age group who had been misdiagnosed with various personality and mental health disorders, where yreatments had not worked as there was actually an underlying ASC condition.
I wondered of I could be one of those people but didnt share these thought with anyone. I mean surely I would know. One of my children has a diagnosis.
A few weeks later I mentioned this to a colleague who didn't seem at all surprised. So I tentatively told my partner. "Duh, you are almost a textbook definition. Everyone at work thought you were when you started." Was I really the last one to know?
I then begun to do a bit of research and it was as if I could actually see myself for the first time. So much of my childhood now made sense.
Now it's been about a year since firsr mentioning this to my GP and I am still waiting for a formal diagnosis. In that time my anxiety and depression has flared up but the positive to come out of this is that my new mental health team have also are supportive of a diagnosis and have given me an informal one. So now I am in limbo waiting for an assessment as this will obviously have a bearing on treatment going forward. I'm hoping to know before I get married in May. I think she deserves to know beforehand too.
It's not been easy but I have managed to maintain a relationship. A lot of the time I dont know what to do or say and she finds my lack of emotion hard as i can seem to show emotion when it doesnt mean anything.
Apologies for the huge rambling on but on a somewhat selfish note it's felt good to try and actually verbalise my story on the hopes of making sense.
I guess I just want to talk to people who might understand and see how others cope.
Am finding everythng quite overwhelming at the moment and the process frustratingly slow.