Published on 12, July, 2020
Following on from my thread last week, I have now been diagnosed with Asperger's.
I thought I'd feel really happy but I'm still at the confused/denial stage. I do have aftercare available to me but im going to give it a few months to let the diagnosis settle in first.
I'm glad that you know now. Knowing is better than uncertainty. That's good that you've got aftercare available.
Yes, knowing has to be better than not knowing. Try and keep positive. it is not that you are now condemned to having the issues for life, it is that now you know why and you need to manage the issues to suit you, and you have a world of knowledge and experience to help you do that, and you can focus on taking advantage of everything that is special about you. Hugs. Look forward to a brighter future.
Having said all that and trying to be positive to everyone about everything on the forums, and I know it is the right thing to do, and I am pretty much telling myself the same thing when I tell others, I think I have hit a down day today after being diagnosed a few weeks ago. I think there has been a little bit of "oh dear" in me today, thinking I am always going to have to work at it. I know I can do it, and I know in a few days I will feel better, but I guess we all hit that down trend here and there.
I'll say it again, if only to say it out loud for me to listen to myself, stay positive, look to the future, get stuck into positive things, and all the best.
Oh, and a spider baby is better than a baby spider. A baby spider will get eaten by other spiders, whereas a spider baby is a figment of Father Dougal's imagination based on a comedy line around a spider being treated like a baby, thereby bringing a smile to people's faces. Better being something based on imagination and bringing happiness than being something likely to be eaten. Stay being a SpiderBaby and don't become the BabySpider...
Thanks IamwhoIam and Tinyexplorer. You are both right and I read your replies last night and had a think about it and I feel so much more positive about it today. I've only just realised I don't have to keep struggling to keep up with everyone else anymore, I'm never going to magically 'grow up' one day and become like them so I can finally stop trying to and just relax.
I Am Who I Am - sorry to hear you were having a down day yesterday, hope you're feeling more positive today.
SpiderBaby said:I've only just realised I don't have to keep struggling to keep up with everyone else anymore, I'm never going to magically 'grow up' one day and become like them so I can finally stop trying to and just relax.
Yes! Me too! Isn't that part of it wonderful?
Whilst I'll readily admit that I've had a pretty privileged life (and my oddly-wired brain has played a part in that), I've had a habit of comparing myself to others who've achieved more; those who have risen to lead departments, or become professors at universities, or invented useful things, lead political movements, taught children and young adults and in doing so enriched the lives of others, been active as volunteer ambassadors for their professions, founded companies, gone to the moon, people who make instant life and death decisions and take responsibility for them in the face of legal consequences if it goes wrong (surgeons for instance), lead orchestras and created magnificent choirs from a rag-tag bunch of co-workers, commanded aircraft carriers and submarines, and I've berated myself for the fact that *"I couldn't do that!"*. Not that I know all of the people like this personally, though I do know one or two.
But now I've finally revised my expectations, and I'm working on revising the expectations of people around me not least my parents and children! I knew a decade ago that I would never be the attentive and convivial host who has dinner parties and puts everyone at ease, takes their coats and finds something to complement each of them on without feeling embarrassed and passing that feeling on to them; nor was I the person who would "ask after" people to find out what they are up to, because in truth, I'm not interested in their new kitchen or motorhome and certainly not their grandchildren. And now I am letting myself off the hook and no longer trying to pretend, because I've realised that I don't have to. That's not just because I now have an official diagnosis, but it's because I've got older and wiser and, yes, the explanatory framework provided by the descriptions of ASD allow me to understand and explain that doing these things costs me mentally far more than it costs an average person, so I'm not going to because I know it's bad for my mental health - and who can argue with that?