Feeling hopeless after diagnosis

Hi!

Thanks for your words, and yes it's tricky to receive finally the diagnosis feels both good and bad to me. I received it a week ago being 46 years old.

It's good because I finally have objective explanations to many things that happened, and still happen to me.

It's bad because the level of support right after the diagnosis is none: you need to look for it. Which is kind of OK for people with good abilities to cope with it, but I can see it's bad for many others. I think there is much still to do there.

Anyway, I see this community is a good point, to find and help each other. I read already "Living with Intensity" and helped me to see many Overexcitabilities, reasons behind and cases that relate to mine. Also some strategies to cope a bit better: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Intensity-Understanding-Sensitivity-Excitability/dp/0910707898/

After 46 years of living with this, I'm not going to review my whole life under this ASD in one go. So I'll give me time to review, memory by memory and see if they make more sense now. Because we are also our memories, and they help us to understand how we are now, and how to cope better with the present and future. Taking easy even sometimes it's not, is my way now. Let's see.

Cheers and see you around!

What a rude reply!!

In that case no-one asked you for your Amazon program recommendation, especially as it was centred on children/teenagers with Autism and I am pretty sure the OP is an adult. 

Well as I said, I found it helpful and interesting. I do not need to be recommended something I didn't ask for.

Well I watched some of it but it mainly about children with more severe autism.

I did find an interesting on the BBC which, I could really relate to, that said I am on the Asperger's end of the Spectrum :)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-51475739

I found the program "autism: a curious case of the human mind" on Amazon helpful and interesting. It helps family understand their relatives who have autism 

I was diagnosed a few years ago and to this day my mind flashes back and I relive the difficult moments that I can now see with the knowledge of being autistic.

They aren't pleasant but I'm used to it now. I haven't seen much research on it but its probably natural that our brains would need to readjust our memories with this new understanding and of course with us being adults with a lot of memories, there's a lot to go over.

This has been long i have seen such nice post really it is awesome
getsharey.com/.../

Hi I have just had my diagnosis made official and am also experiencing a grief type reaction the best way I can describe it is a grief for the "normal" me I wanted to be the social butterfly that I'll never become , it's strange to want and miss something you've never had but that's the way it feels although I'm slowly beginning to accept nothing has really changed and I'm quite happy actually being me it's when I compare myself to others that I have issues 

Reading books written by ASD adults/women has helped me massively. Some I'd recommend are:

'Very late diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome (ASD)' by Philip Wylie

'Pretending to be normal' by Liane Holliday Willey

'The electricity of every living thing' by Katherine May

'A pony in the bedroom' by Susan Dunne (this also has the most accurate description of the experience of post traumatic stress that I've ever read)

'The girl with the curly hair' by Alis Rowe is a very well laid out book that would be good for NTs to read.

I have my diagnosis in 2 weeks, so am slightly nervous in case they say I don't have ASD, as I'm pretty sure I have! 

I hope you start to feel more positive soon.

ones i have read and liked: (Odd girl out is good)

Nerdy Shy and socially inappropriate - Cynthia Kim " - and her blog www.musingsofanaspie.com  (this is one of the first I read and made me pretty sure I was aspie - pages of it could have been written for me)

Aspergers for Dummies (there is also Autism for Dummies)

Aspergirls - Rudy Simone

An Adult with an Autism Diagnosis: A Guide for the Newly Diagnosed - Gillan Drew

Been there done that an aspie guide - compendium

If you don't mind what are probably less than legal pdfs, this site has several of those books on: https://www.pdfdrive.com/

Hi, I was diagnosed last December. I think that being diagnosed can trigger a lot of different emotions. Some people do feel a sense of grief and depression. The diagnostic reports are horrible things to read! I read mine twice and then shoved it in a drawer. I didn’t find it particularly pleasant to read about all my social and communication  mistakes either! 

But, there are positives to come out of a diagnosis. It will open up a whole new understanding of yourself and hopefully enable you to make life changes that will make your life easier. 

Do you have a support plan in place? Are you in contact with your local autism services? It might be worth making an appointment with your GP to discuss how you are currently feeling as they will be able to help you and also signpost you to relevant services.

Good luck! 

Are there any books you specifically recommend? Our library's books on autism mostly refer to children and teenagers and I'm an adult woman - I took a look but they really don't apply to me. I have requested 'Odd Girl Out' which is in another branch, and I've asked if they can buy 'Spectrum Women' and 'Everyday Aspergers' (they say they will take requests to buy books, so I asked and it looks like they will as they've appeared in the catalogue as 'ordered').

I'm hoping I can find the right book to lend to my parents to help them to understand better - especially my sensory sensitivities (I was labelled by them as 'too sensitive' when I was a child so I had to learn to ignore or deny a lot of those sensory things) and executive function difficulties (labelled as 'laziness').

Totally agree with the others, this is perfectly normal, I was diagnosed last September, and even though I've known all my life I was autistic, it totally shook me, the only thing you can do is give it time, I still haven't really got used to it.

All the best

I think it's natural to have down moments/doubts after diagnosis- after all, the diagnosis has not changed you...just changed what you know about you. I was diagnosed a year ago and am still in a bit of a state of bewilderment about what it all means - some days make sense, some days don't.

Being on here helps and seeing the experiences of others, reading books etc has also been useful for me to try and understand me a bit better.

Hi, yes I can relate to some of that. I was diagnosed a fortnight ago after a 19 month wait on the NHS, at age 52. I think that the grief reaction is understandable and common, because irrespective of how you view the differences that ASD gives you, it's something you didn't know you had for sure for many years and hence there's a lot of reinterpreting of memories to do. Also understanding for the first time that any aspects that you find challenging are permanent is itself something that needs adjusting to.

I'm still on a reasonable "high" of at last having an explanation and justification for my preferences.

What I keep coming back to is that knowledge is power and I can say "No I'm not going to that party / off-site overnight meeting / social event / road trip to see my parents" and add on "because it won't be kind to aspects of my autism" either to myself or, if necessary, to anyone who asks why.