Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
Diagnosed with autism on Monday this week at age 42. I am still trying to process this, I thought I would be relieved but mostly I'm just feeling overwhelmed at the moment. I haven't told anyone about the diagnosis yet, not even my husband. I'm feeling anxious about telling my family and not sure how I will cope with their reactions.
Just wondering how other people diagnosed as adults told their close family about their diagnosis? If it was me, I would want to be given all of the information in written form but not sure if this would be too much to start with. Any thoughts?
You're also going to start replaying your life over and over in your head, analysing every interaction and decision you've ever made wondering if you behaved rationally or because of your autism. Have you done things in the past that were probably not the right thing in hindsight to irrationally avoid stress?
You'll start analysing relationships to see if people really are your friends or have they been using your naive, trusting personality against you.
You'll start to realise that your life may not be going along the path that's best for you - lots of us reach burn-out when our mask cannot provide a nice user-interface to cover all of the increasing complexities of life so it's like spinning plates - eventually, there's too many and it all comes crashing down - crisis time - it's that point where a lot of us get diagnosed.
You might need some time to figure out who the real you is - and time to figure out who you want to be and what you want to do about it.
What you have said is so true - I have already reached burn out last year, which led to me leaving my job, I have managed to scrape through life with my masking abilities but whether it's my age or just finally exhaustion with all the pretence and trying to fit in, the mask just doesn't work any more and I have unravelled. Hopefully this diagnosis is the beginning of a more positive chapter, but as you say, first I need some time to find out who the real me is.
I'm trying not to dwell too much on the past, although I can now smile at some things I have done, which looking back in hindsight make perfect sense now. For example, my in depth end of term school project on Ancient Egyptian Civilisation age 8, with interactive map of the Nile, when most friends wrote half a page on Madonna! I can still feel the shocked silence of my friends and teacher on the day I presented it to the class!