Coming to terms with realising you are probably autistic

I felt pretty much the same as you the only thing I would add to that is for me it was very confusing because I always struggled with my own sense of identity and as I was finding out on my own that I'm aspie it grounded me a lot because I could relate so much to what I was reading and watching etc that it blew away pretty much everything I thought about myself as a person. Which was both quite scary and relieving at the same time.

Hello O,

Thanks for sharing this.  I'm interested to know, did you self-diagnose?  You mentioned that you were finding out on your own that you were an Aspie.  I guess I'm self-diagnosed at the moment, although I'm still waiting for an assessment.  I'm pretty sure that I am, but sometimes I wonder what I will do if it turns out I'm not.

I can relate to what you say about being scared and relieved at the same time.  Also about how your knowledge of autism blew away everything you thought about yourself as a person.  I'm having a similar experience.  I think I'm perhaps even starting to accept myself, which is something I've never been able to do so far.

I would like to add that I did it for me and it's something that I keep quite private in my life I'm open about it on here but day to day I don't really talk about it because it was just something I needed to help me understand my self better because (and this is something of a "symptom") I never felt "real" in the sense I always felt so different from everyone and so alone and I never knew why and it got me down so much. But now I know and there is a reason I feel a lot better in my self in the sense that I'm not going crazy. I have days where I doubt that I actually am but then I just look over the notes I made about my traits and then I realise that I'm not wrong and that it's hard because there is not way to feel what someone else feels, like trying to describe colours to blind person there's no common reference point that people can use especially for how you perceive the world all I know is that for me the world is different than how most people see it.

I would like to add that I did it for me and it's something that I keep quite private in my life I'm open about it on here but day to day I don't really talk about it because it was just something I needed to help me understand my self better because (and this is something of a "symptom") I never felt "real" in the sense I always felt so different from everyone and so alone and I never knew why and it got me down so much. But now I know and there is a reason I feel a lot better in my self in the sense that I'm not going crazy. I have days where I doubt that I actually am but then I just look over the notes I made about my traits and then I realise that I'm not wrong and that it's hard because there is not way to feel what someone else feels, like trying to describe colours to blind person there's no common reference point that people can use especially for how you perceive the world all I know is that for me the world is different than how most people see it.

Hi sport,

Did you have another autism assessment?  What was the outcome that you were hoping for (did you think that you might have something different)?

I was retested and found to confirmed to be autistic with +dd.I had wanted to have it to maybe lose the label.

It is frustrating not to have been diagnosed earlier.  It's good that you are still in your early twenties, though.  I wish you all the best in continuing to come to terms with your diagnosis.

You mention that you wish someone had picked up on it when you were younger.  I feel the same.  I don't know if this is true of a lot of autistic people, but for me I feel like there was a lot going on under the surface that people didn't see from the outside:  I was quiet and didn't (still don't) make a lot of facial expressions, so people didn't realise how much I was struggling.  It feels like Aspergers can be a hidden problem, which perhaps makes it harder to diagnose.  I also did my very best to behave normally and have normal conversations with people.  I'm a woman (from your picture I'm guessing you are a man?) and apparently women often get diagnosed later in life because they try really hard to cover up their social awkwardness.

I really hope that the official term becomes ASC rather than ASD.  It's so upsetting being told you have a disorder, when you've already spent most of your life feeling like there's something wrong with you.

Im 22 got diagnosed at 22 also

Ultramarine said:

social anxiety and low self esteem.  Sleep issues are also a chronic thing

I deal with the same stuff too, I also wish someone picked up on it when I was younger too it would have spared me from a lot of "stuff".

I use aspie because I am pretty much the stereotypical Aspergers type of person when you read up about Aspergers rather than classic autism, they got rid of Aspergers as a diagnosis because of issues for people getting help with Aspergers rather than autism and they said there are a lot of similarities between the two so they just put it all under the umbrella of Autism Spectrum disorders, but I don't think I really like that there's not reason I shouldn't have access to help because of a Aspergers diagnosis rather than a autism diagnosis and it's still quite normal from what I have read, and if you just search up "classic autism" and "Aspergers" there are differences but for me the details matter.

They are also trying to change from ASD to ASC (from disorder to condition)

Hi O, thanks for sharing.  Do you mind if I ask how old you were when you got the diagnosis?  I'm 38 and will probably be 39 by the time I have my assessment.  I have spent a really long time trying to figure out why I have had various problems - for example, I had an eating disorder and have always struggled with social anxiety and low self esteem.  Sleep issues are also a chronic thing.  When I learned about autism, I understood that I probably have a spectrum condition, which would explain all the different aspects.  

You mentioned that you hadn't thought about autism as a possibility before, because you didn't know much about it.  I was the same.  I wish that there was more mainstream awareness of it - perhaps then more younger people would get diagnosed.  I wish someone had helped me understand earlier that I was autistic.  Then I wouldn't have spent so many years thinking that there was something wrong with me.  I feel bad about this sometimes, but then I think that the silver lining is empathy.  The fact that I struggled for a long time, not knowing the cause, can help me empathise better with others on the spectrum.

You use the term Aspergers.  I prefer that to 'ASD'.  I hate the 'disorder' term.  I like to think of brains as like seashells on the beach.  Each one is formed slightly differently, like anything in nature.  I know people aren't diagnosed as Aspergers any more, but I would prefer to use this term for myself because at least it's neutral.