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.

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.

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.

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.