Adult dx: Anger towards those who should’ve done something

Yes, i think that, over time, these feelings can fade, but also that it's entirely understandable that they bubble up, particularly while you're still going through the diagnostic process. 

Myself, i was finally diagnosed at age 55 and have a lifetime of bullying, isolation, marginalisation and exclusion to look back on (school, uni, workplace).  I also look back upon decades of trying to get help, from around the age of 13/14 via the self-help section in the library, to various rounds of "therapy" later in life.  I also trained as a counsellor, which involved a LOT of peer group work, skills practice and observation from various tutors and nobody ever mentioned autism.  So, yes, I feel angry and misjudged.  I even think that a couple of times that I was made redundant it related almost entirely to me being autistic and being blamed for my autistic traits - things that they wouldn't have been able to get away with had I been diagnosed and therefore protected by disability legislation.    

That said, I'm also a guilty party.  I didn't identify it in my children, I took schools' explanations about anxiety, rounded development, socialising etc (all things I'd personally had issues with so I made sure to ask about them) at face value and adopted many of the practices that non autistic parents advise because, of course, I thought we were non autistic too.  We learnt the hard way that opportunities to socialise and desensitise us can easily back fire and cause more trauma.  Intergenerational trauma is a massive issue, i think, with breakdowns, suicidality, relationship and work issues coming up time and time again across the generations, each time met with no relevant help and no idea about autism.  I still don't know where to take these issues (NAS, please advise!).

This has also applied to mental health services where, I believe, staff still don't have sufficient training to be able to identify autism.  A half days autism awareness training is woefully inadequate.  It's generally not the fault of individuals I don't think, but rather it's systemic and cultural.  So the people who were supposed to love and/or care for me didn't have the knowledge or experience to help and many of the things they did (out of love!) turned out to be damaging.  

So yes, to me it seems like an utter mess and anger is quite an appropriate response.  The difficulty, I think, lies in where to direct this anger.        

Yes, i think that, over time, these feelings can fade, but also that it's entirely understandable that they bubble up, particularly while you're still going through the diagnostic process. 

Myself, i was finally diagnosed at age 55 and have a lifetime of bullying, isolation, marginalisation and exclusion to look back on (school, uni, workplace).  I also look back upon decades of trying to get help, from around the age of 13/14 via the self-help section in the library, to various rounds of "therapy" later in life.  I also trained as a counsellor, which involved a LOT of peer group work, skills practice and observation from various tutors and nobody ever mentioned autism.  So, yes, I feel angry and misjudged.  I even think that a couple of times that I was made redundant it related almost entirely to me being autistic and being blamed for my autistic traits - things that they wouldn't have been able to get away with had I been diagnosed and therefore protected by disability legislation.    

That said, I'm also a guilty party.  I didn't identify it in my children, I took schools' explanations about anxiety, rounded development, socialising etc (all things I'd personally had issues with so I made sure to ask about them) at face value and adopted many of the practices that non autistic parents advise because, of course, I thought we were non autistic too.  We learnt the hard way that opportunities to socialise and desensitise us can easily back fire and cause more trauma.  Intergenerational trauma is a massive issue, i think, with breakdowns, suicidality, relationship and work issues coming up time and time again across the generations, each time met with no relevant help and no idea about autism.  I still don't know where to take these issues (NAS, please advise!).

This has also applied to mental health services where, I believe, staff still don't have sufficient training to be able to identify autism.  A half days autism awareness training is woefully inadequate.  It's generally not the fault of individuals I don't think, but rather it's systemic and cultural.  So the people who were supposed to love and/or care for me didn't have the knowledge or experience to help and many of the things they did (out of love!) turned out to be damaging.  

So yes, to me it seems like an utter mess and anger is quite an appropriate response.  The difficulty, I think, lies in where to direct this anger.