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Would your life have been different if you’d been diagnosed earlier?

NAS76602

Hello all,

Like a lot on here I was diagnosed later on in life, in my fifties and fairly recently. My daughter asked me if my life would have been different and would I go back and change it if I could. 

I had to think about this, and I’m still trying to work it out. My initial answer is yes I really do wish I’d have been diagnosed earlier and had educational plans in place and maybe not bullied as much and gotten my degrees a few years earlier than I did. 

BUT……

Im ok with who I am, and maybe my struggles are what made me who I am and maybe without struggles I’d not have built the resilience I have. 

I thought it was a good question. Do you guys wish you’d have been diagnosed earlier on in life? And if so would your life have been different to how it is now?

Parents

  • Oh boy! The 50 thousand dollar question. I have considered it and decided that things just unfold at the right time.

    I've just turned 57 and was diagnosed in November. When I showed my mother the diagnosis, she cried. 'But I kept telling the school something was wrong. You could have had the help'. I had to reassure her Dr Wing didn't even make the connection between Asperger's and Kanner's autism until 1981 and there was nothing she could have done.

    For me had it not been for my chronic medical phobias resulting in melt downs, I'd have gone my whole life bumbling along with some things harder and some easier than for the average bod and NEVER have known why I was different.

    Looking back, sure! Had I come out of the womb with 'autistic synesthete with significant SPD; medics handle with extreme care', stamped on my backside, maybe I would have been saved some life threatening anguish.

    But then again, would I have liked what 'help' looked like in the 1970s? All that ABA; forced not to stim, make eye contact and hug my parents? Errr no thanks. Would I have wanted to be super protected and cossetted as my younger autistic cousins were in the 90s, such that they and their parents were terrified the first time they did everything alone..Err no!  Nobody told me I couldn't do stuff, so harder as it was for me, I b***dy well did it all anyway; got a degree, lived abroad, got a job, raised a kid alone. The last thing I'd have wanted was anybody advising me not to pursue my dreams. And hey! So much I did, I did not inspite of my autism, but BECAUSE of my autism. My autism is my friend.

    The only thing I regret is the pain I've been through to get anyone to understand the MH fallout vis a vis the medical phobia. But, things unfold when they do for a reason. If something I've lived through helps someone else now...I'm still working out how I can use that...then it was right that I worked it out WHEN I worked it out.

    No regrets.

Reply

  • Oh boy! The 50 thousand dollar question. I have considered it and decided that things just unfold at the right time.

    I've just turned 57 and was diagnosed in November. When I showed my mother the diagnosis, she cried. 'But I kept telling the school something was wrong. You could have had the help'. I had to reassure her Dr Wing didn't even make the connection between Asperger's and Kanner's autism until 1981 and there was nothing she could have done.

    For me had it not been for my chronic medical phobias resulting in melt downs, I'd have gone my whole life bumbling along with some things harder and some easier than for the average bod and NEVER have known why I was different.

    Looking back, sure! Had I come out of the womb with 'autistic synesthete with significant SPD; medics handle with extreme care', stamped on my backside, maybe I would have been saved some life threatening anguish.

    But then again, would I have liked what 'help' looked like in the 1970s? All that ABA; forced not to stim, make eye contact and hug my parents? Errr no thanks. Would I have wanted to be super protected and cossetted as my younger autistic cousins were in the 90s, such that they and their parents were terrified the first time they did everything alone..Err no!  Nobody told me I couldn't do stuff, so harder as it was for me, I b***dy well did it all anyway; got a degree, lived abroad, got a job, raised a kid alone. The last thing I'd have wanted was anybody advising me not to pursue my dreams. And hey! So much I did, I did not inspite of my autism, but BECAUSE of my autism. My autism is my friend.

    The only thing I regret is the pain I've been through to get anyone to understand the MH fallout vis a vis the medical phobia. But, things unfold when they do for a reason. If something I've lived through helps someone else now...I'm still working out how I can use that...then it was right that I worked it out WHEN I worked it out.

    No regrets.

Children
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