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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

  • To be honest, I think a childhood diagnosis would have been counterproductive for me. I think that 'being thrown in at the deep end' in schools with a broad range of children - including thugs (although I cultivated some, so I had thugs on my side as well) - made me more resilient than I would have been otherwise. Ideally, a diagnosis at 17-ish might have been good, so that I had support doing A-levels and my degree, which I found stressful in some ways.

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  • To be honest, I think a childhood diagnosis would have been counterproductive for me. I think that 'being thrown in at the deep end' in schools with a broad range of children - including thugs (although I cultivated some, so I had thugs on my side as well) - made me more resilient than I would have been otherwise. Ideally, a diagnosis at 17-ish might have been good, so that I had support doing A-levels and my degree, which I found stressful in some ways.

Children
  • in reply to Martin

    Hi, I could have just written your reply. I leant to cultivate the hardest thug in the school. It isn’t hard it just takes time. I was no threat as I was just the wimp. He always had his position to keep in the ecosystem. There is often a power behind the throne. One thing I did learn is that there is no substitute for brains. I think a diagnosis I’m my late teens would have given me a lot more tools to use throughout life. To have been outed in a single sex school in the early 80’s wouldn’t have helped!