Hi there,
My name is Sophie and I was diagnosed with Autism at the age of 18 years old in July 2021. The diagnosis was a long-time coming, I had struggled with my mental health for years on end and had always put down my behavior to simply that - my anxiety, my depression, my OCD. So, when I got diagnosed, it felt like both a weight lifted off my shoulders and a new burden to have to come to grips with. For so long, I wondered why I was unable to form friendships, why eye contact and being touched scared me, why I was so sensitive to noise and smell, and why I was considered 'intelligent' but found it virtually impossible to pass exams at school. I have to stick to the same foods and these are all dependent on texture. This means that I don't eat very well at all, I will hardly ever have full meals and I never venture out of my comfort zone. The list goes on, we'd be here for hours.
The biggest thing that I have always struggled with is understanding emotions. To me, emotions cannot have more than one meaning. If you're crying, that must mean that you're sad. If you're shouting, that must mean you're angry...and so on. I've always never been able to grasp the concept of my own emotions - I never know what I am feeling or why I am feeling it. To me, there are only four emotions that I feel. Happiness, sadness, anger, and fear. Sadness and fear seem to be the two that I feel the most. Any other emotion other than those four is completely foreign to me...I have no idea what they feel like, if I have ever experienced them, or if and when other people are experiencing them. This means that I find it very hard to make and maintain relationships. I can't make eye contact with anybody...it scares me too much. I also really struggle to engage in conversation with people - I can never understand social cues and if I'm meant to laugh, smile, or frown at something. Often, I'll react in the wrong way and come across as insensitive or cruel, so I've been told. But I don't mean to come across that way...and, when I do, I feel sad. Sad that I've upset somebody else, sad that I'm unable to do something as simple as talking to somebody like so many others seem perfectly capable of.
I suppose I am writing this post to ask how people came to terms with their diagnosis if it was something that happened later on in life. I recently read a book called 'Odd Girl Out' by Laura James, which has made me even more eager to learn about Autism and ways to adapt my life to work with my Autism, not around it. Funnily enough, Laura James was diagnosed by the same psychiatrist as me, so she really resonated with me.
