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Not being allowed to be diffrent

NAS65321

Hi I am 52 and only found out about ASD two years ago. I always knew I was diffrent and as a kid unless you were disruptive at school nobody ever really looked hard. I was a sickly child and at one point there was talk of sending me to the 'special' school which I fought against. Looking back they may have found my ASD there? Anyway I was never allowed to be anything less than 'normal' as a child. I was a very average child and was never disruptive or in trouble.

I just wonder how things could have been diffrent? Outwardly I am married, have a mortgage, always had a job, and have no kids by choice (probably down to ASD). But have always spent a life masking and trying to fit in, which is exhausting. I guess I am not alone in being like this at this age? I am wondering how would have my life had been diffrent with an early diagnosis? Alternativley how would things be diffrent now if there was no such thing as a ASD diagnosis now and everybody was just left to get on with it?

Rob

  • I find the title to this post interesting when you say 'not allowed'.

    I've always felt the same, but in hindsight, it's that I've always just listened to the negative commentary to when I was acting 'different'. I now know I was just being myself.

    So for me it's been about cultivating the strength, and presence of mind, in those situations when I'm questioned to realise, it's not me that's the issue, it's the context I find myself in, so instead of changing my behaviour, I should instead change the context - and leave, most often.

    This can be challenging, especially as many of those instances are from being around my family. But I have to find places that are more accepting of the way I am, however tough that is.

    Often, it just means I need to be content in being with myself and knowing that is ok too

  • in reply to Martin

    I was diagnosed, as a boy, but it's only recently whenever I went out of my comfort zone.

    I don't like the whole obsession with 'Safe Spaces'. The only, truly, safe space is Prison. There is a world out there, beyond your TV.

  • in reply to JT

    I think that had I been given a childhood diagnosis, I would not have become as resilient as I am. I also feel that I would not have challenged myself to do difficult and uncomfortable things, the things that allowed me to reach the goals in life that I really wanted to achieve.

  • i hear you. diagnosed at 40. lifelong struggles with anxiety and latwr depression. sickness soon followed and i have Crohns disease.

    persoanlly, i think an earlier diagnosis would have given me an excuse not to try. So without it, i have endured and am veey proud of my achievements un light of being on the spectrum.

    i think in many ways, society's ignorance to what autism really is for many people would have been a limiting factor in my life, so the survival ive maintained has been the best i could hope for.

    i hopw though, one day, my son might be treated better if he dies in fact turn out to be on the spectrum

  • I was diagnosed last year at 56. When I showed my mum my diagnosis, she cried. "But you could have had help", she said.

    Hmmm...I get where you are coming from and I have asked myself that question too. But in the end, I think this is more of an upset for my mum than me

    In the first place, however, awful my school days, I'm kind of glad no one could have known. Dr Wing didn't make the connection between Kanner's and Asperger's Autism until 1981, when I'd have been 16. The only help then would have been those hideous ABA therapies; forcing hugs and eye contact and stopping stims. No thanks. Or locking me up in an institution. No thanks. And I kind of get that no one got over- protective of me either. So having battled through my dyslexia and autism sensory issues and school bullies, it also meant that come the moment I trotted off to Europe alone, no one thought to tell me:'No'.

    That said, given my lifetime of issues with the medical profession and medical phobias, do I wish someone could have said: " You're not mad. And no your personality is not disordered, you just have a whopping big sensory processing problem"?, - of course I do. They could have saved me a whole lot of pain and spared me a dangerous misdiagnosis.

    I have mixed feelings on that one. But, we are where we are. What counts now is how I move forward for me now and the noise I can make so others are recognised and spared some pain.

  • I'm a 43 year-old 'Bum with a Degree'. However, my family's home and land sold; which provided revenue for my brother and I to buy our new homes - outright - and live life on our own terms. So, I'm blessed.

    However, the old 'compare and despair' is ALWAYS there. The negative critical voice in my head - usually my Nan, or the closest woman I had to a Partner - imposing their perfectionism on me. When I was younger, I thought it was Schizophrenia. Now now, on reflection, it was the Asperger's.

  • Hell no you aren’t different. 52 here, diagnosed two years ago and still trying to process it all. 

    someone said that it’s like watching a whole TV series and there’s a huge twist. Then going back and getting upset because of all the foreshadowing you missed.