Getting used to me

Hi Chris,
Welcome to the community!

I think it's very normal to have one of two reactions: 1. Surprise, confusion, doubt, imposter syndrome. 2. A sense of everything 'falling into place,' and reframing a whole lifetime through the prism of our new understanding. Both can overlap, and both are, I think, different expressions of a questing mind that loves drawing connections between unexpectedand seemingly disparate points.

Personally, I started in the doubt and moved into the reframing. I still fluctuate a bit between them, but mostly I find myself in the latter, and I'm grateful for that, it can be very liberating. 

I hope you can find what you're seeking in this community. It's a very valuable space for a very diverse group. Congrats on joining - it's brave to put yourself out there like this :)

Thank you, Sphinx. I think everything fell into place when I questioned my own brand of 'weirdness' so the diagnosis has merely confirmed what I think I already knew.

It's like I don't know how to react. Having spent my whole life adapting to suit other people, I feel like I'm free for the first time to respond to this in my own chosen way, and I just don't know how to choose my own reactions any more.

Not sure if that makes sense!

It makes total sense. Again, I think there are two very common and understandable  possibilities for how confirmation of our Autistic identity 'lands' with us, especially when we've always felt different from our peers: 1. Finally feeling we can give ourselves permission to unmask, and being told by everyone around us that we're 'more Autistic now.' 2. A sense of 'and now what?': having such an ingrained mask that we don't know how to begin unravelling it. 

I'm afraid I have no concrete advice to offer. Maybe exploring, even 'trying on' lots of Autistic traits you may have been suppressing could help? For example, trying stims, actively looking for potential special interests if you don't already have them, consciously building a routine that life may have made it hard for you to justify or maintain until now... How does that sound? 

It makes total sense. Again, I think there are two very common and understandable  possibilities for how confirmation of our Autistic identity 'lands' with us, especially when we've always felt different from our peers: 1. Finally feeling we can give ourselves permission to unmask, and being told by everyone around us that we're 'more Autistic now.' 2. A sense of 'and now what?': having such an ingrained mask that we don't know how to begin unravelling it. 

I'm afraid I have no concrete advice to offer. Maybe exploring, even 'trying on' lots of Autistic traits you may have been suppressing could help? For example, trying stims, actively looking for potential special interests if you don't already have them, consciously building a routine that life may have made it hard for you to justify or maintain until now... How does that sound? 

That's so true, sphynx, that the mask is so ingrained we don't know how to unravel it. That sums up me not knowing who I am! Or maybe I know me but I'm having to uproot myself from the 'NT but odd' box and plop myself into the 'ASD and happy with it' box...