Published on 12, July, 2020
Sorry for first post here being a downbeat and inward-focussed one. This community seems wonderful, having hovered around for a few weeks.
Just need somewhere to offload sense of despair and cruelty of (my particular variety of) neurodivergence. Age 38, recently screened for Autism and beginning the three year wait for assessment.
Meanwhile, having held so much together for years (family, job, voluntary/leisure), everything is falling apart. Past five years have involved admitting vulnerability, making lifestyle changes, and being well supported by those around me. But it's just getting worse.
I thought that by striving and facing every difficulty and discomfort, and trying to hold my own in a world I don't understand, I would become more resilient but it's the complete opposite. I'm fully depleted and have no fight or assertiveness left. It's hurting those around me so much as I withdraw and avoid things and don't communicate properly.
I've sought support through various channels but they're all designed to equip you to face your difficulties, but I'm done facing my difficulties. I've proved I can do it, but any joy/satisfaction from functioning and overcoming difficulty is dwarfed by the miserable sense of inferiority and the giant uphill struggle involved.
People around me ask, earnestly, "how can we help"? I cannot give an answer to this question, as I'm so full of contradictions, shifting perspectives, and internal conflict that, while I'll sometimes contrive to give an answer to remove the awkwardness, the honest one is "I just don't know".
This condition is cruel.
Ah mate, cruel is good word to describe the ‘ism, because it feels deliberately unpleasant to hinder feeling peace around others.I hear you about the battling through (diagnosed age 42, married with child, working etc). But since diagnosis, I’m increasingly realising that I’m still beating myself with the ‘able-ist’ stick: I have had a career and appear normal, so I should be able to cope with it all. Truth is, I can’t, and I want to feel happy and content, so I am increasingly pulling back from others. I hope your nearest and dearest can understand and support you in this, as difficult as it may be for them to understand, because I feel it is necessary. You sound like you feel ground down, and you need time and space to be able to replenish mental reserves. Nothing wrong with that. I hope you feel better for having got your thoughts out into forum-land.
Nice to know there are others in a similar position. I'd like to start setting a "personal code" for navigating all of this, but (a) not sure this would be compatible with daily life; and (b) my mood changes so often that setting routines is a real challenge - I can sometimes face difficulty and handle tricky interpersonal stuff, but this doesn't follow much of a pattern!
Yes. We only have one life and we have the right to at least try to enjoy a lot of it. I was only diagnosed this year (in my mid-fifties) and I’m still trying to work out all the complexities of that, and telling people has been interesting. My Dad barely said a word. Not positive, not negative - just a sort of ‘nothing much’ response!