Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello,
I just got my formal diagnosis for Autism this morning at the age of 40.
I feel so mixed up and never felt more confused my life! I have a massive sense of relief, that now finally something explains why I struggle with things as much as I do and why I react to things in a certain way. I feel angry that no one (myself included) recognised it sooner, that I’ve struggled so much, even ending up hospitalised in a psychiatric ward, and no one there even considered autism as a diagnosis, that my parents never recognised it in me or my teachers. I feel scared about what this now means for the future, about whether to tell people, how I move forward from this. I feel numb. I feel sad that this is my life and resent the diagnosis. I feel like I want to shout it from the rooftops, and also tell not a soul. I feel like I need to research every single thing even more than I have already. I feel like celebrating and crying all at the same time.
I just wondered if this was a ‘normal’ response to getting a diagnosis? How did other people feel? What did you do next?
I basically felt exactly the same as you, and I was diagnosed back in March at the age of 21, so I really don't know how bad it would feel if I had been twice that age. My best advice is to leave it a couple of weeks/ months to let the knowledge settle and get used to it before trying to act on it. Remember that once you tell people, you can't take that back, so the best option is to only tell people if absolutely want/ have to.
Thanks for the good advice. You’re right, anything I do now I can’t take back. I have no idea of how anyone would react to it, so that is a whole other thing to consider!