Published on 12, July, 2020
I was diagnosed 2 weeks ago at the age of 31 and I definitely wasn’t expecting this huge sense of imposter syndrome!
What I find confusing is my issues didn’t really start to come to light until I was 17/18 and started having panic attacks (they generally happened in busy environments or around flashing lights). After that it was down hill from there and my ability to function just got worse and worse.
Prior to that though I was so good at hiding the things that made me anxious and I never really shared my emotions. I don’t recall having panic attacks and coped reasonably well with flashing lights etc. While especially in my teen years I always felt different for no particular reason, I still managed to get by with no obvious issues.
I did stim as a child and teen but very subtly (scalp picking, picking the skin around my nails, swinging on chairs, smelling things, rubbing my feet together when in bed, dancing, moving about a lot etc) but as I went into adulthood and I became more educated about stims I definitely started doing more obvious stims (rocking, ticing, singing, swaying from side to side, rolling of the eyes, nose scrunching etc) I sometimes feel I started doing them due to being influenced. Yet I now can’t stop doing them because they make me feel so much happier. This whole thing is confusing to me.
Why do you think a lot of adults who get diagnosed late seem to have got by with no obvious signs until something big happens to them as they get older? Why do you think as we get older we can’t seem to cope as well? I would love to know other people’s thoughts on this because it blows my mind that I had this my whole life yet managed to get by and function.....
Aimeelou1992 said:Why do you think as we get older we can’t seem to cope as well?
Accumulated trauma and the accumulated pressures of life.
For me it was my wife deciding after 20 years of not wanting a child that she now wanted one and the carefully constructed routines, comforts and financial stability were all about to be blown up if that happened. That was the trigger.
Aimeelou1992 said:Why do you think a lot of adults who get diagnosed late seem to have got by with no obvious signs until something big happens to them as they get older?
We naturally develop coping techniques and those who are good at it skate by on the thin ice of our autism while those with more serious traits break through the ice into breakdowns much sooner and/or more often.
Because we have well developed coping mechanisms it takes something big to cause the overload into burnout or meltdown then it often all changes - we can't cope as well anymore and ilife just won't go back together the way it used to.
I guess one thae genie is out the bottle it is impossible tp put back in without help.
That would be my high level answers.