Internalising a formal ASC diagnosis

Thanks for sharing this - it sounds like trying to adapt to the diagnosis has been really difficult for you and everyone around you. 

Not sure if I  hate the idea of being inherently different, I think much of the current struggle comes out of struggling to remain clear in the sense of self, after deliberately discounting and suppressing a load of difficult experiences in seeking 'normality' since my pre-teens,  and now having a diagnosis that actually accredits them as part of who I am, more so in many ways than whatever masks I may have created on top. Genuinely lost at times.

I really hope things improve for you and you can experience a degree of reassurance and peace on the matter.

Thanks for that, I Sperg. Like the other respondents on here, it is encouraging to hear that there is a path through this. Like them also, the path does require reconciliation to the diagnosis. Looks like I may need to be more deliberate about this rather than hoping it will 'sink in'. I've been in a kind of suppressed denial for so long about the length and depth of struggling that there is a strong internal voice invalidating the whole thing and basically telling me to grow up and stop inventing stuff. The coping mechanism so far has always been one of deliberately forgetting and  pushing through, but I discovered in July 2020 that this method was no longer working. 

Thanks again.

Thanks for your openness with your experience. This past week has felt hugely destabilised for me, tension and stress far higher than normal, every day starting out painfully dysregulated and noticing with acute awareness autistic traits, overwhelm, sensitivities and so on. 

At the same time, exhaustion and overwhelm (simply feeling like I can't cope further) have led to cracks in masking, which brings feelings of being  unnaturally exposed, vulnerable and horribly compromised.

Your observations about coming to know personal autistic traits and then managing them is probably where I need to be rather than engaged in a fight against a diagnosis that literally all the evidence is pointing at, and which to accept provokes an unnameable gamut of poignant feelings. 

Thanks for that analogy. This provokes me to think that part of the problem I'm experiencing is not accepting the (dare I say it) 'normality' of autism - it does feel like a massive paradigm-shifting foundational thing, yet perhaps it would indeed be better to see it in as  a 'natural' thing as with the things you alluded to.

Thanks for that insight - one thing that comes from this is that some more patience might be in order on my part. I also agree that there is a high degree of probability that an internalised script is adding resistance. 

It doesn't matter whether you accept it or not, you are autistic and you've always been autistic - nothing has changed except your perception of yourself. But that perception will have been created from the stereotyped ideas of autism you've been fed by society over your lifetime.

My discovery that I was autistic (in my fifties) was a shock. It felt like part of my brain was saying "oh yeah, I get it now - that's why you've always felt different" while another part of my brain was thinking " but I can't be autistic, I'm normal! ". But autism IS normal, for those of us born with brains that work a certain way. It's a bit like the Schrodingers Cat hypothesis - everyone is normal, while at the same time nobody is (because everyone is unique)

The only way I could reconcile with my autism was to learn about it. I also found it helpful to learn about how neurotypical brains develop and what the difference is to autistic brains (The best resource I found for this was a book called "A field guide to Earthlings - an Autistic / Asperger view of neurotypical behaviour" ) It also helped to read posts on here written by other autistic adults, and to watch videos on the internet of autistic adults who don't "look" autistic. 

Now, some years later, I "own" my autism. I don't tell everyone I meet, but I have told people I work with as I know them well. Although I wish I had made some different decisions when I was younger, I can't change that - I can only decide how I want to live now, which is a life that pretty much suits me - living within walking distance of work so I don't have to get the bus daily, working in a quiet office with my desk facing the wall and control over temperature and lighting (having asked for and been granted reasonable adjustments) and spending most of my non working time at home, with my partner and my special interests. I don't go to the work Christmas party, I don't hide my "unusual" special interests any more, and I'm no longer bothered if people like me or not. Since accepting myself, I appear to have become more accepted by others - perhaps because I now display my genuine self?

I wonder if it's a gender thing? I see many posts from men who have a negative response to diagnosis, but not so many from women, women, if anything, seem to feel relief. This is just my observation from posts on here, I'm happy to be proven wrong, but if my observations are correct then maybe we caan work out some different coping strategies?

NAS84405 said:

Trying to move on and yet feel so held back by this inability to come to terms. What did any of you do to reconcile with your diagnosis?

I found it worked best to accept that autism is just another aspect of what I wam - much like my skin colour, my blood type, my gender (controvertial statement these days but not the topic here), my right handedness and my eye colour.

All are unchangable and I had no say in what they are so it is best to simply accept that they are part of you.

Once you educate yourself about autism, identify your strongest traits, how the traits impact you and how you can work on makeing them less of a problem then you now have the tools to tackle the bad bits.

Think of the analogy of skin colour. If you were very pale skinned and the result was you burned easily in the sun. A reasonable approach would be to cover up, wear sunscreen or avoid going out in the sun. Simple.

If you were left handed and found most tools in your workplace were right handed then you would work on becoming ambidexterous.

I won't go into the gender thing here as that will have the woke mob onto me LOL.

You get the idea - it is your approach to it that makes the difference. Once you accept it is there (like having a Friday in a week) and decide to work on dealing with the bad things it brings to make them better then you are taking control - owning it and taking its power slowly away.

NAS93721 said:

I don't WANT to be autistic, and it worries me that my eldest daughter is displaying many of the same traits as me.

I'm sorry it is an issue for you but you can't change it so work on it - the same advice applies here. Learn, respond and educate are your best weapons here.

It is never an easy path but the results are worth it.

In some ways I'm still going through that reconciliation process, but recent weeks I've felt it's becoming less painful. (Diagnosis was in Feb)

It's horrible to go through, knowing all my life I was different and that difference made things harder for me, caused issues for others and meant some things were unavoidably broken has been horrible . But then being diagnosed , finding it was definitely something I couldn't ever change was hard, very hard to accept.

I went through a very tough stage of feeling hyper aware of my autism, feeling like I didn't fit in,  would never fit in, people would be better off without me, I'm sure you know the thoughts. Distressing is an understatement.

I've had some counselling, did some psychoeducation sessions, read, joined this forum and read about peoples experiences. Also did some CBT just before diagnosis.

More recently, I have started to realise that autism isn't the only thing that's put people in the same disadvantaged position, there's neurological issues, mental health issues, physical issues, then social , financial issues. Put those together and that "normal" I craved to be  is a very hard to pin down minority within society. It may not actually exist. 

I've used the knowledge of my autism to understand myself. It means I can sometimes recognise when it's about to cause distress and stop it happening, realise when a big reaction I have to something is just totally wrong and can be ignored (not easy!) other times be less hard on myself and generally being less angry with the world. I meter out my energy more now, avoid things I know might hurt me that day, do them when I feel I might be more able, or not at all. Picking up on hobbies I'd abandoned last year due to becoming obsessed and unable to cope with them, approaching them with caution.

I've started to drop my mask at times. This is making me feel I have more energy. I think I was masking so much more than I would ever have needed to that it's probably made life easier not doing so much. 

Realising I don't need to get everything right all the time was hard, I used to stress that to fit in I must get 110 percent right , also be absolutely a people pleaser, or people would notice my difference and kick me out socially or at work. It's time to be slightly more selfish and not worry about other people's opinion of me. 

I've reflected on the whole of my life and focused on the bad. But recently started to think about achievements, some being solely down to autistic obsessive hyperfocus and attention to detail. 

I think everyone needs to go on a journey themselves to find some peace with it, I'm not there yet by a long way, but do feel I'm on my way but with a long way to go.

Reading this might not help or make it click into place for anyone else, but it might help them see that it's not as bad forever. There's been more good days in between the bad as I've gone along.

To anyone reading this, Good luck with your journey, I'm sure it'll be ok eventually, it's not easy. Above all look after yourself.

For me the big negative is that I had to face the fact that some things will ALWAYS be difficult to impossible for me. 

I lost hope that things will improve for me.

But I also realsed that everything I have achieved up to the present date was in ignorance of my "disabilty", I.E. I had been fighting wearing the blindfold of ignorance whilst having one hand tied behind my back (Autism). 

Keeping with the fighting metaphor, having the blindfold removed is not initially helpful. (The fight of life still goes on and for a while it's easier to keep ones eyes shut because the light hurts) Initially post diagnosis I actually did a litte worse, and felt I had lost myself. 

Recently I've been obtaining insight as to how I present to the outside world through the spate of Autistic characters appearng on the T.V. and my ever helpful o/h bringing my attention to the ones that resemble me, or at least aspects of me. Can't say it's pretty, but it is a part of ME and it's no longer clamouring for recognition. And it's a PART of me, not the whole thing. 

Like I indicated, self-reintegration has taken me 3-4 years, but I now respect my own achievements in life more than I used to, and expect to do slightly better overall in life, as I can certainly shorten the duration of my "blunders" or miscommunictaions as soon as I see them develop. 

I've found family and friends not so much sympathetic, but less likely to get annoyed at some of the things I do, but also less inclined to accept leadership from me, when it's my "turn".

I have sympathy and respect for disabled people who struggle and keep pressing on anyway, (Never give up! Never Surrender!)

Some adapt so well that despite the missing leg or gammy hand their disability is not the first thing that they see, and not so upsetting when you do. You see them here, working the problems and talking about real thngs rather than just complaining about "muh Autism". 

MY kid is Neurodivergent and as she says "You aren't ragghing on me for being intrinsically different, YOU have to adapt to ME in teh areas where I cannot perform as you would like me to. 

Although I lacked the insight to undertand my limitations (due to the undiagnosed AUDD) I've proven that I can pass military basic traiing, get qualifications, do good work, and I hold a (now lapsed) pilot licence so I am clearly able to function at a reasonably high level, compared to the average NT, so I'm not really "disabled" (no "free money" for me, sadly, unless I lie my *** off), just socially FUBAR. 

I can live with that. After I have, so far....

Me too! Marriage, children and a good job - now they've all gone because the symptoms became unmanageable. I don't WANT to be autistic, and it worries me that my eldest daughter is displaying many of the same traits as me. It isn't a 'superpower' it's a debilitating illness that has only made me and everyone around me miserable. Like you, I absolutely hate the idea I am inherantly different, and I would do anything to be normal - not that it will be possible.