Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
I'm in my late 50s - have just had a diagnosis of autism confirmed.
Certainly, as an adult I'm very structured and have fixed routines (prefer to do the same thing each day, eat the same thing for days on end, really struggle with social anxiety which I think manage with 'scripting' but a lot of this has become second nature, I have a couple of artistic interests which I get very focused on to the exclusion of other things). I think I might be alexithymic in that I have a very poor sense of what my own emotional state is, but I'm pretty good at reading other people's states.
While the diagnosis has led me to a few "oh of course" moments, it's also been really confusing since as a child I don't think I exhibited any of the signs that are associated with autism. Similarly, I can make eye contact with people and feel as though I'm pretty empathetic and know what to do in social situations.
All of this has got me doubting my diagnosis and wondering if I'm autistic at all? In fact, rather than giving me answers I feel a bit like my identity up to now has been taken away?
Any advice in dealing with this would be really appreciated.
Bloody hell. Okay, so I told my mother-in-law about my diagnosis yesterday and without missing a beat she told me that you can read anything into "these things" as its just like a horoscope and that "everyone is neurodivergent" these days. I feel so humiliated and embarrassed for even mentioning it.
I brought up the subject of autism to my dad and brother when someone in the media was diagnosed as being autistic, as hopefully a way to start ‘the’ conversation about my diagnosis a year ago. They responded with “it’s not autism it’s attention seeking”. No surprises that I still haven’t told them and have to go through the most exhausting masking process whenever I am in there company.
And yet these very same people accuse us of being “freaks and weirdos” with “mental health issues”, see us as being “hopeless and heedless” in “attracting and inviting” their prejudiced and discrimatory bullying behaviour towards ourselves by our own actions and behaviour, telling us to “cop ourselves on” (or else they will go all Lugs Brannigan on us) and at the same time will push us towards a diagnosis when they secretly maintain that the reason we have it is because we were not slapped hard enough and often enough as kids and they believe that the only way to “cure” our autism is a severe beating from them or from the police/army (all of the above has been said to me on many occasions even after my diagnosis)