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Why sm i so angry that i was diagnosed as an adult and not when i was younger

fernminion95

i was diagnosed at 29 with autism, i have reached the anger stage of acceptance, i am not sure why i am so angry i think it is because if i was diagnosed earlier i may of received the help i needed at school and people would of treated me differently instead of bullying me, i went my whole life being bullied for being different, i also have fibromyalgia now so that doesn't help, i struggle to make friends i just keep myself to myself and do my work, does anyone have any advice, how did you feel when you were diagnosed later on in life. 

Parents

  • I’m in middle thirties and although at the time when I was a child, knowledge about autism was much less advanced than it’s now, I was picked by teachers. Because of my mom I have never been assessed. Now question, is it bad? For some reasons - yes. I grew up thinking, that I’m inferior, failure, with low self esteem I was also suicidal. I used to hate myself. This is bad. Now question, would it be better if I got diagnosed in my childhood or teens? Not necessarily! I red about some people more or less my age, who got diagnosed with autism as children and send for “therapies”. These therapies turned out to be abusive and traumatic to the point that these people till today as adults are processing this trauma. It was also very much possible that I would have received no help at all, as many people I even here report no support after receiving dx. I was treated by my family like stupid, I was always told I’m gonna fail etc. I rebelled out and studied logistics anyway, I’m not sure if I have had enough courage to fight for my future if I had this kind of attitude “I’m disabled so I can’t achieve anything”. This is wrong thinking but my family definitely has it, even though they think I’m not autistic, just weird. 
    there are various possibilities of what could have happened if… but for me the best option is to appreciate what I have. 

Reply

  • I’m in middle thirties and although at the time when I was a child, knowledge about autism was much less advanced than it’s now, I was picked by teachers. Because of my mom I have never been assessed. Now question, is it bad? For some reasons - yes. I grew up thinking, that I’m inferior, failure, with low self esteem I was also suicidal. I used to hate myself. This is bad. Now question, would it be better if I got diagnosed in my childhood or teens? Not necessarily! I red about some people more or less my age, who got diagnosed with autism as children and send for “therapies”. These therapies turned out to be abusive and traumatic to the point that these people till today as adults are processing this trauma. It was also very much possible that I would have received no help at all, as many people I even here report no support after receiving dx. I was treated by my family like stupid, I was always told I’m gonna fail etc. I rebelled out and studied logistics anyway, I’m not sure if I have had enough courage to fight for my future if I had this kind of attitude “I’m disabled so I can’t achieve anything”. This is wrong thinking but my family definitely has it, even though they think I’m not autistic, just weird. 
    there are various possibilities of what could have happened if… but for me the best option is to appreciate what I have. 

Children
  • in reply to Alien0n3arth

    I was going to put something similar, so I'll reply here instead.

    I was in an online autistic group session a few weeks ago. A few of us were moaning that we'd been diagnosed late. Then a 20 something woman who had been diagnosed age 6 went on to describe all the problems she had. Her treatment by her family after sounded pretty grim and she ended up in care. There were other very sad stories, and she is only just turning her life around now. Her story stunned the rest of us into silence and we didn't complain any more that day. I'm not really sure what my point is - but an early diagnosis certainly didn't help her.