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Newly diagnosed at 34

71986

Hi all , I’m newly diagnosed at 34, and imagine like a lot of people it just makes sense. What I’m struggling with is what support is available , how do I start to make sense of becoming the real me . How do I get my wife to accept that and my needs 

  • Support for adults depends on your needs and what you want - it could be an autism support group, if there is one in your area, or if you're employed it could be reasonable adjustments by your employer.

    I would suggest looking at information on autistic masking to help you work out the real you, then decide what masking you want to discard and what is useful to help you cope when meeting others. This website has a section on masking which you may find helpful: 

    https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/masking

    You need to talk to your wife about how you feel and how being autistic affects you and your behaviour. Explain what your needs are and ask her for her support. Share things you learn about autism & masking so that she learns about it too. And remember that it's going to take her time to process this information. Communication and compromise are the keys to a good relationship. 

    I wish you both well and hope that you find this forum useful.

  • Hi Joshua! I work best in list format, so here goes:

    1. You might want to change your username to not show both your first and last name. There’s a policy to try not to reveal identifying information on this forum.

    2. There’s probably a better user than me on this forum for addressing what supports are available, as I am from America and supports probably look very different over here. So I’ll leave that to someone else.

    3. As for finding the real you; I have found that watching and learning from other Autistic people’s perspectives has helped in my personal journey. I read several books written by Autistic individuals that have sparked little “aha!” moments in learning more about my own traits and behaviors. The most important factor in learning more about yourself, however, is time. Give yourself time to figure out who you are.

    4. Getting your wife to accept your diagnosis is a tough one. I have a NT wife and she also disregarded that I am Autistic until I received an official diagnosis at age 30. Once I had that diagnosis, it took a few months but she eventually realized that I am definitely Autistic. It helped that she did her own research around that time and realized that many of the common traits of Autism align with mine. As for having her accept your needs, the best advice I can give is either give it time or invest in couple’s counseling. I recently went through couple’s counseling with my wife (it was more for how our ND daughters and other family issues are straining our relationship, but my personal needs ended up being a part of it too) and it was a big help for us.

    I hope that helps!