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Beginning Adult Diagnosis Odyssey at 44 - interested to hear other's experiences navigating this winding path in middle-life.

Quietdude

Burnout and depression led to therapy, leading to the beginning of a possible adult diagnosis at 44. Profound sense of a weight being lifted, but also anger, doubts, confusion. Interested to hear other people's experiences and words of advice travelling this path in mid-life. 

Parents

  • Huh, interesting. I can see that there are two replies for this thread, but neither of them are showing up when I open the thread. Oh well, if you can read this:

    Welcome to the community! Yes, mixed emotions after finding out you have Autism is very common. You’ll find that a lot of people on here have gone through the same rollercoaster of emotions that come with having that realization so late in life.

  • in reply to profdanger

    Hi. yes, I'm not sure what's going on with the replies. I replied to an early reply, both of which have disappeared! 

    Thanks for the welcome. As I said in the previous now invisible reply, I'm still processing. Still guarded about who I talk to (hence the appeal of this forum as a welcoming space), and still unsure what any of this will mean in the longer-term. It's helped to see lots of folks approaching or having passed through a diagnostic phase. I'm right at the start of that. I was in therapy for a while, which led to the suspicion of autism, the theory being that my depression was driven by burnout after a lifetime of moderately successful "masking" started to fail in the face of, well, adult human existence and that comes packaged with that, plus grief. So far it's been liberating to a point, insofar that my the difficulties of my past (and present) look very different when viewed through the AU lens. Also upsetting, maddening. 

  • in reply to Quietdude

    So do you feel like you are currently in burnout? Are you still in therapy?

    I feel like therapy has always helped me, but I’ve seen other people on here say that therapy doesn’t always work for Autistics.

    Don’t feel like you need to rush to feel more at ease with being Autistic. It can sometimes take a while for the grief and upset to calm down into more acceptance. I think something that really helps with that process is to read up on other people’s experiences. Knowing others have or are going through similar trials can be a huge help in the acceptance process.

  • in reply to profdanger

    Thanks for the advice. Good to know that I'm not alone in feeling a little scared about next steps. 

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