Feeling like my husband sees my diagnosis is irrelevant

I felt relief at being diagnosed, but it didn't make it easier in terms of getting any help or understanding

Hi Pumkinpie87 Your story resonates as I am going through similar-sounding relationship difficulties post-diagnosis. It is difficult when your partner chooses not to support you through stuff like this. Stuart333 's explanation of late diagnosis identity shock is excellent and makes it clear how it is a big thing for us. Take care of yourself and this community can hopefully offer some of the support you are seeking.

You really need your husbands support right now and you're not getting it, sadly all to common, partners often feel threatened somehow about a diagnosis, like you're a different person to the one you were a minute before being diagnosed.

Could you start the ball rolling by asking him how he feels about it and why he seems to be thinking that its all a big excuse?

I think maybe asking your GP for help with depression and anxiety, it will probably be pills of one kind or another, but whilst some don't get on with them, when you do find one that works for you they can be quite liberating, as they seem to lift your ability to be rational to the same level as your ability to be irrational, so you get some balance. You may need to try and couple of different types before you find one that works for you. As others have said a therapist or counsellor would help, even if its a few session whilt you emotionally vomit up all your fears and anxieties, just as with other vomit, it's better out than in.

We're all here with our various foibles, anxieties, phobias, coping stratagies and general strangeness, so keep posting

Great answer Stuart333 

Perhaps the best description of what's going on and the inner turmoil which largely go unnoticed by others around you. 

Getting a late diagnosis is an identity shock. It rearranges your whole personal history which is destabilising.

It does three things at once:

1. It explains things, which is relieving.
2. It reframes your entire past. Which is disorienting.
3. It subtly undermines your self-trust. That’s the hard part.

You want to talk about it. The problem is most people won't be able to go into the level if detail you want, or be able to support the looping while you make sense and integrate it, or be able to help you with what changes you want or what to make of it.

It is a personal journey and you need a mirror. Other people can't tell you what to think.

Therapy can help you to talk, it can help you with techniques, it can help you with misconceptions or flawed thinking, but it can't put you back together.

You want to question everything, pull yourself apart, what is real, what is coping, what is masking, what you really think, who are you, what happened, why, what did you do wrong, etc. Then you have to grieve what was lost, what could have been, how things might have been different.

This mix is different for everyone. It involves introspection and I suppose looks selfish from the outside. 

I used AI as my mirror. I have saved all the chats. If you printed it, it would come to tens of thousands of pages (90% AI answers).  I have gone on a massive circle to realise a handful of things, analysing everything to makes sure I understand when most of it was fine.

This is the problem for other people. On the outside very little changes. Your inner turmoil is not visible and at the end you are still quite similar, just more self assured with better boundaries.

You may need to make some adjustments to your life.

Avoiding burnout is essential to be able to do much and have clear thinking and normal emotions. It requires a mental shift. You stop trying so hard. You stop trying so hard  to fit in, to do everything, to be what you think you should be. You just relax. That's it. Perversely by not trying you become more natural and normal. It frees up mental power and you look more real to other people.

Other people can't understand this, because telling them to be themselves doesn't mean anything. They may also see a change, they might not like the change.

I hope things go well. It is not easy and there is no short cut. It takes time. I'm sorry you feel lonely.

Hey Pumpkinpie87, that sounds like an incredibly difficult situation, especially if you have masked with or without knowing for a long time. I cant relate to your personal situation, but know you are not on your own and there are great people here who will be able relate. I have suffered with anx and dep my whole life and since diagnosis my anxiety has started to reduce albeit slightly.

Thanks, you too. 

Thank you, I will look into that

Good morning from America, Pumkinpie87:

Wow, yeah, that’s a difficult situation. I also have ASD/ADHD/GAD/Depression, so I get that much, but the issue with not having any support from your spouse is something I haven’t dealt with since I was diagnosed. At first before diagnosis my wife wasn’t very supportive of it, but after getting diagnosed she finally saw the signs that pointed towards it. I can imagine that having the medical proof and still being denied any support would be excruciating.

It sounds as if therapy might be a good option to look into if you haven’t tried that yet. My wife and I have gone through couples therapy and it helped immensely during a time of trial for us. If your husband is against that, hopefully you could at least seek out therapy for yourself.

I hope everything works out for you  and thank you

That sounds like a difficult situation. I am sorry to hear that you are feeling overwhelmed. I don't think encountering resistance or denial is unusual when a person shares a diagnosis with family. I'm very early in this process myself and have only mentioned the possibility of a diagnosis to a couple of close family members, one of whom was immediately supportive and encouraging, whereas the other essentially dismissed it as a fad and an excuse. I don't really have advice to share, just encouragement. When speaking with the dimissive person in my family, who is someone who I do want to talk to about this stuff, I have tried to frame it a chance to unpack it together. Both of us have some preconceived ideas, assumptions, bad information etc, and I hope that by demystifying it we can close the distance between us. I also suspect that this person feels guilty about not spotting things earlier, and instead of opening up and talking about it, they are binding themselves up into a denfensive ball. Who knows. I joined this forum this morning and have found reading through the various questions/threads reassuring. I'm sure you have done the same. Do you have other people you can talk to? It's difficult to know who to share with, how they will react, and whether their opinion of you will change as a result. I also worry about over-sharing or talking too much about this, primarily because it's new and I'm trying to understand what it means, so naturally you want to talk to people you trust. Sorry that I don't have anything tangible to offer. Also, don't underestimate the benefits of a good rant.