Adopted

Hi,

I was adopted from birth in 1964, and got my diagnosis last year at age 60. 

I was very happy to get this diagnosis as I could then make sense of why life has turned out the way it has.

I was told about my adoption from being quite young and it never really meant anything. To me, my adoptive parents have always been mum and dad and I've never had any interest in looking up my birth parents. 

I started to have mental health problems on and off from around about age 20 but these were anxiety related due to not being able to progress at work.(or so I thought at the time). 

Fast forward to around 2017 and my wife and I became foster parents for a child with learning difficulties,  later diagnosed as atypical autism. They had been assessed over the years and it had always been put down to attachment issues as had been in care since age 3. 

I noted the similarities in behaviour to myself at times, and after I had a heart attack 5 years ago, things became more noticeable, like stimming, meltdowns coming out of nowhere as I'd become more irritable.

I had worked most of my life as a gardener and this is quite a good way of masking autistic traits,  but as I hadn't worked for a year after the heart attack, the mask had started to come off.

It was then I realised that if I'd had any sort of behaviour problems as a child it would have been put down to attachment issues through being adopted, so had really been masking autism all my life.

After explaining this to my doctor,  I managed to get an assessment within a few months.

Hi,

I was adopted from birth in 1964, and got my diagnosis last year at age 60. 

I was very happy to get this diagnosis as I could then make sense of why life has turned out the way it has.

I was told about my adoption from being quite young and it never really meant anything. To me, my adoptive parents have always been mum and dad and I've never had any interest in looking up my birth parents. 

I started to have mental health problems on and off from around about age 20 but these were anxiety related due to not being able to progress at work.(or so I thought at the time). 

Fast forward to around 2017 and my wife and I became foster parents for a child with learning difficulties,  later diagnosed as atypical autism. They had been assessed over the years and it had always been put down to attachment issues as had been in care since age 3. 

I noted the similarities in behaviour to myself at times, and after I had a heart attack 5 years ago, things became more noticeable, like stimming, meltdowns coming out of nowhere as I'd become more irritable.

I had worked most of my life as a gardener and this is quite a good way of masking autistic traits,  but as I hadn't worked for a year after the heart attack, the mask had started to come off.

It was then I realised that if I'd had any sort of behaviour problems as a child it would have been put down to attachment issues through being adopted, so had really been masking autism all my life.

After explaining this to my doctor,  I managed to get an assessment within a few months.

Thank you, that was very helpful. I feel that I was masking so much due to the adoption, and trying to fit in with that family, that I literally lost sight of who I was. Conversely, being autistic helped me survive the very pronounced mismatch between us children and what the parents wanted us to be.  I retreated into my own world of books and animals; horse riding and dog walking, two hobbies that could be supported and ridiculed at the same time.  

Attachment issues are of course something that informs my life and again, I'm not sure exactly how due to the overlap with autism.  Or have I got that wrong?  Half the extended adoptive family rejected us verbally and emotionally, with very pronounced and often laughable interactions; if we visited a grandparent, they left out the front door whilst we were ushered in through the back door.  One aunt never ever spoke to me at any family event and could often be overheard saying derogatory things. But here my autism saved me from being even remotely bothered, I just never cared what she thought and how her family behaved towards us, as the non-relatives. 

So yes I have always been avoidant of closeness and highly self sufficient and rejecting closeness, again as I thought due to the difficult adoption. 

But as an adult, I was lucky to have a significant partner and closeness with my girlfriends throughout our relationships, albeit hopping from one to the other with barely a break in-between. But again, living apart, in separate houses despite one 8 year relationship. 

Living with anyone was always a very difficult adjustment to make and even then we had separate bedrooms, like royalty as I would often joke, but maintain strictly.  

My own unmasking came about through trauma of homelessness.  I am now in social housing and feel that I can finally be me at the age of 58.  

And trying to honestly and positively look at my life history, I am just trying to understand me and that life story with those two threads running throughout. 

Although I am categorically anti-adoption as I feel my own situation was abysmal and it caused me far more harm than benefits due to that particular families inadequacies to deal with many issues around alcoholism, and abuse.

I am please to finally get the right label of autism, rather than depression, anxiety, OCD and other female maladies. 

Hence I want to embrace my autism fully and get the support I never had as an abandoned baby/child. 

Even the over thinking, has its rewards. 

And the meltdown at work 3 weeks ago, was the total reset I needed.  Now instead of blaming myself I understand my reactions were justified.

Thankyou.

Unfortunately another chore beckons, but I may come back to you if thats ok.