Mr Angry!

I am 49 and newly diagnosed with ASD - after first seeing a psych doc at age 11. It's gone from bad to worse since then, and I have really been left in the dirt, hurt, let down, betrayed....

And I am very, very, very angry.

Hiya,don't worry I can relate to some of what you are going through,my advice is to try not to feel so angry,it is very bad for your health,and it could give you a heart attack one day!Also maybe you could join a local support group?Then you would not feel so alone,as there are many others in the 'same boat',you know:-)!I am a 46 year old lady(apparently us females are harder to diagnose,as we are good at hideing stuff more)so I was told I was suffering from 'stress',but I know different,but I still have that hurdle to get over.There are various services to support people like us,also if you wanted to go for a voluntary job,and you spoke to them about your Aspergers,they should support you and be 'non judgemental',as there has been some coverage in the news recently about it too.

Hope this helps,

t c

Gorgia

This forum is, as you have found, a goldmine of thoughts and insights about our condition.

Unfortunately, CC passed away a while ago - his wife posted the sad news. He can't hear you but he would have been glad to know that his words are still appreciated.

Anger was a phase I went through just before I got diagnosed. I was Victor Meldrew with a streak of very angry and bitter retaliation against the world. A friend gave me a book on anger management and it taught me that anger is pointless because it only hurts oneself. The only point of anger can be to motivate yourself to work out how to be less angry, how to be more at ease with the world, how to find explanations rather than excuses and blame.

You can come out the other side in one piece. Keep thinking about it. Keep noticing the triggers. Keep finding explanations and keep finding satisfaction in having explanations. I find that explanations for bad events gives me some satisfaction in working out the root causes of bad events and it makes me less angry because so much of ones life is explicable with some insight into ones nature. So much of life springs from that rather than any conspiracy or badness in other people. Other people are self-centred, thoughtless of others, irritating etc etc but those are words that describe us too so I struggle to maintain my anger when I find that I am surrounded by people who are more like me than I ever imagined before. We are different but we are also not so different as some might think!

Hi Jordee I saw this post after catching up on another post I commented on,Saw it over on the right under "Related".

So written over two years ago but by far one of the most enlightening few posts I have read thus far! 

Classic Codger may I say a big thank you for your post, not even sure how to check if your still a visitor on here? I am in a strange self doubt place right now,I was doing really well and visiting this forum has been of such great insight to me, suddenly I got a shock from a person replying to one of my posts,it all sounded just like comments I have heard all my life.

You don't fit,why assume you belong here,it takes experts and many many hours to assess  somebody,you may have other issues that are similar to ASD. Not actual quotes but along those lines.they have some relavance as I only think I am ASD I have no formal diagnosis.

So anger (back on topic).

Ok deep breath and relax,yes I am angry but also very sad, After a lifetime of not fitting in I stumble upon autism thanks to my daughter posting me a link to some one being diagnosed at an older age,I read it and suddenly my whole life is there before me,all the strange little things I did as a child, the thought processes,the wondering what this strange planet was and when can I go back to my planet?.

Right now I am feeling sorry for myself,I am so angry as I thought I had found my kind of people, In a moment of self pity I do not belong in this club as I don't have a badge!

I am 54 and male, I do believe my life is now different and changing for the better since "assuming"I have Austistic traits.

I can so relate to a lot of what I read,hardly a night goes by without having read a post I get flashbacks of me as a child,the latest was actually a Facebook news feed about yet another child who had wandered off and found by water,

BANG WHOOSH my head is spinning my mind is here there and everywhere,memories of me standing by the pond or by the stream,things I have never given a thought come flooding into my mind,as a child I would be happiest on my own,I really liked water,fell in a pond and got pulled out by a young lad.was found shining a torch into a stream that was in storm level,dropped my torch and cried,nearly drowned trying to retrieve it.tried to melt the ice on a neighbors pond by burning news paper on it.always wondered off when on holiday by the beach,hated-fun fairs and noise,hated the whole concept of holiday,

Still angry,I tend to rant when angry hence by mixed ramblings,to much in my head,no real order,just so much to say,very nearly deleted the whole post as it is self obsessed and crying out for attention! But hang on this really is me,how I see stuff,how I feel,spent my whole life biting my tongue,patiently just watching and saying nothing but seething inside.

nite nite.

I'm 46 and was diagnosed in May this year. I've gone through about 6 weeks of anger, grief, bereavement and I'm now at a stage of reflection and analysing my various life stages where I considered myself thick or stupid but instead it was the autism. I've thought about all of the criticism I've had from others about my social anxiety as well as a life time of self-criticism. I've been treated for depression and anxiety - neither of which worked. I've had CBT which was ridiculous. All the time I was not asked the right questions and therefore I didn't give the right clues to my mental state. 

In the end, I referred myself based on my own belief I may be on the spectrum. And here I am, starting to come to some acceptance of my life long condition. A few people know now. I'm coming out to people as and when I feel happy to. But I had my follow up appointment last week and was told there is no further support for me as an adult. It was a case of here's your diagnosis - right, off you go and deal with it. Luckily this forum and a few books has been of great help.

Hopefully, time will help your anger subside as it did with mine though I have a very short fuse anyway and it doesn't take much to lighten it. 

Regards, Lee

hi Xoanon

I think your diagnosis should help you to understand who and how you are better, but it can be a confusing and frustrating time.  

My teenage daughter is waiting for results to see if she has a diagnosis, but the practitioner said that a diagnosis wouldn't make any difference as there is no support in our part of the country, and the only thing to do was for me to read and do internet research to look for ways to help her.  The practitioner said it isn't a mental health issue although my daughter does have periods of depression which are.

So I am going to find out as much as I can myself to help her, so she can cope better.  I am reading the Tony Attwood book, and will read other books too, and am finding help on this web site.

One thing I have found is that I have a lot of the traits too, but at my age I do not think I will get tested as it won't really make any difference to who I am.

I think the people on the web site community have a lot of experience and really good ideas, and I really appreciate their comments.  

Thank you all.

Here's a link to an interesting thing online (though at our age we have probably figured out a lot of things in it anyway, it's written more from the younger person's point of view):

www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/.../

Well said Classic Codger, thank you.

I'm in the curtains closed all day club - have been for years.

A lot of my anger is in the past, perhaps worn it out through over use, there has been a lot.  My diagnosis was a very unrelaxed affair, but this could have been to do with my character.

Hi  Xoanon, welcome to your new identity.

Do you see yourself as an ASD person, or a person with ASD?

I'm 59 and got my diagnosis in February this year. Everything you say is what I have gone, and in some parts still am going, through. I walked out of my assessment with the strangest head I've ever had - dazed and confused doesn't begin to describe it. And yes, I'm indoors with the curtains closed etc, it's the safest place for me at the moment.

Nothing makes sense any more, except that my diagnosis changed this; for the first time since I was born, I know who I am.

Now, on here, I'm finding my community. I describe us as Homo Aspie, and the others as Homo Sapiens - it's helped me make some clear definitions for myself. I also think that we're the next evolution of humanity, but that's another theory...

I'm angry that I've had to spend my life being abused and mistreated, misdiagnosed and missunderstood, but that's behind me now. I can't change it, but now I'm maybe a little more comfortable for knowing there are others like me, and that I'm not alone any more, for the first time in my life. I still feel like a stranger in a strange land, but not a lone stranger any more.

When the Doctor gave me my diagnosis, my only response was 'what a waste of a life'. With the right diagnosis and support, Aspie children will excel, but without it, they stand a good chance of enduring the same miserable existence that I endured.

I don't think I can accept that.

I'm concerned that no ASD child shall grow up undiagnosed, I'm just as aware as any of us what the damage is from not getting one. We're older, and I think it's our duty to help each other (we are a very small %) parents who are struggling to understand their ASD child, and professionals who are trying to diagnose the condition.

We've got a lifetime of experience to use, and for my part the only waste would be to waste the opportunity to pass it on as helpfuly as I can. At the same time, we have needs too!

So, welcome new chum, please stay involved. We'll try to help you along, you're amongst friends here and you know we'll be honest with you, if nothing else!

welcome xoanon - I'm 58 and recently diagnosed.  I've suspected autism for about 5 years, so it wasn't a jolt, but the diagnosis was a strange time.

Presently relaxing into things, one of the things being that there is no (?) or very little help for us adults.

I've found the website Wrong Planet a good place for getting information.

One advantage is that you have a condition about which much is written down, or on the web, even if not always immediately obvious.

Previous labels or explanations may not have provided much resolution.

Granted a lot of autism information out there is aimed at parents of children - adult information is less readily accessible, but as more and more children pass into adulthood, adult information is improving.

I didn't get a diagnosis until I was 55, and only found out because I was professionally helping people with autism and recognised myself in one of the profiles I was trying to write support guidelines for others to help.

Adult support isn't good, as you've already discovered. Adult Services are not switched in yet. You either come under the procurement management for mental health or for learning disability, and you may find them reluctant to help unless you also have a mental health or learning disability 'comorbid' with autism. This can be really annoying if adult support comes under learning disability and the services are mainly at Mencap centres, and no-one thinks you are eligible because you have a job.

Having said that there are books and websites that can help. A useful guide is Tony Attwood's The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome (Jessica Kingsley Publishers), but it isn't all inclusive and is primarily about children. Tony Attwood has a website also. Look for Jessica Kingsley Publications on line - there are books addressing the workplace, socialisation, romance, everyday living etc. Often they have chapters by different people giving personal perspectives. One group of books is the adults Speak out about Autism Series, usually with Luke Beardon of Sheffield Hallam/Sheffield Autism Centre as one of the editors. There are autobiographical books - that give insight - Jon Elder Robison's Look me in the Eye (US experience), March Fleisher "Understanding the Unfeasible".

The NAS web pages do have a lot of information if you can see past the parent based and child based stuff. There is a lot of ready information there.

GPs have been slow to pick up on this. You may feel disgruntled you've lived to 43 unhelped, but it is not uncommon for this to happen and many people never get diagnosed.

The point is there is information out there. Find it and gdet reading. The more you read round it the better it will seem. As you say, you haven't changed it is just a different label.

But understanding autism can be really useful. You can work out to some extent what sociaisation you can undertake and what stresses you out, by knowing how it works. You can get a better understanding of why things are difficult and what you can do to ease things.

Read the postings in here especially living with autism and work & volunteering etc.