Published on 12, July, 2020
I just wondered what anyone might think, there is just so much common ground and shared experience among the diversity. I wonder if anyone NT could empathise with it all. I can see why NT's might read some of it if they have partners or relatives on the spectrum and they are trying to understand, but I wonder if it makes sense to them. The fact that so many are finding their way here and finding kindred spirits and soul food seems like a form of diagnosis to me. Anyone?
I did a lot of research and soul searching before I braved joining here and dipping my toe in this online water.
like you said earlier, the reading and researching led to a holy crap, slap me with a brick realisation and things clicked for me and everything seemed to fall into place.
yes I am married, I have a child, I hold down a full time job...I can act and perform like a "normal-ish" puppet....but often get it wrong and crash and burn at the end of the day....or panic internally...
no I have not a formal diagnostic...and there seems little support out there for adults anyhow....I don't think that ASD is just a fashionable badge, it is the realisation that you are different, that life, connection, communication and belonging are a massive challenge...it has meant that some have also sunk into depression along the way, and find it difficult to learn life's rule book and put on that "brave face", that "mask"...and anxiety is everyday
Maybe I was a bit too vague, I didn't mean people just arriving here out of the blue, but assumed that from a long held sense of 'not fitting in' people had begun to search. It seems like one bit of research has led to another for most of us until we got smacked around the chops with the realisation that ASD is really the only thing that makes our lives make any narrative sense
I'm sure that every human alive could identify with bits and pieces, it's the amount of it and the constancy/persistance that makes it different to the norm. And I fully accept that nobody is normal. There was something else I was going to say, but I've forgotten it...
I agree with Elephant. I've always been "different" and have often said to my DH that I might be autistic. I read a couple of books (Laura James and Cynthia Kim) and recognised myself. I did a couple of the questionnaires and thought nothing of the high scores. It wasn't until a couple of friends (one of whom diagnoses children with ASD) both asked me if I was on the spectrum that I thought I'd better explore it more.
I would like to get a formal diagnosis, but it's not important right now. I've got an answer as to why I struggle and why school was difficult. It would have been better if it had been picked up when I was 3, but not much I can do about it.