Hi all,
(I'm totally new to this community so please bear with me!)
I am a thirty-one year old female and I have just received a very new diagnosis of having High Functioning Autism, with the added super ability to mask my problem and present myself to others as being completely un-autistic. I have always suspected that there was something 'a bit odd' about me, and my parents suspected I was on the spectrum when I was a child (they didn't have me formally diagnosed when I was younger as they didn't want me to grow up with a label and act up against it.) I have paid to be assessed privately as things were starting to build up in my life to a point where I really couldn’t live with things as they were and I needed to try get some answers. So...here I am with my brand new diagnosis and although in many respects I am finding it a huge relief, in other respects I feel like I am really struggling to cope with it.
It seems that I can't make sense of anything at the moment, the whole world is confusing me and that things I once understood are baffling me. My life that previously made sense and which had an order I was happy with now seems alien to me and like I am learning it all over again. My usual coping mechanisms (activities such as running, walking, reading, writing etc) are just about holding me together but even these things are not fully doing for me what the once did. Since my diagnosis I feel like I am fighting that much harder to understand things, situations, people and life…my brain is stuck on a spin cycle and I can’t get it to stop! I have always felt like I am living my life 'behind a piece of glass' not able to interact with the world and others; now I feel that even more keenly. I feel isolated, lonely and just generally adrift, like a ghost in a crowd. It's impacting how I feel about my work (I have a successful & high pressured job with a very large organisation), my home life (I am very happily married with a comfortable home) and life in general (I am physically fit, healthy and usually pretty happy). I have a fantastic support network around me in terms of my husband, family and understanding friends, however I still feel like I am struggling to get back to being me and how I used to be.
I really don't expect anyone to give me the answer to all my woes, but I wonder is there anyone out there that has gone through/is going through a similar thing to me? Are you feeling the same as I do? Have you had a recent similar diagnosis? How do you get by/cope? Do things get a bit easier? How have things changed for you? Any help, advice would be welcome....or just to know that I am not alone in this would be equally as nice.
Thanks guys x
