Lost generation woman

Hi! I’m over 60 and recently diagnosed ASD. I’ve spent an awful life of being misdiagnosed and even incarcerated, due to the psychiatric services in the second half of the 20th Century having rigid ideas about what mental illness is. Or what it isn’t. Now they can’t get their heads around ASD, and PTSD caused largely by their mistreatment, actually causes depression. They don’t even understand ‘are you hearing voices?’ leads the the logical conclusion ‘Yes. Yours!’ I see the funny side now. Over 45 years too late. I am a whole person, with positive as well as negative attributes. Psychiatrists really do seem incapable of seeing anything other than negatives in patients, in my experience. I think things are improving for the young generation. How many other lost people like me were there? How many are still out there? How do we learn at such a late stage to help ourselves be the best version of ourselves we can be? I am a successful, musical, empathetic person. I am at last finding my wings, like a teenager in a body falling apart!!!! I would love to support other people. And I think it’s so important to each be ourselves. The kids at school these days think they are being so individual ..... yet they all want the same phone/trainers etc. I do believe people should learn to be more tolerant of differences. But what do I know? I’m a 17 year old trapped in a sixty plus year body.