Mother of newly diagnosed adult

Welcome to the forum.

Like your daughter, I was already living many miles away from my Mum by the time I received my diagnosis - with not the slightest inkling myself that I might be autistic until only a few months before I was referred for assessment. It's very easy, of course, for me to sit here at my computer and say "don't feel guilty!", and I've had several discussion with my Mum over the last few years about her feelings around having not noticed the signs, or even of having contributed to some of the mental health problems which eventually led to my referral. I have never felt for a moment that she has anything to reproach herself for - quite the opposite; an unidentified autistic kid couldn't have wished for better.

There are plenty of reasons why early signs might not be noticed, even by professionals (several counsellors didn't raise any flags in my case). Even the official diagnostic manuals now make clear that autism doesn't always show on the outside until a change in circumstances tips the balance and the innate ways of coping that we've learned since infancy aren't quite enough to hide our traits any more. Like me, many of us have spent years with only a vague sense of being a bit "different" that we couldn't quite put our fingers on; and autism is great at mimicking other things which explain this away (shyness, introversion, absent-mindedness, etc.)

As children, we do our best to behave as we see the people around us do, just like any other kid does. We can't see inside other people's heads, and they can't see into ours, so no-one has any idea that the way we're going about understanding the world might be completely different than other people. Autism has a strong genetic component too, so while other family members might not be diagnosable as autistic, some traits may just be accepted as pretty normal within the family (it turns out I have a few relatives who are likely on the spectrum themselves, just not as noticeably as me). And naturally, one has to know exactly what to look for; which is made much harder by the definition of what autism is having changed so much over the last couple of decades - I would likely have been diagnosed in my school years if things were as they are now, but I was just seen as a very quiet "swotty" kid at the time (this is often particularly true of girls, who often feel more under pressure to hide their traits due to gender stereotypes about being "chatty" and "emotional").

And as said above, it's great that you're here, and your honesty about your feelings is surely a good thing, even if the feelings themselves are a little bit uncomfortable at the moment.

Best wishes.

Hello there, 

it is so heartwarming to read a post like this. I am an adult diagnosed 6 months ago, I also live a long way from my family and I have decided not to tell any of them because I think there will be discussions behind my back and a lot of denial etc. 

You might not realise just how utterly wonderful it is that you write this question and mention your own feelings. 

I don't know if you mean practical help or emotional/ personal support. If I had a supportive family member I would probably suggest:

• ask her if she wants to chat about it, she might not, thats ok. For me I would just want to weave my autism into the background of my daily life and not have it as a talking point / headline. She might want to chat online or use skype. I use skype and usually without the camera, but sometimes just whatsapp
• ask her about disclosure to other family members, let her feel in control
• be as balanced as possible but not dismissive of how your daughter feels. So, if your daughter is sounding negative or talking about autism negatively, that is real for her and the difficulties can be dealt with compassionately just like neurotypical people. But there can be positives such as attention to detail and ability to hyperfocus.
• remember your daughter is the same as ever and the diagnosis is just a new lens to see everything through, and you can reassure her of that.
• post diagnosis, a lot of us go through a very weird stage of reflection, there are several posts about that - you can try the hastag search to find them. 
• your daughter may have been masking, you can also read people's posts about the stress caused by masking our autism consciously or unconsciously. 
• I highly recommend listening to Sarah Hendrickx on youtube, she is autistic and also a mother and an expert on autism. She talks warmly about the whole subject and especially about women and girls. She has also worked as a comedian in the past , so her talks are not depressing at all! 

Apologies if this is not what you were after. I was just shooting from the hip there as I've been visit one of my "unaware" family members today and had to go off and cry for a while after. So this is whats on the top of my mind.  Worst case you can ignore my comments and someone else will come along with something better :-)

Best case, you can use something or pick up information from other posts.