45 Years, just got my diagnosis today and I am actually devastated..

BjornUK78 said:

I knew I was different growing up and into my adult life, but never wanted my behaviour to be pathologized, as I think we are too quick to.. anyway it turns out I know now why, but I truly don't want it, I have spent so much time and expended so much energy trying to be normal, and for what....

Hello B, welcome to the forum.

Have you researched autism much yet?

If not then it is worth knowing that you are not normal - you are neurodivergent which means your brain developed differently to normal people, so when you were trying to be normal you were trying to do something that is fundamentally against your nature.

The one huge advantage you now have in knowing you are autistic is you can identify what behaviours are you trying to be something you are not, and learning how to be more authentic to your nature. This is a learning process and one I would recommend you do with a therapist with experience of autism.

The benefits are that you stop wasting so much energy trying to be something you are not which should make you feel less stressed and anxious, and by learning to embrace your autistc traits you can build on this to improve your quality of life.

As you discover who you really are beneath the masking and scripting it can be fascinating and I found it brought a degree of inner peace about now feeling I know who I really am.

It took about a year to get to that point and would have been a lot longer without a therapist.

You don't need to tell your family or face their judgement if you don't want to - in fact no-one needs to know if you chose not to tell them.

An important thing to understand is that autism is highly hereditory (about 80% chance an autistic parent will have an autistic child) so there is a strong chance your family has autists in it on at least one side of the tree.

If your family are older then they may well have stigmas around it and won't want to know they are potentially neurodivergent so I would be wary about having that discussion with them.

I was diagnosed in my 50s and am happy to finally understand all the odd stuff in my life and make it work for me.

BjornUK78 said:

I knew I was different growing up and into my adult life, but never wanted my behaviour to be pathologized, as I think we are too quick to.. anyway it turns out I know now why, but I truly don't want it, I have spent so much time and expended so much energy trying to be normal, and for what....

Hello B, welcome to the forum.

Have you researched autism much yet?

If not then it is worth knowing that you are not normal - you are neurodivergent which means your brain developed differently to normal people, so when you were trying to be normal you were trying to do something that is fundamentally against your nature.

The one huge advantage you now have in knowing you are autistic is you can identify what behaviours are you trying to be something you are not, and learning how to be more authentic to your nature. This is a learning process and one I would recommend you do with a therapist with experience of autism.

The benefits are that you stop wasting so much energy trying to be something you are not which should make you feel less stressed and anxious, and by learning to embrace your autistc traits you can build on this to improve your quality of life.

As you discover who you really are beneath the masking and scripting it can be fascinating and I found it brought a degree of inner peace about now feeling I know who I really am.

It took about a year to get to that point and would have been a lot longer without a therapist.

You don't need to tell your family or face their judgement if you don't want to - in fact no-one needs to know if you chose not to tell them.

An important thing to understand is that autism is highly hereditory (about 80% chance an autistic parent will have an autistic child) so there is a strong chance your family has autists in it on at least one side of the tree.

If your family are older then they may well have stigmas around it and won't want to know they are potentially neurodivergent so I would be wary about having that discussion with them.

I was diagnosed in my 50s and am happy to finally understand all the odd stuff in my life and make it work for me.