Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, just thought I would say hello..
I'm newly diagnosed, a mother of three children and although I always thought I was different, it didn't really occur to me I might be autistic until my eldest turned 5 and I started to see similarities between us. My eldest is now on the pathway to be assessed in the next 3 years after fighting so hard for her for the best part of 7 years.
I was diagnosed two weeks ago and it's answered a lot of my questions on my difficulties I've faced over the years and still do and the things I've done in the past that I look back and think "that's not normal". But not really sure with how else it's made me feel. How has everyone else found being diagnosed later on in life? I'm 38 by the way. What positives (and negatives) have you faced since your diagnosis?
Thanks for reading!
Hi ocean waves. It took 18-24 months for me to settle into the new found knowledge. I remember here someone said "it's like getting the manual for your life and opening it up to find the pages are blank". It's hard if you have masked for so long to know what is really you under all the layers. However, it's had a huge impact on my life in a positive way in that now I know what I'm working with. I don't have to live up to my own expectations of what I perceived everyone else to be. So I can be a bit kinder to myself and to others (instead of getting frustrated). It's not really a negative but accepting that I DO need informal help for certain aspects of my life and will likely do so ongoing (in terms of difficulty communicating in some situations and also some executive function difficulties) which is perfectly fine because the world isn't set up well for autistic people. Welcome!