Mid life diagnosis, puts so much into perspective & makes sense yet there seems to be after the initial relief at knowing, a huge amount of processing & internal dialogue. I guess I am wondering how other people felt and if they went through similar?
Hi Bunny,
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my message. It's much appreciated. I love to read and research things so thank you so much for the links and book recommendation.
Hi Marmaladepink - congratulations on your diagnosis and welcome to the community!
It's great that you're feeling some benefit from your diagnosis. I cried with relief when I got mine, because it explained so much.
However, during the period following a diagnosis it also can be very common for us - especially as late-diagnosed adults - to experience emotional dysregulation. This can include working through a phase where we experience (backward-focused) anger, frustration, grieving, and more.
The NAS has a great set of articles focused around diagnosis, including one covering how you might feel during the subsequent days / weeks / months - you might find them of interest and/or helpful:
NAS - How you might feel after a diagnosis
NAS - Other advice covering post-diagnosis
I found that I needed to give myself lots of time and breathing space to process and absorb everything that I'd been through. I only felt ready to start therapy or counselling several months later. It's now just over a year since I was diagnosed and I'm nowhere near finished with processing everything.
It's more the case (for me) that my diagnosis was the start of a new journey, rather than a conclusion filled with immediate answers and solutions for my various difficulties.
I mentioned therapy, which is often recommended after a diagnosis. You might find it helpful to borrow or buy this book, which includes discussion of various types of therapy and counselling, together with advice on choosing the right therapist or counsellor - all from an autistic person's viewpoint. Several of us here have found it very helpful, myself included:
Thank you and I think your description of the different stages similar to grief is applicable & helpful to remember that it is a process. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Thank you, I really appreciate that.
I’m lucky in one sense since my later in life diagnosis online in 2021 at age 53 now, since I’d started the process in 2019 as I’d had a strong Irish Catholic faith which has helped me cope - I was a little surprised in reading my diagnosis report which mentioned my “passion” for the Catholic Church, as despite being raised in Vatican II, I’d went back to pre-Vatican II (Mass in Latin - pre 1962) after being so long away from my faith until 18 years ago, when I’d came back to my faith - I found that during Covid and after my diagnosis, my faith deepened as did the understanding of my faith also deepened, where I no longer took my faith for granted, as I had as a child growing up in Vatican II - I was also lucky in that many friends of my family were priests, friars and nuns in many enclosed Catholic religious orders, so my Catholic faith was an important part of my autism journey, helped by attending the Traditional Mass in Latin and teaching myself to pray the Rosary in Latin
Hi and welcome to the club.
I'm 1 year post diagnosis and am still getting used to it after the initial aha moment.
I find myself going from being positive about my autism to feeling it is the worst thing ever to happen. I have lost my career of over 30 years due to small mindedness and stereotypical assumptions.
This place has kept me sane...well almost!!!
Like the name, Marmaladepink! I was diagnosed late this year in my 50s.
I've been though all the stereotypical stages since (very similar to the stages of grief)
I sort of realised about 10 years ago but pushed it to the back of my mind when I wasn't getting much validation, but this year I just had to pursue it. I'm glad I did, but it has been a slow journey since.
Hi Marmeladepink,
I was diagnosed at 21 and whilst I was the one to read up on autistic traits and notice them in myself, I went through a lot of doubt, and a lot of feelings around `not being autistic enough` that I internalised from others. There's also the grief of not knowing earlier, and the kinds of experiences that could have been spared. It can be lonely, but you're really welcome here and I hope you find something of what you need in the community.
Thank you for sharing the importance of compassion and also the benefits of taking time to understand needs and making changes.
Thank you for sharing. It definitely takes some adjusting. I can see my strengths yet also the challenges.
For me the life changing moment was the realisation, that the Asperger syndrome describes me my personality and life. Further research only proves that what I felt at the beginning of my journey. All thanks to David Grusch who just mentioned in the interview that he is high functioning autistic. I got intrigued and the research began. I’m not diagnosed so far. The first moment after reading an article about Asperger I had extremely strong feelings but I still don’t know what I actually felt. I threw myself a high pressure shower to calm down. Now I just accepted myself the way I am, it helps me accept myself, I actually stopped hating myself for being a failure because now I know o have some deficits and still doing best as I can and keep it going. So I’m more compassionate to myself and I also looked deeper into my needs and made some changes that make my life much easier. So there is a lot of positive for me.
Age 59. diagnosis has taken me about 3 years to process.
Huge amount of adjusting my attitude, and not always positive.
At the end of the day I'm still me, but I'm a ME that really isnt so optimistic about some things "going well" as I used to be.
Some days I miss it all being a mystery, I feel I had more "hope" then, even if it was misplaced..
