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Hello (plus maybe a little rant!)

Charrrr

Hello everyone,

I'm 42 and have been recently diagnosed with autism, although I've been self-diagnosed for several years, I just didn't trust myself that I was autistic, and honestly it was taking over my life with the ruminating of whether I was or wasn't so I saved up and went down the private diagnosis route (no NHS funding for adults in my county). 

I'm now learning a lot about myself as someone trying to figure out how to unmask and realising that people really don't think/ process etc the same way that I do, and everything else that goes with realising everything I thought I knew isn't what it seemed. 

I don't have any friends with autism (distant family members but not really anyone I can talk to), and I feel in quite a lonely place now. Which is being exacerbated by having to explain things to family/friends that my experience of life has not been the same as theirs, and I get things like 'oh I never thought there was anything wrong with you,' 'you've always been xx to me,' 'it's just your personality' in return. Or they try to share similar but very non-autistic things they do to try to find some common ground - which I totally get, but it also feels like my experience is being minimised bc no one else really 'gets' it, and it's not an easy thing to explain to people.

In some ways I feel like it shouldn't be my responsibility to try to teach people about how I work when my whole life has been spent trying to fit in and work out how NTs go about things. Just as an aside, I got diagnosed with anxiety and depression about 10 years ago, and I remember my mum immediately researching it, sending me links, books recs etc, none of it super helpful but it was nice to know she cared. I told her about 5 years ago I thought I had autism and honestly it's like she just checked out, she got immediately defensive, but even after I said there was no blame from my side that she didn't notice anything when I was young, bc, hey it was the 80s, but even after all that time has passed, there's not been any desire to learn about it, to learn about me - which kind if feels like a rejection. All she said was 'do we have to treat you differently now?'. About a year ago, she told me she thought her brother also had autism because and I quote 'he also doesn't have any empathy', so I'm really working at the absolute rock bottom with trying to get people to understand what I'm going through and have been going through. 

Anyway, hopefully that's not too ranty for my first post.

It would be nice to hear if anyone has any words of wisdom they can share that might be useful strategies in terms of both explanations but also trying to combat the loneliness from the massive gulf that appears to be forming between myself and everyone else I know.  

Parents

  • Hi and welcome to the community. I understand what you are going through, but it takes time to learn about and understand yourself when you've lived for decades not realising you are ND. Give yourself time and really think about what you want and how you want to live your life.

    It's difficult for people who are not on the spectrum to understand what it feels like being autistic, and some people who are on the spectrum but don't realise it may react negatively because they don't want to face possibly not being what they think of as "normal" .

    I found that after telling people I was on the spectrum, it wasn't particularly useful to talk about it apart from if there was a serious issue that needed addressing and then I would explain how autism affects me in that particular instance and so that is why I can feel or behave in a certain way. I also found it useful to try and see their viewpoint, and try to build compromise into my interactions with people and stop it getting to a meltdown or shutdown result for me.

    This community forum is a useful place to vent and share our experiences.

Reply

  • Hi and welcome to the community. I understand what you are going through, but it takes time to learn about and understand yourself when you've lived for decades not realising you are ND. Give yourself time and really think about what you want and how you want to live your life.

    It's difficult for people who are not on the spectrum to understand what it feels like being autistic, and some people who are on the spectrum but don't realise it may react negatively because they don't want to face possibly not being what they think of as "normal" .

    I found that after telling people I was on the spectrum, it wasn't particularly useful to talk about it apart from if there was a serious issue that needed addressing and then I would explain how autism affects me in that particular instance and so that is why I can feel or behave in a certain way. I also found it useful to try and see their viewpoint, and try to build compromise into my interactions with people and stop it getting to a meltdown or shutdown result for me.

    This community forum is a useful place to vent and share our experiences.

Children
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