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Newly diagnosed with autism, hello!

leapingsoup

Hello there,

I’m a not-long diagnosed 28 year-old male. I’m still quite new to this whole situation, including coming to terms with my autism and trying to integrate this understanding into my day-to-day.

Just wanted to say hi and see if anybody else is currently going through this experience and their thoughts/feelings on it?

I’ll start by saying it’s good to have this part of my life unlocked now, but I still have a lot of difficulty regulating my emotions and finding ways to verbalise things around my family/friends. Communication still remains a number one issue, and I’m not entirely sure about how to navigate this, as well as moving forward generally in life. It's all a little complex!

Maybe I feel a bit stuck?

Anyway, sorry if this comes across venting, I’m just very new to everything and want to find some like-minded people, what are your experiences in this situation?

All best!

  • Hi, 

    Welcome to the community. 

    I know how you feel. I was diagnosed two years ago. I felt ok after getting the diagnosis, but I think a week after that, I started to think about a lot of things, like day-to-day stuff, Friends, work, everything. I am slowly coming to terms with it now. It will take time,

    I hope you find the community useful and helpful. 

  • Hi and welcome to the community. I've been dealing with it for some years now, and at first it's a big learning curve, but I've learned a lot about myself and although communication and emotional disregulation remain issues, I have learned to explain how I'm feeling more and have stopped worrying what others think of me.

    Good luck on your journey of discovery and hope you find the forum useful.

  • Welcome to our community.

    leapingsoup said:
    Maybe I feel a bit stuck?

    I was late diagnosed about 4 years ago and started off with similar struggles but I found that using a knowledgable psychotherapist was the best investment I ever made.

    They are trained to help and so long as they have some experience of helping autists then they can be so useful.

    I was able to use basic tools like the emotions wheel to start identifying the emotions I was feeling and through talking therapy could become much more "fluent" with them and spot the in others while being able to articulate my own clearly.

    leapingsoup said:
    Communication still remains a number one issue

    This is a much longer learning curve to deal with in my experience. It helps to read up on the rules of social interactions and understand the dynamics as a background interest as it help you see what is going on in group interactions and, with practice, one-on-one interactions too.

    You can learn to spot body language, become confident enough to ask for clarifications and express your concerns and be clear in your side of the communications while having a passable understanding of what the other side is asking.

    You will probably never be able to pass as "normal" but can grow to a point to be fluent enough for it not to be an issue.

    It all takes mental energy to do and this is where you will ultimately need to make a decision as to whether it is worth the effort. Being able to do it with effort can be a great skill however as sometimes this gets the result you want (think of an interview for a job), gets a point across (think of an important discussion with your family) or gets you a date (assuming you want one of course).

    I found a therapist who had several autistic children which gave them a unique insight into the challenges we face, plus her training and experience gave her the experience to apply techniques with us.

    All just in my opinion of course.

  • Similar situation but I'm 57. Initially relieved and has helped me reassess certain memories. Swinging a little into the imposter syndrome area 'I can't be autistic, I'm just difficult/needy/entitled etc. 

    My real need now would be local peer support to process and access to services for communication training