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Newly Diagnosed AuDHD.. feel like an imposter

tanyak

Hello all,

42yr old female and mother of 3 - diagnosed with ADHD and Autism just yesterday. ADHD made sense, and I went ahead with the Autism assessment, because my therapists and diagnosticians suggested I do so. I thought my life experiences were normal. So I was completely shocked to receive a diagnosis.

As this is so new, I am reading through Autism material online, and honestly, I feel like such an imposter. There are so many people that have it worse than me. Even my son has issues with interoception, back and forth conversation, etc, and I feel wrong taking this label, when he is still on the waiting list for one. I have had issues with friendships, social cues, executive functioning etc all my life - however I feel awful describing myself as someone with a disability, when clearly, I am okay in comparison to others.

Anyone else feel this way? I feel embarrassed to tell others about my diagnosis (even family) because I fear no one will believe me (I don't really believe it myself).  Somehow I feel like I have managed to convince myself that I have Autism, because I researched it to the death before my assessment. Maybe I just convinced the assessors, and managed to pass the test - so this is all just a huge mistake????

Parents

  • I went through the same spiral and kept thinking I was somehow faking it, even though that makes zero sense. For me it helped to look at how I masked and coped for years, because those patterns were doing the heavy lifting in hiding stuff from myself. Your struggles don't need to look dramatic to be real. Give yourself some room to sit with the diagnosis and see what fits at your own pace.

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  • I went through the same spiral and kept thinking I was somehow faking it, even though that makes zero sense. For me it helped to look at how I masked and coped for years, because those patterns were doing the heavy lifting in hiding stuff from myself. Your struggles don't need to look dramatic to be real. Give yourself some room to sit with the diagnosis and see what fits at your own pace.

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