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Mental Health following Diagnosis

Eyes

Hello,

I'm new to this community having being diagnosed as an adult with Autism recently, apologies if I get any terminology or anything else incorrect as I'm quite clueless on this at the moment.

It's just been a week or so but it's been difficult since in my mind. I feel surprised at how people don't really seem interested or want to know more (aside from my partner.) It's probably arrogant to expect people to want to talk to me about it but I'm just surprised they haven't really and feel a little alone with it.

I suppose it has been quite important for me to find this out and it's a huge deal for me, I burnt out a year or so ago and was out of work for 3 months, been confused and lost for a long time with depression.

I suppose it's solipsistic to expect it to be as huge for others as it is for me but I'd welcome reading others experience of how others reacted to their diagnosis and whether ultimately that was really important to you or not.

Thanks for reading.

Parents
  • Eyes said:
    I feel surprised at how people don't really seem interested or want to know more

    I have two thoughts around this:

    1 - Do people actually really care that much anyway about stuff going on in your life?

    I expect most people have their own issues and attention focuses so expecting them to want to spend their time to fnd out more when in all probability it just sounds like an illness to them is not likely to happen.

    Do you want to hear chapter and verse about it when they have something happen in their lives? Quite possibly not unless you really care about them.

    2 - Autism is classed as a disability and has a lot of negative connotations for people who are not well informed about it.

    Many people still have the image of a non verbal autistic person when they hear about autism so it is quite common for people to think you are either misinformed or you are something they would rather not associate with.

    Things are slowly changing but I expect this will be a generation in length to get to the point where autism is well known about in the mainstream and people respond in a useful way for us.

    I hope this doesn't come across as harsh - I am trying to explain what I have experienced when going through the same process.

    Don't expect sympathy / allowances for your diagnosis, but rather use it to educate yourself and take more control of the narrative.

    It does get better.

Reply
  • Eyes said:
    I feel surprised at how people don't really seem interested or want to know more

    I have two thoughts around this:

    1 - Do people actually really care that much anyway about stuff going on in your life?

    I expect most people have their own issues and attention focuses so expecting them to want to spend their time to fnd out more when in all probability it just sounds like an illness to them is not likely to happen.

    Do you want to hear chapter and verse about it when they have something happen in their lives? Quite possibly not unless you really care about them.

    2 - Autism is classed as a disability and has a lot of negative connotations for people who are not well informed about it.

    Many people still have the image of a non verbal autistic person when they hear about autism so it is quite common for people to think you are either misinformed or you are something they would rather not associate with.

    Things are slowly changing but I expect this will be a generation in length to get to the point where autism is well known about in the mainstream and people respond in a useful way for us.

    I hope this doesn't come across as harsh - I am trying to explain what I have experienced when going through the same process.

    Don't expect sympathy / allowances for your diagnosis, but rather use it to educate yourself and take more control of the narrative.

    It does get better.

Children
  • in reply to Iain

    from where im from people only view autism as a kid thing... not as a adult thing. you even see that in diagnostics, they dont care about adults its all focused on kids and its very cringe. this whole thing then makes it so any adult with autism is viewed not as a adult but as infantile and then people dont look at you with much respect and view you as a type of person who would be watching childrens cartoons and throwing strops at everything... my parents even think to be autistic you have to *** and wipe your poop all over the walls... so yeah, when you appear normal and people hear your autistic it throws them off and confuses them, or they think they didnt know you and then suddenly think your the type of guy that would smear poo on the walls.

  • in reply to Iain

    Hi Iain,

    Thanks for your reply, I suppose my answers are:

    1. No, not really. I suppose in reality I didn't want interest just people to talk to about it to help me understand. This forum seems to be working in that regard.

    2. I'm still surprised by the negative reactions to a disability in life, I suppose I should have learnt my lesson by now.

    I don't read your comment as harsh at all, just honest and helpful - thanks.

    Eyes