Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all. Sorry if this is long lately I've been getting more in state than normal. 18 months ago it became apparent I'm. Autistic and I been pre diagnosed and my official is in September. When I told my parents that I was they firstly denied it and then said they knew I was dyspraxic at 3 had a private assessment. I was never ever told this until now. I had a mental break down 20 years ago. Now I just feel lost and really angry my outburst lately getting more frequent. I'm very stressed at moment with various things. I question myself allot and question if I'm actually autistic. So many people say I am now and it makes sense they say since the diagnosis. I think people are thinking why now are you behaving different when I think for so long I've held in my outbursts because I fear people would be upset by experiencing them especially my children so I go opposite and cry. This week I've felt so exhausted and drained. Someone said its a autistic burn out but I don't know because to me it's been normal. So many questions. Am I right to feel and hold onto anger and resent and has anybody else been like this.
Many thanks Richard
Richard m said:Am I right to feel and hold onto anger and resent and has anybody else been like this.
My advice - don't hold onto the anger. It helps no-one and is a destructive force.
Instead try to look back analytically and work out what your autism has done to impact your life and use that to develop techniques (in conjunction with other sources of help) to manage that particular trait.
For example, some people find being in social groups to be stressful and this can be because our lack of social awareness means we are over-analysing conversations and interactions to try to give the appropriate response just so we don't stand out as a weirdo.
This is known as masking and it means you are not being authentic to your own character, your mind is overloading itself trying to work out what to do constantly and the stress builds.
Once it gets to your threshold then it leads to meltdown or burnout - the meltdown is typically more like exploding (or imploding) and it can for on for a long time while the burnout is where you find yourself almost comatose with lack of energy.
Both require significant amounts of time to recover from and "recharge" before we are ready to go back into the social arena again.
To develop healthy coping skills for whatever affects you I strongly recommend reading up on autism so you know more about what are the autistic traits relevant to you and getting a therapist to speak to at least once a week to start with. Costs start from about £40/hour so are not excessive.
Two books sprint to mind that may be of immediate help:
Very Late Diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome - Wylie, Philip_ Beardon, Luke_ Heath, Sara (2014)ISBN 9781849054331Understanding Autism For Dummies - Stephen Shore, Linda G. Rastelli, Temple Grandin (2006)ISBN 0764525476
Have a look on the reviews on Amazon etc before buying to see if they are likely to be worth it.
Thanks thats helpful thank you