Published on 12, July, 2020
Grief is linked to death. If you’re diagnosed as autistic late in life, you’re saying goodbye to who you’ve been for many years…and that opens up a big box of feelings that take a long time – potentially years – to process.
How have you coped with your late autism diagnosis/realisation? I've made a video (in the usual place) about my own late diagnosis feelings.
Hi, I was diagnosed autistic about 2 years ago, aged 56. I was self diagnosed years before I had the courage to ask my GP for an assessment, (and then it was more than a 3 years wait) but being told officially did indeed open "a big box of feelings" which i am still processing.
I'm not sure that it would have made much difference to the way I was treated by other people if I had been diagnosed as a child, but I would have at least understood why I was having so much difficulty fitting in, and I think I would have been kinder to myself about it and less ready to believe that I was a bad person. But at least I'm working on that now, with my new understanding. I've also read a lot of self help books and had some CBT therapy. And adopted an RSPCA cat called Fluff. They've all helped.
I think I would have been kinder to myself too. I'm sure I would still have been mistreated, but I wouldn't have blamed myself as much as I did. I went through a phase of reading self-help books because I thought I was the problem. I'm not the problem - I'm just autistic.