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Missed Opportunity ?

random

Hi,

I was diagnosed with Asperger's last yeat at 49, my initial reaction to my diagnosis was anger because in my early adlulthood, I had a break down and reached out for help with depression and anxiety, but was given minimal support.

Around that time, I was off work sick with stress. To help me recover I looked at volunteering. I was put in touch with an organisation with part of a local hospital that specialised in autism, to introduce and teach patients to learn computer skills.

I was excited by it, when I turned up for the first day, I was frightened because the building had windows that were all "blacked out". I felt they were like this, because they didn't want people looking in to the building, I didn't know what they wanted to hide. I was suffering from stress, and it may have well been an exagerated reaction. It was a very tough time.

I had been thinking about it Today, and have been wondering, if I made it in to the building, would they have noticed that I had autistic traits.

Random

  • Thanks for the replies, has settled my mind about it. My diagnosis only resulted after someone suggested it when I was receiving counselling for stress. After my break down, I was in denial that I had depression, but considered myself to be more anxious than normal. It's only writing this response, and reading my original post, I can see how I was lead in to that beleif. 

    Random

  • Hi Random,

    It is easy to forget how recently Aspergers was formerly recognised as a diagnosis. 1991 for ICD and 1994 for DSM. Unless there was a specialist with a keen interest in this new field it would have been unlikely that it would have been picked up. Prior to 1989 it is unlikely that anyone would have considered you autistic and then it would have been a significantly small number of specialists.

    Even today there are children and young people going undiagnosed into adulthood.

    We got the same reply for our daughter when she was young, fortunately someone else asked the right questions during her last year at primary school. It still took two years to get diagnosis.

  • I feel a diagnosis or recognition at that time would have made a big difference in my life. I am more at peace of being on my own now, but then was totally different, establishing a relationship meant the whole world to me. Just understanding my aspergers would have given me insight to the problems and feelings I was experiencing. It could have been enough to enable me to grow one of the three very brief relationships I was just able to start. It would have made a difference for my mother, explaining problems in my childhood, and why I was struggling in adulthood. I felt I was different, but whenever I reached out for help, I was told I was normal, and things will just happen given time. I needed to break through that barrier.

    Random

  • That's a good question but I don't have an answer to it because I'm not sure how your behaviour looks.  Since you're 49 and have only been diagnosed since last year, I'm assuming that you've adapted to fit, and you hide your traits a lot of the time. 

    I think that they'd probably have noticed in time if you'd made it into the building,  but I've had many many meetings with an autism specialist, and it was only after about 15 meetings that the specialist said to me 'have you ever wondered if you're on the spectrum yourself?'

    If you had made it into the building, and they had noticed, do you think that would have changed anything for you?  Your title suggests that you feel you missed out on something positive somehow.  Do you feel like that could have led to a faster recovery or something?