Missed Opportunity ?

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.

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Parents
  • 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?

Reply
  • 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?

Children
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