Recent diagnosis, therapy and unmasking

Welcome Abbie.  Well done for being able to find your core self so young.  It took until my early 50's to achieve that !  You write very resonantly above - and that helps me proffer advice, for what that might be worth to you.  So, here goes;

1.  If you are very good at intellectualising yourself, I think you are well advised to pursue some form of spirituality to prevent yourself from driving yourself mad with that !  Find some sort of spiritual path, or two, or three.....investigate some of the ancient knowledge past down from our forefathers.  That doesn't need to be "religion" in the Normie sense of the word - you can define it however you like.  I have an acquaintance who refers to themselves as a JewBu = jewish and buddish, although I don't think they are either in a Normie sense.  Task you brain with looking outwards to understand your inward - don't fall into the trap of always looking inwards!

2. Don't rush to change yourself and your interactions with everybody else.  You already sound pretty impressively centred to me.  Knowledge is power - you have that power now, doesn't mean others need to fully appreciate it.  Tread softly and gently...I made the mistake of getting caught up in the revelatory excitement of "knowing" expecting everyone else to somehow be excited - generally they are not, in fact, many may well remain sceptical and/or treat you less kindly.  I understand from these pages that this is not an uncommon experience.

3. Like you, I would LOVE there to be some type of therapy / service to help......I'm not sure there actually is.  Perhaps if you had got a diagnosis when you were still deemed a kid by the Normie construct, you would have found things.  From what I can gather from these pages, the adult folk are depressingly in agreement that services and help is simply not out there.  If you do find some PLEASE tell us all!

4. Be prepared for the deflationary "crash."  The sense of "other-worldliness" you describe in your writing above passes quite quickly and you are potentially left thinking "well what the hell is the use of having this bloody diagnosis anyway?"  Do not despair at that time - there are a million and one reasons why your diagnosis is overwhelming important to you....just not necessarily to anyone else!  Be prepared for that.

5. Masking is exhausting and unhealthy - but just like weaning yourself off anything else, be careful with reducing your "dosage" of masking.  Do it too quickly as you might scare yourself and others unnecessarily.  Take it steady.

That's me all "tapped out."  I hope some of that might prove helpful to you either now or in the near future.

I hope you will stick around this place and hang out - from what you have written above, I think you will be able to find useful like-minded souls to keep you company.  This place has been critical to keeping me sane!

Best wishes to you Abbie.  I am Number.

Hi Number, 

Thank you so much for such a thoughtful and considered response. It's been such a relief to hear from other people who understand the unspoken context surrounding trying to exist in a normie world as you call it!

It does seem that getting a diagnosis in adulthood (granted I'm still very young) can leave you with more questions that answers, and very much in the "what now?" limbo. I will definitely share any helpful services that I come across; you're 100% right that so many people would benefit from more information about that.

Interesting take on religion/spirituality! Funnily enough it is something that I've been thinking about recently, though don't know enough about to pass any kind of comment on. 

Thank you for your advice about taking care during interactions with others. I'm very lucky to have lots of neurodivergent friends who encourage me to "be myself" as much as possible, however it's hard not to over-analyse and feel shame about more "genuine" interactions I have with them. That's going to take a lot of time and patience from everyone involved to try and dismantle. 

Thank you again for your kind words, wishing you the best :)

Hi Number, 

Thank you so much for such a thoughtful and considered response. It's been such a relief to hear from other people who understand the unspoken context surrounding trying to exist in a normie world as you call it!

It does seem that getting a diagnosis in adulthood (granted I'm still very young) can leave you with more questions that answers, and very much in the "what now?" limbo. I will definitely share any helpful services that I come across; you're 100% right that so many people would benefit from more information about that.

Interesting take on religion/spirituality! Funnily enough it is something that I've been thinking about recently, though don't know enough about to pass any kind of comment on. 

Thank you for your advice about taking care during interactions with others. I'm very lucky to have lots of neurodivergent friends who encourage me to "be myself" as much as possible, however it's hard not to over-analyse and feel shame about more "genuine" interactions I have with them. That's going to take a lot of time and patience from everyone involved to try and dismantle. 

Thank you again for your kind words, wishing you the best :)