Newly Diagnosed

 Hi Kitty, you are inspiring me. I, too, am a psychotherapist and have just been diagnosed at 45. It's a lot to try to get my head around and I can feel both a pull towards actively reframing my experiences and struggles and a simultaneous suspicion of doing so ... even an aversion. It's quite confusing but overall I have a sense that things make sense in a way that they never did before and I can stop looking for that 'golden bullet' to fix me. I think I have a sense that something close to liberation might be lurking around somewhere but I also feel confused about exactly what you describe - the masking or what's underneath - and is this just a ruse to get out of trying to fix myself! ... 

I changed school for 2 terms at the age of 15, to a single-sex one I often wonder what life would have been like if I'd stayed at the original (co-educational) school. Certainly, my experience of motorcycles would have been different.

Oh yes. I tried to get assessed for autism 10 years ago and was incorrectly told i wasnt. Had 10 years of near total social isolation because of that.

Hi I relate so much to you on this frustration and anger towards peers not noticing my struggles were much more than they may of thought. Like you I also struggled through high school and was bullied at school and also feels like I was bullied at home too. I am too in therapy and have an autistic therapist which has been so validating to have someone say oh yeah that's completely valid to feel that way.

I hope therapy has been working well for you and you're finding the unmasking process somewhat easy to do (I know everyones journey is different).

Here to chat if you want to! 

Swimming was the one physical activity I was good at. I swam a mile, aged 11. Of course I was mostly made to play football and other team sports - which I loathe and hate to this day. It seemed to me, with little ability to even catch a ball and poor gross motor skills, like a repeated ritual of humiliation.

oh wow... I think I was very lucky... my mum regularly let me skip a few hours of school especially when I was older... We started having these 'free/study' periods and if I skipped the classes before those it meant I could only go in at 11 or even later. Same for going home early sometimes. Oh and swimming lessons, I had less than 10% attendance in those..... My mum even wrote me 'fake' excuse letters for all of this. I am very grateful. School was tough enough and I was doing very well academically and a lot of school is not very efficient anyways... It was much better for me to rest sometimes and just catch up quickly in my own time. Thankfully I had a mum who encouraged skipping school- I think that is probably quite rare. 

I also had lots of 'tummy aches' before school when I was in 5th Grade - I had a particularly bad teacher that year.... Luckily my mum took action and I was able to change school the next year. School was still very challenging but I think the new school probably was also better suited to my needs. I still hated it but I think I still managed to avoid even bigger issues.

I can actually understand that. When I was younger, I'd think I'd rather have root canal surgery than go to a "social event". I wasn't joking, I meant it. My middle school years were my worst with bullying and having children make fun of me. Nothing was done of course.

Most of my work life was total hell. Quietly sitting at my desk working made me "different" - even though that's what I was being paid to do! I couldn't and didn't want to discuss my personal life (as my colleagues did) with people I didn't like or respect. I couldn't take listening to their inane chitchat over 7-8 hours a day so I wore earplugs, covered by my hair so nobody knew. I didn't want to add to their unfair judgements about me.

People interpreted my quietness as being "snooty" or a snob. I wasn't, I just wanted to do my work in peace. Like I was being paid to do.

I once complained of a sore tooth to get out of school, even though it was not giving me any pain, I had it extracted. The pain of unnecessary dentistry was better than going to school. A couple of days off school was worth a hole in my jaw. I thought it a good swap. School was, and is, such a miserable and/or hellish place for so many of us.

Thank you for mentioning alexithymia. I googled it and it was 100% applicable to me. Now I realise that I have struggled with my emotions because I don't recognise, understand or deal properly with them. I just feel a big jumble of feelings that confuse me and lead to angry outbursts and/or a shutdown into silence.

Thank you so very much for helping me. And congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

Yes, we suffered in silence. I also would tell my mother I was "sick" just so I could stay home from school. I did it a lot but nobody from the school ever looked into it. Another possible missed opportunity for help.

What's worse is when they do something incorrect and I want to teach them more effective questioning techniques. I used to train student psychotherapists, so I supervised and critiqued them. I also correct "therapists" in films and TV programmes. My boyfriend is used to my lessons on proper psychotherapy! 

Congratulations on your diagnosis!

I don't think there's a right or wrong emotion to experience. Anger is understandable. It's a lot to take on board and you're bound to have regrets and wish things had happened sooner rather than later. 

Whatever you feel is completely natural and fine.

This pretty much all applies to me too!

"Never says anything in class", was on most of my school reports. I was shy and as compliant as I could possibly be, and also fairly good academically. I didn't cause any problems for anyone else, I suffered all the problems.

Yep 90s kid and I even went to a school that had a speech and language unit that was especially for autistic children and those with special needs attached to it and it still wasn't picked up! 

Desmond79 Life is one big day dream.

yep and still in the 2000s and 2010s too....

That was still the case when I was at school in the 80s and 90s.

That sounds horrible- but it is great that you are in a supportive work place now !! 

I was a child then too and it was rare to get any accurate, useful diagnosis. I was labeled "shy" but being well-behaved/an ideal student guaranteed that no teacher would report any concern about me. Instead, those who acted out and disrupted classes got reported and seen by professionals at that time.