Diagnosed Earlier This Week at Age 26. Feeling... meh?

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Ok this is weird to be posting here after months spent just reading forums and topics and being on the outside looking in!! Though this whole week has been weird...

I was thoroughly unsatisfied with my self diagnosis and was driving myself insane wondering so I went for an assessment which confirmed that I am Autistic.

Oddly enough I didn't anticipate myself feeling so negatively about it. On the one hand I am relieved and strangely proud but on the other hand an official label is in direct opposition to my main coping strategy in life- denial. I always knew I was odd and I went to great lengths to hide it always hoping that I'd grow out of it, snap out of it or just wake up as a different person. Now I know that I can't do that any more I feel awfully worried. Which is silly because I'm the same person coming out of the office as I was going in.

I just can't hide any more, I'm faced head first with who I actually am. This is probably a good thing, like how bad can I really be??! ! Who knows I might like myself.

In hiding myself away I also hid a lot of good things, I'm really creative- have natural ability at art, music, writing etc. I've never done much with any of it. I was paralysed by this fear of people 'finding out the truth' that I spent most of the last 26 years being a non entity, there but not actually there.

I feel a bit like I f****d it all up. Currently trying to get my career going in an industry based solely on people and I feel like I made a mistake with it. I'm worried. I want the job though.

Floated through life and now I feel behind, like its an uphill struggle.

Wow this is getting awfully miserable, I am super happy to know for sure though! Just a bit of a mixed bag of feelings. Going to take a while to sink in I think.

If you made it to the end of this post then hello nice to meet you

Lots of Aspies are creative--it could be that our brains are wired for creativity.

This can be a big advantage in the work world--someone has to come up with new ideas. NTs typically come up with so few ideas that each one is precious and must be guarded to prevent someone from stealing it. I, on the other hand, have an endless supply of new ideas, so I can give them away and not worry about when I'll get another one.

I don't do meetings--and I don't have to. As someone who gives ideas it isn't necessary for me to show up in person--I just interact with the right guy and he does the meeting/NT social interaction stuff for me. Each year I get a little pay raise so I'm doing OK financially without being a manager or having to jump jobs. And I get a ton of vacation time.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Hey synthlover welcome.

It gets easier. Keep talking about it and see what other people do to feel better.

I recently went through the same thing. I wanted to be sure of the diagnosis and didn't rely much on my self-diagnosis. When I got the results, I felt a little like yourself - relieved and somewhat proud at first, but also worried about the future and with a strange feeling that I had irreparably lost time trying to be someone I can never be. Like you said, "floated through life and now I feel behind". I guess I underrated my reaction to the official diagnosis, I went through an emotional rollercoaster right after that.

I'm feeling a lot better about it now, and I think you'll too, as time gives us perspective and allows us to assimilate better the new information we have about ourselves. You'll also start to plan your life knowing full well about the limitations and advantages you have, and will stop making plans based on different expectations, and I find that to be a good thing.

Anyway, welcome!

BDTD- It seems that way alright! We seem to have a unique perspective on things a lot which can result in unique and creative solutions. That sounds like a good work situation

AnonymousAnonymous and RoadRatt thank you for the welcome

Mitchel- I will try but I find it hard, people try to fix the problem too much without letting you talk. Nice to hear from others that it gets better, I do know that on an intellectual level but right now I feel very down. Thank you

Claycarter- Yeah I feel what you have described 'worried about the future and with a strange feeling that I had irreparably lost time trying to be someone I can never be' That is me right now, I invested stupid amounts of energy into trying to be someone else and I still felt short. Feels like a waste of time. Yeah I also definitely underrated how I'd react to it. I expected to feel all happy and relieved but instead I feel strangely empty and somehow like I'm mourning for myself. Good thing I'm a fan of The Cure I guess, good mourning music

Yeah I think that the good thing will be to have a firmer grasp on my place in the world, limitations and advantages as you say. Start living life for myself and not for the me I think I should be. Your reply has really helped, nice to hear from someone who can relate!

I was diagnosed last year at 58, and had a long wait for the report - meanwhile convinced that I'd made an utter arse of myself and I was a mentally ill NT.

It might be possible that I had made an utter arse of myself, but simply by being myself to the hilt I was diagnosed as Aspergers.

Yes, that phenomena of mixed feelings was there for me, and extreme feelings, elation mixed with guilt, then crying in unbridled unguilty sorrow for myself mixed with joy, the slow horrible unhinging of blaming myself for everything. Just being properly recognised for what I was was a breathtaking turn of events.

We're all different, and I know the personality is not a machine, but a year later my sense is of knowing myself better, like a soldier knows his gun, a musician an instrument and a biker the bike. So my forays into society, though scant, are a better deployed performance these days. Where I'm heartless or over heartful it bothers me less.

Have you heard an album called "Faith"? - I spent much of my 20's horizontal listening to it.

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This thread is a good example of an Aspie having a wrong idea of what they should be doing at work. Just because something needs to be done doesn't mean you should do it!