Joe90 wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Joe90 wrote:
I don't quite understand what your reply is about, as it seems like you were writing a song or something.
I just need to know why I'm finding it so hard to accept my diagnosis I've had for 20 years, even after all the help and support I've had over the years. I can't stop feeling angry and ashamed of myself for having it. Some of what Tony Attwood explained in his videos about girls with Asperger's described me and I was like, "f***s sake that was how I was", even though I'm not the stereotypical Aspie at all.
Well...
imagine if you had NOT been diagnosed.
You would be saddled with a hundred times more shame, and 100 times more self directed anger. And you probably wouldn't even be getting any support on top of that. That's because you would have all of the same problems caused by the condition of autism, but you would not have had the label of "autism" to explain the problems.
The you who lives in this parallel universe in which you were not diagnosed has a life far worse than your life. So why do you envy this alternate person?
Well, in another thread, several users were saying that they were glad they weren't diagnosed in childhood. I can't remember which thread it was, as it died a few weeks ago.
I think it's because there are more female Aspies who weren't diagnosed until later on, and they often say that female Aspies are hard to diagnose. So me being diagnosed at age 8 makes me feel like I'm severe or something. It also makes me hate my younger self for being so Aspie-ish.
How exactly do you imagine things would have been better if you had not been diagnosed?
You would have had all of the same social impairments that you had. So your life would have been just as difficult. You would have been just as unpopular with other kids. And all of the other issues you probably had.
Your parents still would have sent you to shrinks. And you have the burden of knowing that you're a person who goes to shrinks. So you still would have had tons of shame.
Every bad thing in your childhood would have been much the same. Same s**t in a different shaped cesspool.
So how would things have been better?
And I am not just asking this in some rhetorical way just to make you feel better. It honestly gobsmacks me how middle aged people like you and I would NOT have been better off with early diagnosing.
I lived the childhood life that you wished you had lived, and I know first hand how much it sucked.
10 Nov 2018, 6:22 am
