Diagnosed when older? The process of accepting the dx?

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oh my goodness, gary. this is very apt for me to hear. i have had a parallel experience - a sense that there is nothing inside myself -------- perhaps except rudimentary emotional (and also very complex mental) processes that are quite dissimilar to those of others around me. the description of "adoption of a persons" also rings true.

I can express feelings actually - but my expressions of emotion are NOT in keeping wth the contexts. I have meltdowns and also remain impervious to feelings when others are gushing! I read Temple Grandin's account of her emotional processes and while her display is different to mine, she talked about grasping more "extreme" feelings, whilst lacking the more subtle feelings. This is very much how it is for me. So it means I lack a complex emotional vocabulary when with others. I have an emotional vocabulary but it comes out through painting and not through social exchange with people. Trying to grasp all those emotional nuances is like watching talking heads.

yes- i was initially over the moon about discovering what the hell was wrong with me; after years of being dismissed by drs etc as 'not trying' and everyone else as beng 'interntioanlly dificul and not trying'.
now, like you, ive realised that - this is it. .... there is no magic solution, or recovery, or treatment- i NEVER will improve.

im waiting for formal diagnosis (though two dr's have off the record said i do have it) and to ask for help (there is none, but im optimistic/ fooling myself).
i am 35, unmarried, childless, on benifits- my quality of life (aversion to touch, light, noise, and in particular people) is crippling. im hanging in, trying to find a reason to stay alive, but realistically- there is nothing- im never going to be able to fulful my potential (inteligent, gifted), or even have a relationship and the family i long for.
i really see no reason for staying alive- there just isnt anything.

though on the other hand, without finding out what was wrong with me, id definatly be dead now anyway, as i was seriously- oh- isolated, cut off, confused, just living underground, cut off... now at least i KNOW what's wrong- it helps a little.
still a bleak outlook.
i met my new nephew for the first time last week and wonder if i will see him next year, let alone as a chlid or adult..
i just dont see any future.

oh yes, morgana. i relate also to your experiences. I am jammed where i am now, in my career. I have AS and i cannot do anymore than i do. So iam hitting this realisation that any more exponential career progress is actually too hard for me! I understand what you are saying about teaching yoru dance class. I have a small group who comes to my home for painting lessons once a week....It exhausts me but at least it is my special interest and i am grateful for that. I will hang in. I am a painter - it is a part of me and a part of my AS. but at present my world is undergoing a profound realignment.

Good luck also, and hang in there too.

hello vulcan. very interesting and i can very much relate. I alwyas thought i was defective and broken. now i find i am different. not broken. just different. i think you just answered something for me.

Vulcan,
I was there at one time I went into the woods, not by choice but it worked out anyway. You have to get away by yourself and it will come from inside, who you are. You'll be surprised to find that there has always been somebody deep down inside that has been surpressed over the years for one reason or another.

Wow, I leave this site for 24 hours and so much happens!

I so much relate to what everyone is saying, especially that sense of not having an authentic inside self that we can communicate to the world. I'm realizing, for me, that much of that is my dislike of labels and phoniness, so I've tried very hard not to call myself an ABC with a personality like XYZ. The Aspie label is the first one that's ever felt like it truly fits me. I think this is why I wanted to get a Dx from a doctor; I wanted someone else to be able to actually see me and hear me and give me a name that sounded like MY name.

Now I realize I am an aspie artist with a very good (and ironic) sense of humor. Not a bad start at 50. Maybe even a good place to rest for awhile.

I've also been thinking about "coming out" in my community as an Aspie. I have an idea of writing something for the free local paper that comes out (oops, no pun intended...I don't think...) once a month. I know the editor and publisher, and he's run some of my stuff before. This is so much how I am: hide, hide, hide, hide, hide, hide some more, fret, worry, obsess and then..........come out in a major direct way. We'll see if that will happen. In any case, writing a piece would help me get more clarity about myself and autism, even if I don't submit it for publication.

Being in contact with you all and learning about autism are my major special interests at present. I feel so wonderfully at home. What a new feeling.

The only thought I put to it was, is it right? I don't see that there's anything to accept as I was the same person before as after; sure, it's a severe and lifelong disorder which doesn't improve much, but I haven't known any different (so in other words, what did I actually lose? Nothing).

I learned to accept myself as I am years before I ever heard of AS. The circumstances - my first wife (of ten years, at the time) had moved in with her boyfriend, "letting" me use her car (a beat-up ten-year-old Hyundai Excel), which had recently blown its rear main seal. I had gone to the trouble of replacing the seal, and was in the driveway of my parents' place in Vista, CA, struggling to get the engine to mate up with the transmission, when suddenly it hit me. Why was I sweating out there in the sun, and making my sixty-something-year-old father sweat out there with me, so that she could go play house with Mr. Wonderful? We dropped the engine into the compartment, and I later sold the car to a neighborhood kid for a hundred bucks (he was sure he could fix it right up).

That day, I started looking at what I was doing in my life that was just to please other people, and was no help to me at all, and began carving that right the frak out. Pleasing others is fine - as long as I'm not ruining myself over it. If what they want is personally damaging to me (or, since I remarried and had children, my family), they can go build a bridge and get over it.

It wasn't until I'd been with my now-wife for a couple of years that Newsweek printed a story on what they called "Geek Syndrome". My elder sister read that, put the magazine down, and said to our mother, "So THAT'S what's wrong with Jon!"

Learning about AS since has been a voyage of discovery for me - so that's why I do this, why that happens to me, why I never seem to be able to understand the other...

Greentea, if you can get an official diagnosis, they can't fire you for AS - it falls under the Americans with Disabilities Act (and its equivalent, in some other countries). In fact, the company has to make "reasonable accommodation" for your AS - and what constitutes "reasonable" is up for negotiation.

What makes you think that you know more than me about my country's employment laws? I find that very funny. Official AS diagnoses don't even exist in my country for adults, let alone any laws to protect Aspies from being fired for AS, or any other illness / disorder / neurological problem.