Autism and self esteem -personal story

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I always knew I was different and didn't connect to other people very well. In high school, I was hospitalized for depression a couple times and pretty much went into a long term shut down. They threw all these tests at me and I must have been to four or five psychologists during that time. I never really opened up though, because I felt no one was talking to me as a person, just assessing me. I was never told a diagnosis.
Fast forward ten years, I'm a single mom and I see the exact same traits in my son. I finally work up the nerve to ask my parents about my diagnosis, and that's when I learned I was autistic (pre AS). It's still something in my family that is never mentioned except for comments about being a space cadet, etc.
Now I'm in my mid thirties, and find myself with a lot of unresolved feelings about this. There's another Aspie whom I work with, and he's so open and accepting of himself. I just wanted to crawl away because it seemed to put a spotlight on my own "disability", which I never disclosed to anyone except my husband. I always just tried to seem as normal as possible (unsuccessfully of course).
My son is growing up to be a confident young man, and I'm trying to resolve my own issues to be okay with myself.
Just needed to put that out there

Just want to say I understand.

My feelings of self-esteem and self-efficacy are low low low.

Working on it. But I'm 27 now and feel like no one cares, and no one really believes I have AS. My therapists say I don't act like it and when I mentioned it in an e-mail to my mom, she didn't comment on it.

So I'm just treating the symptoms.

It would have been so much easier if I'd gotten help understanding and accepting myself earlier in life.