Late in Life Diagnosis, Being a Woman

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I'm new to this, so please forgive me if I use the wrong language or terminology.

I am 36 yr old woman in the Midwest. I was recently diagnosed with High Functioning Autism. Of course, I have struggled my entire life, and really consider it miraculous that I have made it this far. So little support or guidance. So many misdiagnoses. I have probably seen 15 different therapists and doctors over the years. I saw a new therapist in March because I was having anxiety related to a car accident. She has experience with autism, and recognized my symptoms for that really were. Finally, something made sense to me.

I was non-verbal until age 5ish, banged my head frequently, and was very sensitive to noise/lights/colors as a baby and little kid. But other stereotypes of autism, I never presented nor do I now. Things like difficulty making friends, social cues, or being good with numbers. I was shy in class, but would get very upset and cry if I didn't understand a lesson. At home, I would have explosive tantrums, melt downs, freak outs. I still do, but rarely.

I was often dismissed as just being sensitive, or emotional. As I got older, the dismals came in the form of depressed, crazy, immature, or weird. I started drinking a lot to deal with social interactions and to cope with anxiety. A decade of binge drinking. Anorexia. Feeling like an abject failure at nearly everything. Dropping out of college, not being able to keep a job. Migraines. Feeling too overwhelmed to get daily tasks done. Being taken advantage of by predatory people.

I feel a big relief with finally having a correct diagnosis, and having so much click in place finally. But I also feel a great sadness. I feel robbed of a happy childhood, and I am still carrying the pain of the horrible wounds of my girlhood. By my own tenacity and a lot of luck, I've managed to have a good job for the past year, and have a partner who understands me.

Now, I am wondering what's next. I feel like I am relearning myself. So many things I thought I liked, I actually don't. So much I have put myself through that was just not for me. So much healing to do. Believing I am bad, flawed, damaged, wrong, or just a complete screw-up has profoundly affected me. Near non-existent self-esteem. Very poor relationship with myself and lots of self-hatred.

I feel hopeful for the first time and for once not totally lost. How do I translate this feeling into healing and progress in my life? Did you have a similar experience?

Was there any intervention in your pre-verbal years?

Welcome to wrong planet.

Going forward you will have an important thing in your favor. It is the knowledge that you are a survivor. Don’t sell yourself short, it is no miracle you finally got the correct explanation and you are around to tell the tale. It shows there is toughness and persistence within you.

Right now you realize a lot of your life, a lot of your key decisions made by you and others were based on misinformation. A lot of that is now gone and that means looking at the past, the key decisions made in a whole new light. The unleashes all sorts of emotions positive and negative sometimes all at once which is tough to deal with. But it is necessary. It is really similar to starting over, some describe finding out they are autistic late in life as a second birthday.

What you need to do is let your autistic brain deal with all of this the way it needs to. The real laurenjessica has been inside suppressed all these years screaming to come out. Now it is FINALLY liberation time. This process will be messy, confusing at times, exhilarating at times. This won’t happen overnight, one can’t undo damage done over a 36 year period quickly, there will be the frustrating steps backwards after steps forward. It is just part of the process to find out who your autistic self really is which is a good thing, a really good thing.

We do have a lot of people here that were diagnosed very late in life to listen to you and help you.