DX early or late

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I've noticed that the people who are diagnosed or self diagnosed later in life react to the diagnosis with a sense of relief and the ones that were diagnosed very early react often with resentment. Is it because their differences are that much more highlighted with an early diagnosis and feel restricted? For the older late diagnosed, would your life have improved with an early diagnosis?

in my case an earlier diagnosis would have helped, because im tangled in so many defense mechanisms from having to deal with the world that its hard to help me if anyone wanted to

I was diagnosed at 37. An earlier diagnosis might have helped my parents break out of denial and find ways to understand me better and not punish me for things I couldn't help. I doubt it would help in the school system though, as so many kids are being mainstreamed now. I'd be better off in a special ed classroom because it would be less overwhelming for me.

i wish mine was earlier so I didn't have to completely fail and quit school for someone to realize there was problems despite the fact that it was suspected for a long time but I refused to go to get diagnosis

I wish mine had been earlier, but.... I went through resentment, denial, and relief, soooo. Heh.

I think it depends on the parents. I've seen plenty of posts here where someone did get an early diagnosis but their parents remained in denial. At the same time, I didn't have an early diagnosis but I was, very obviously, a weird kid. My parents were nothing but supportive.

I suspect that, had I been tested back then for AS (they dx-ing at all back then), I would have had a strong chance of receiving an AS diagnosis. But I doubt it would have helped me. In fact, it probably would have done a number on my self-confidence.

I was 12 when diagnosed and didn't like it. That's pretty early to me. I think I was already doing good before it and I was already learning to cope in life by copying other people and found a way to be in social groups in school when our teacher make us work in groups. I just become a cattle. I think the reason for me being already understood was maybe due to my early ear infections and then hearing loss so my mom had to be patient with me to teach me and to get me to catch up in development so that like kept me from being misunderstood or mistaken for being a smart ass or lazy. I was already getting special ed but the staff was horrible and the principal allowed teasing in school but yet she had the rule for respect in her school. Contradicting isn't it?

After the AS diagnoses, it has help me more because my mom understood me better. She thought I was being a brat when I took "stop that teasing" literal and that happened before I was diagnosed. I also got extra help with my school work, I don't know if that was because of the AS diagnoses or because of something else. I heard an AS diagnoses like gets you better grades if you didn't do good with your school work or in class, and it helps you get through school. I would have failed school if I didn't get the help I needed. I probably would have dropped out.

Depends on whether 16 counts as early or late.

It's true that some parents are still in denial. But I've found that more often than not, the problem is that many parents go TOO far with the whole "Oh, my child is so horribly disabled" angle, and end up treating their kid like a 7-year old even into adulthood. Being given up on entirely is still much worse than constantly being told to try harder.

For that reason, it's better not to be diagnosed until early adulthood, after high school. That way, you won't fall into that whole "remedial trap" that children with AS are being shuffled into nowadays.

Some parents treat their aspie kids like ret*ds they are so overprotective of them they don't let them grow up or do anything on their own like go to places and buy things they want and the parents have to manage their money for them and their aspie child never learns how to be an adult and never learns responsibilities and they are stuck living at home in their adult years not working because their parents had convinced them they can't do this or that because they have AS. So they grow to not even try and be lazy because they have low self esteem about themselves because they had fallen into that trap. I'm just glad my parents never did that. I used to think they were over protective of me, my mom mostly, but after seeing some other aspies who have parents are over protective of them and treating them like children, I know my parents aren't over protective after all. It's sad really when parents do this to their aspie kids. I see the aspie as the victim when they go through it and they have been convinced they can't do this or that and can't live a normal life and they can't be on thier own. I always want to bop their parents on the head for it.

Is 12 early?

To be honest, I don't know. I can't imagine how life would be another way (I'm not very good at that). I think one of the big downsides to it is using AS as a crutch (every kid once in a while will excuse their indiscretions in some way, it's natural) and on the opposing end of the scale being given extra care/special treatment for areas and in things where you're actually normal or better than normal. There's nothing more annoying than not being able to get help in ways you really need help, then being given unwanted help with things you don't need help for.

My situation is similar.
I was diagnosed when I was 15 and that was about 1 year after I quit going to school. I was depressed because I was alone every single day (as well as having a bad home life, which is unrelated to AS anyway), I was bullied everyday at school and classroom situations were so overwhelming for me (because of the noise and people running about) that I rarely got any work done. Only I didn't refuse to get a diagnosis because I didn't even know was AS was. I didn't even think to seek help, let alone from a psychiatrist. I didn't even realize that I was depressed until I finally talked to someone.
I think that if I was diagnosed before high school I might not have dropped out. I might not have become depressed because I would have known about my AS and knew that being different wasn't my fault. Also I would have had some help so the depression might not have got as bad as it did.

For me it was a relief to get diagnosed, but being so a few years earlier would have been better.

I just turned 50 - made the AS connection at 45, was professionally DX'd last summer. Knowing earlier might have helped a lot in some ways. I was an excellent student, coasted right past my peer group through school - except in math, where I could really have used some serious help. If it had been clear that there was a disorder involved, I might have gotten that help, instead of being told I just wasn't applying myself.

Emotionally, I probably would have resented being told there was something wrong with me, would have gone into deep denial for awhile and been very depressed about it, depending on how early the diagnosis was made. By a certain age, I came to realize on my own that I was not like everybody around me, that I never quite fit in anywhere - I mean, I think a lot of adolescents feel that way, but as an Aspie, at some point you know that it's not just insecurity talking, you really are different. With no one to tell you what the cause is, you just feel like a defective human being.

I think that's the reason why those of us diagnosed as adults usually express such relief at finally, after years and years of feeling like freaks and losers, suddenly discover that we're not intergalactic changelings swapped out as infants for our parents' real children, but that our brains are actually configured slightly askew. ::Whew!:: So we're not insane - We're just seeing the world through a different lens than everyone else is. That explains everything! I knew something was off (so did the people around me), now I have an explanation.

Then comes the crash of trying to tell those close to you "Hey, guess what - I know now why I seem so weird to you guys - I have autism - Isn't that wild?" only to realize they don't care. They don't know what that means, and to them it doesn't change the fact that you're still weird. Besides, you're too close to normal to have autism. Those kids are ret*d, right? You're just annoying. That's not a disease, it's a personality flaw. Hey, look - we're back at square one. ::sigh::

I think earlier is better. Or, that is, it would be if only it were socially acceptable to be autistic.

It's a catch-22. Diagnosed early, and you get stigmatized as having a disability. Diagnosed late, and you get held back because people assume you don't have one.

Solution? I think we need to change the world in such a way as to make it less likely that kids diagnosed with autism will be stigmatized/labeled/etc.

I would have liked to have gotten a dx instead of just wondering why I was so strange and damaged.

Funny, My son is the one in denial. He was 13 when diagnosed, he says he learned from TV how to not be autistic, he says he knows he WAS autistic but refuses to be anything close to it now. He is 20yrs old. I, on the other hand found out that I am much more autistic than him. Boy did that help explain things. He and I view autism differently. He is embarrased by it, although he knows i have a heavy dose and he loves me, he teases me, but it's all in fun and it doesn't hurt me. My other son, 18 yrs old, tells me sometimes when I do things "You're so autistic, I love you", . I think our age at diagnosis has a lot to do with how we feel about it.Both my boys are very sweet, but they realize that thier mom isn't like other moms, I feel bad about that, but they said they don't like the other moms, so I guess thy are used to me.