Poll re feelings after diagnosis as an adult
If you have been diagnosed after the age of 25, how did you feel? I'm talking about people who have either been officially diagnosed or self-diagnosed. I'm limiting this poll to those diagnosed over the age of 25 years as I want to know the effects of living with adult expectations and responsibilities and undiagnosed autism.
It hit me really hard and turned my life upside (I have just been officially diagnosed at 34 years old - I self diagnosed at 33 years old)
If you had a mixture of emotion - such as happiness re the relief knowing there was something wrong, and sadness that it's nothing you can really change - please select the dominant feeling.
Please feel free to expand your answers in the thread, I'm really interested to know different people's thoughts.
Thank you!
BirdInFlight
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Joined: 8 Jun 2013
Age: 62
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,501
Location: If not here, then where?
I got diagnosed late last year and I chose "mixed reaction both good and bad."
On the good side I felt vindicated, confirmed, and relieved to know for sure. On the bad side I felt angry that this didn't happen earlier in my life. I also felt strangely vulnerable and a little bit bitter. I felt "newly minted" and yet angry about that because I knew I'd lived with autism all my life and there was nothing "new" about it just because I'd finally got an official "say-so."
So, weird mix -- relief, glad to know for sure, also anger, bitterness, feeling vulnerable. I didn't even want to come here for a while because it can be rough here and I felt oddly fragile for a while.
I got half-diagnosed last year by an autism therapist but I am still undergoing the diagnostic process to get a fully official diagnosis.
At the very first moment I was really happy that I really didn't imagine it and my problems finally got noticed and I have a huge chance of getting help.
But then I started grieving - I might be able to get benefits I will also get mental retardation label. It's something hard to deal with when you are actually an highly intelligent being (my IQ is in the upper 8%). I also got proved that I will never be normal and I will probably never be as independent as I was hoping to be. And if I ever decide to have a baby I will have to deal with the risk of having an autistic kid. I have always supposed there is something wrong with my genes (based on my dad and his sister challenging behaviors - so similar to my own). Now I know it's true.
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