I am a 51 year old woman who has recently been formally diagnosed with ASD. I suspected that both myself and my (then) husband were on the spectrum back in 2011, but my daughter and his mother scoffed at the idea, so I never brought it up again. Almost two years after that, he sat me down one evening and told me all the things wrong with me and that he wants a divorce. Ironically, they were almost all autistic things (anxiety, my interests, focusing on a specific thing, not dressing up to go to the grocery store, etc.). He wasn’t interested in counseling, so the marriage ended (I kicked him out and filed for divorce). When I was married, I was totally fine with being autistic. But now that I am single, I am really struggling with my diagnosis.
My divorce was really heartbreaking for me because after being rejected by my first (NT) husband and then being super lonely for six years, I thought I finally found the right guy. When he rejected me for just being myself after almost 9 years together, I was devastated. I didn’t see it while I was married, but he was very controlling and manipulative and emotionally abusive too. I’ve been trying for 5 ½ years to recover, and in that time, both of my parents died and one of my two siblings was put into a nursing home. I was bullied at work by my boss, so I changed jobs a couple of times. And now the autism diagnosis. While the autism label explains just about everything in my life, and I’ve been doing a lot of reading about it trying to make sense this diagnosis, I’m super lonely and confused and not sure where to turn.
I’ve been seeing a therapist, but she doesn’t understand autism. It seems most of the “help” out there is for children. I’ve also observed that the most successful aspies seem to have or had supportive parents. My parents were not supportive of me at all and caused me a lot of trauma (which is why I’m in therapy).
My only saving grace is that my grown daughter has realized that she is also on the spectrum, and we talk about it sometimes, but she is planning on moving out of the country early next year. I have one (NT) sister whom I talk to, but she is in another state and time zone and doesn’t understand what I’m going through. No real friends and no family nearby, so I am terrified of being completely alone. I go to a few Meetup groups, but I’m usually exhausted when I come home from work and need the weekend to recover. And it’s super hard for me to make friends. Any suggestions?
12 Aug 2018, 5:26 pm
