The price of waiting years or decades for a diagnosis

Post Reply New Topic

My parents fought to keep a diagnosis off of me. That it worked out so well is largely because of resources they had access to in order to educate me themselves, and provide social opportunities themselves, which may not have existed had I been born 10 years later, due to the collapsing middle class. Without either access to what my parents could give me, or a diagnosis, we would have been stuck navigating the K12 system the entire time otherwise, without supports.

I'm actually glad that I didn't have a diagnosis, but only because I was low enough support needs for special ed to probably actually be harmful in the long run; I know people similar to myself where the big difference between our life narratives is that they went to special ed and I didn't. I'm grateful that I got to have life experiences that I had. I know this isn't the right answer for everyone.

But I wish I did get one earlier than I got one (officially, at 31; recognized the autistic potential in myself at age 26 or so, but no clinician took me very seriously about it until I had better insurance and saw someone actually knowledgeable about autism). It might have been really helpful to have known this about myself by the time I started college. Except that ages 18-21 were among the smoothest, most normal-looking years of my life, and the most socially normal (I didn't really notice that something Seemed Really Wrong until I was on my own and overnight, it became obvious how much I was leaning on an invisible support system).

I only actually started doing very well in college classes *after* my autism got diagnosed.

The flip side? Sometimes I wonder... if I'd been diagnosed earlier, would I have actually have been able to finish high school, etc?

Can never know.