I’m not exactly sure how to word or describe this feeling, and I’m feeling extremely alone on it but, ever since I got diagnosed earlier this year everything has been feeling harder. I can’t control my anxiety that well, It’s harder to talk to strangers, It’s harder to think properly and manage my emotions. It’s like when I get diagnosed, my whole life restarted and I’m learning everything all over again. And it’s like my brain is still in denial about it because I keep pushing past my limits (wether its something small like over trying to figure out solutions) and wonder why I’m so depressed, anxious and tense.
I’m sorry. I don’t think anyone commenting has any idea what you’re talking about, which is a feeling you’re probably familiar with by now. I understand what you’re going through. I’m relearning life too and it’s an incredibly painful process sometimes because I’m already very self aware and I now have an entirely different perspective to view my life from.
Maybe we can try to think of it like a puzzle that we’ve spent our whole life struggling to put together. Someone just handed us the picture of the box. It’s not the picture we were expecting. There’s some relief being able to make sense of the pieces but now we have to accept that the pieces we were trying to force together are never going to fit together. We’ll never be able to make the picture we wanted. That’s hard. And the picture doesn’t change the fact that the pieces still have to be put together. It doesn’t change the fact that we still struggle. All we know is why we struggle and that we will always struggle to some extent.
I do believe in time we will find peace and happiness. I know some autistic older adults and they live beautiful eccentric lives. But they had to find their way just as us.
I could probably go for a diagnosis if I wanted to. I joined a waiting list years ago, and by the time they called I didn’t care about having a diagnosis anymore. So I have not lived through this exact situation, but it seems to connect to situations where great expectations don’t really deliver all that much, and/or are attached to a lot of boring work to do or details to attend to once the new reality sets in.
For example, after my first art exhibition I was very depressed because I realized this was not the feeling of happiness I really wanted to achieve. I grieved for this version of me.
And when I got to move into my dream house I was suddenly overwhelmed by all the stuff I had to fix and build. The idea of moving into the house was shiny and wonderful! Once I sat in the house I still loved the house and wanted to be there but I felt really weak and sick and unable to do anything for weeks.
Mostly, these days, I’m getting older and more unashamed. I don’t even like the term autistic anymore - some old white guys made it up to repress weird people. I prefer the term neurodiverse, and I declaim that nothing is wrong with me. I am not disordered. I am proudly weird, and do mostly what I want. If you don’t listen too much to what others say (psychiatrists and psychologists included) you will definitely get there! Your inner common sense will lead you to the eccentric life that is just yours.