Got my diagnosis yesterday.

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Hey guys.
Im abit confused and overwelmed. Got my Aspergers and ADD diagnosis yesterday. Last 5 years have been very painful for me, and I've been cought in a deep depression not knowing what's wrong with me. And yesterday it came, and it hit me like a brick wall. I'm don't know if im upset or happy or whatever. Don't really know how to deal with it all. It's really lifechanging.
I guess I'm hoping to get in touch with other aspies and how you cope with your diagnosis etc, and maybe get some new friends. I don't know any people with the diagnosis here in Sweden where I live, and I guess it would be a good start for me to get some..

xx Teresia

Welcome!

My diagnosis was a great thing for me. It opened a chest full of new tools and techniques I can learn how to use in order to have a better life. I trust that your experience may prove equally fruitful.

I hope it helps.

For me, it's been more a confirmation that I really am broken, my opinion really doesn't count, and my personality really is a disease.

Not to say it has to be that way for you-- I hope it isn't.

Good luck, and welcome.

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome!

My experience with knowing is the opposite of BuyerBeware's. For me it was liberating--finally being able to explain everything I've felt for so long, the understanding that it wasn't my imagination, I really am wired differently than most, why I do some of the things I do, and even that some of the things I do are not normal (without a proper baseline I was my own baseline for what is "normal." No wonder we're so confused early in life!)

It also put things I'd already figured out into context: Why I have to hide some of the behaviors that I enjoy--all my various stims--and why I want or need to do them in the first place; why I've always been so overly annoyed with test writers; the list is enormous!

There's a whole myriad of things that finally clicked into place for me once I started reading-up on Autism.

I went in initially for mid-life depression. Once I knew what I was, and putting that together with what I already know about myself, I was able to quickly put the depression behind me. We're motion oriented, that includes mental motion. My problem was that I'd grown bored of my life-long passion. I just needed a new special interest to focus on. Once I realized that, I started the hunt for one. And that was all it took to get to feeling better.

Without that understanding of how my brain is wired who knows how long it would have taken for me to accidentally discover that my brain needs motion, too. I would have only discovered that randomly, if ever.

So, for me knowing equates to relief. It's the external double-check that I've always looked for in everything I do and say. The constant polling of other people ("do you think in pictures?", "does this posture look strange? It's comfortable, but I'm worried it looks strange to others.", etc.)

But with the benefits come some deficiencies. I've always known that I had these deficiencies, and I tended to focus exclusively on them. Once armed with the understanding of what I was, it woke me up to the benefits I enjoy as a result of my brain's wiring. It converted my laundry list of things I hate about myself into a simple Pro/Con list. And in the end, the pros outweigh the cons for me.

I find that I've landed squarely in the camp which believes that we are not broken, we're simply different. We are not sick, we are just not yet fully understood.

Good luck to you in your quest for peace and understanding of yourself, Octobers.

hiya welcome to aspieville