late diagnosis - need to write to dampen overwhelm

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Im writing because I don’t know what else to do, Im writing so I don’t jump off a bridge. I feel so alone, this is nothing new for me Iv felt alone all my life, I feel alone with people who love me and I feel alone in a mass of people and I feel alone when im alone.
I have known for a while that I am aspergers and having just received an official diagnosis there is some kind of turbulence that is ricocheting within me. I do not see why this is happening I thought I would find my way, I thought things would get better. I mean I have always been this way obviously and it becomes more and more obvious the more I look.. maybe I expected that I would feel better getting an official diagnosis. Im not sure what I thought but I feel so many emotions I don’t know what is what and what im even feeling. One minute I think I feel like I understand and I am happy for this understanding and a relief but then the next minute I think I have a lot of anger because my life could have been so different and I could have directed myself in meaningful and useful ways, I could have accomplished something in my life if I had not been running away from myself and people all my life. Im angry for being denied the ability to be who I was and I feel like I have wasted my life trying to be something and someone I am not and could never have been.
I cant stop crying, I have sadness for the child I was and I feel the loneliness of my childhood like a knife in the chest squeezing the breath out of me and I feel the hardship like it was yesterday.. I feel confusion .. Im so so sad.. it has been so so hard .. everything has been so hard .. its still hard .. I thought that all this seeking and fixing and trying would amount to something but im 41 and it has amounted to nothing.. I feel confused because before I could pretend to be fun and happy and easy go lucky and now iv lost steam and I cant even pretend that anymore .. so what will become of me ..! I feel like im just a hindrance to my family and my kids are getting old enough to see past my pretense and I see it pains them. Iv never accomplished anything on purpose it has all been a bi product of running from my life.. any good iv done has been a mistake .. I cry now as I sit alone feeling so desperately lonely .. misunderstood.. I bring no joy to anyone unless I pretend to be someone else. My actions cause unhappiness to my family and being diagnosed does not help them nor me.
I have worked so hard to try to fix myself and now I realise that I have a life sentence .. ive spent 26 years trying to fix myself.. thinking that being abused as a kid was what the problem was .. I fixed that best I could .. to a point that iv faced all the facets of abuse but im still f#$%ed and I still cause my husband unhappiness, Im still a sh%t mother that explodes all the time for such little things.. I expect my 7 and 11 year olds to act like adults and always be quiet cos the noise drives me to react like the hulk. I scream at them all the time cos im constantly overwhelmed. My mind wants to work on something to feel success and accomplishment but I cant cope with being a mother and study at the same time. Weather affects me like hell and the cold hurts me like being in muscle cramps all the time. 
I feel all the sounds around me, living in the city makes me feel like im a punching bag..
We are going to leave the city in 1 year to go sailing to remote places, this will help if i can make ti through winter and the next 11 months and we will find nature and warmth and I will be able to study at some point when the kids are older.. I know this and it makes me feel a bit better but we need to get through this year… I can do it iv gotten through 26 years of hell already but I worry for my husband and my kids because I just cant seem to gain control of myself .. Im breaking down more and more and although I just need strong hugs and for him to tell me everything will be ok and we will make it through I just seem to push him away always saying the wrong things and being miss understood and not a supportive wife myself.

I fee like Im in a maze and I just never seem to do or say the right things. Im so out of control of myself .. when the wind is blowing and the weather is bad it makes everything 1000 x harder and I seem to become totally irrational which makes my husband push me away with ‘f%ck you’ and ‘do what you want’ and ‘ go study ill look after the kids’ ‘you make me feel guilty’ non of that helps obviously but I obviously make him feel bad .. that is the story of my life iv always made everyone feel bad.. it’s the way I come across.. I don’t mean to be like that but that just seems to be how I am. When he asks me how I am I tell him .. the problem is is that it is winter and im always on the brink of melting down from sensory overload and guilt from being a bad mother and wife and feeling useless and worthless and frustrated for not using my mind and accomplishing anything in my life. Im not stupid but my life circumstances has not allowed me to utilise my need to accomplish something, study and occupy my brain.. It’s a maze of hell .. that bends my mind and threatens my sanity constantly.
I know no one but i can help myself.. and when Im not half insane I actually have all the answers but when Im melting down or burning out I cant see the wood for the trees.

Im in a state now of just holding on to sanity as I sit alone having been officially diagnosed 9 days ago and have not spoken to anyone about it really since. My kids went away 2 days ago to grandparents thank god otherwise they would be with me in a mess right now although often they force me to hold my sh1t together.
So I guess iv been processing this for 2 days alone and im totally overwhelmed with so many invisible feelings unconscious feelings sweeping by so fast like fighter jets in stealth mode. I cant seem to get a gip on them .. I feel like they smudging into one big mash and I cant make sense of what is going on inside me.. I just want to box them individually into glass bottles so I can look at them one by one but I cant seem to get hold of them long enough to categorise and isolate them to investigate them.. Iv been out run and now I just feel like im drowning.

I know no one can help me right now .. I need a squeeze machine or to be held and told everything will be ok because I cant see that it will be..
Alone and confused and wishing I did not affect everyone around me badly

Just needed to say that to someone but i dont want to bother anyone because im always causing trouble and upsetting people. I really dont mean to .. it seems to just be my fate.. I would not be surprised if my husband left me any time soon .. people can only take so much .. sometimes I feel I must remove myself to save them but then I would leave them with guilt and a whole nother basket of guilt and regret and sh1t .. there seems to be no way of winning this game.

Hope you are feeling a bit better now, we all need to vent. Don't do anything stupid though especially since you have children.

If it helps, I think the emotional rollercoaster is normal. I'm the same age as you and got diagnosed last year. It takes time to process. I think you need some alone time for that and that it's good the kids are with the grandparents. My husband helped me a lot by giving me time and space at the time. Feel free to tell your husband I said so. I went through the same mood swings, perhaps not quite so extreme, but I didn't feel very stable at the time. I went for lots of walks, mornings and evenings, just to think. Eventually the mood swings passed, and I became more stable. I would still have some episodes of sadness, though.

Do you have anyone who can support you emotionally? Any kind of therapist or such? Did they just give you a diagnosis and then drop you? In your case I would seriously consider calling some kind of helpline just to have someone to talk to - if you are ok with phones, that is. I hope WP can be of help. Feel free to post lots of questions. Sometimes people are slow to reply, particularly i a post doesn't contain an obvious question, but don't take it personally and keep at it. The Haven is a more protected place where it's ok to be emotional.

Do you have noise cancelling headphones? They really help a lot to give a period of relief. I listen to podcasts while doing housework, it helps a lot. Particularly the ones where the participants have really soothing voices.

I think it would be of benefit to everybody if everyone around you were aware that you are not at your best right now and that you need a period of grace so you can deal with your emotions. Anyone would find this hard. It's a huge thing. Probably your experience with abuse exacerbates the whole thing. You are not superhuman. Nobody would get such a diagnosis and then just get on with life as if nothing happened. It's fixable, but it takes time.

Honestly, the way you are now, you are probably not of great help to your kids. Make a deal with your husband to get some time off for you to do whatever makes you feel good, and make it scheduled, so you don't have to fight about it. Don't push yourself to be a great mother right now. You can do that when you are more stable, if your family can carry the load a bit right now. If you are not physcially there, the kids won't think about it so much as if you were there and breaking down. I've been studying lately, and it's made me so happy that I come home and smile and joke with my kid, and then we don't get into fights so much. She loves me being happy.

Just hang in there. You will feel more stable over time.

Perhaps your situation is very different from mine and not all advice applies, but honestly it seems remarkably similar.

Best wishes!

Thank you!

Underwater already gave an absolutely fantastic response. I just wanted to comment to say I agree with her recommendation that you take a break and focus on doing whatever you need to figure things out for yourself. Maybe don't even wait the 11 months since things will probably only get worse if you don't do something about it. A lot of us (or at least me) here can relate to the masking your whole life and struggling with chronic depression just to have it all blow up in your face when the stress becomes too much. I believe it is pretty much impossible to avoid confronting it forever, and it can often come when you get your diagnosis.

I think if you do what you need to sort things out, calm down, and most importantly, learn to understand and accept yourself for who you are , then there's a good chance others will accept you as well and that it will be better than just trying to carry on how you are now. Talk to someone like a therapist, take a vacation (or just get out of the city for a bit?), or if you have to, temporarily go to the hospital (no shame in that), whatever you need. I think your kids would understand.

My advice might be completely off-base and out of line, sincerely apologize if that's the case.

Also, if you ever need to rant, I think people on this site can relate and don't judge. Don't feel bad about doing it, we all do sometimes There's also probably a lot of people that have gone through very similar situations to your's. Hope it gets better for you!

Late D here too.

What a hoot,
right?

USE the hell
out of WP.

Write yourself here.

You soon learn
you're not alone
but
you are unique.

Let the pendulum swing
as you embrace
your version of an
ASD ID.

Learn to speak up
about your unique needs.
And practice here.

Welcome Thinkhappi!

I wish you much strength in your struggles!

Thanks .. still felling depleted and broken and confused and like hiding under a pile of blankets forever.. but i dont feel like im dying from the crying today.

Thanks that there are others out there..
today i just feel so like I cant get over how much iv put in to fix this.. and the realisation that i wont fix it is so so hard.. not for me but I want it fixed for my husband and children's sake..

Today I do some basic chores to force myself out but hold my top quality headphones firm to my ears and keep my head down and keep breathing between the crying.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

I know what you mean, I was the same way when I found out about Aspergers. I don't remember how long it was, maybe about a month, but I know for a long time I was fighting with it, just trying to come to grips with the fact that I was still myself, that it didn't change me...but also wishing that we could have known when I was a child, dreaming about how different things could have been if I had had proper support, instead of yelling, screaming, and fighting.

I did get over it, though. Things do get better.

Now I spend a lot more time doing whatever I can to avoid as much stress as possible. I used to try to force myself through stressful situations, but now I know it's just killing me for no good reason. If I was smarter, though, I would go on disability.


But in some ways, ignorance was bliss. I could "be myself" and stim in public without being paranoid about what others would think of me. Now I try to hide a lot of that, so I end up going mute a lot more often than I used to

I haven't told a lot of people about AS, because I got some real negative reactions early on, but I'm sure a lot of people have figured it out, or have been told (without my permission). I know my mom is a lot nicer to me now; when I was younger, we fought constantly. I'm sure it also helps that I don't live with her anymore.

Thinkhappi I get the need to write, and I feel like you are expressing the same things I am feeling. I came here to post because I am looking for support in a shared experience. It really helps to know I am not alone, and that there are many people who have walked the path I am walking. It helps greatly, for example, to know that having to take time to process the new "lense" through which I am looking at life is a normal thing and part of the experience.

It has also helped for me to look at the asd symptoms as distinct and separate from the feelings of depression, anxiety and anger. The asd is what it is, which is also what it has been most of your life. The other issues can be mitigated.

One thing I think has helped is developing a mindfulness practice using meditation techniques. The idea of the relaxing breath helps mitigate triggering events. There are some very good guided meditations for forgiveness (of self as well as others), and for a acceptance of what is.

Also, the idea of PTSD is valid as well. Living undiagnosed can be incredibly difficult. When I was younger my life was full of yelling and conflict. As a kid, doing things an aspie does apparently, I would draw beatings from my parents and punishments for poor school performance and for not meeting expectations. Life without understanding the situation can be brutal. Life with understanding can bring healing and reconciliation. There is in my opinion, reason for hope.