Struggling with being recently diagnosed

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Hi!
I was recently diagnosed with being on the autism spectrum and I am struggling with the diagnosis. I hope you don't mind me being negative and desperate, but I am really overwhelmed and I don't have people around me that can relate:

I have always known that I had ADHD and a couple of years ago I got diagnosed. I was pretty happy about the medication and about learning more about the condition and how it explains some of my oddities.
Now, I have been going through difficult times and I started getting therapy. I have had problems with handling my emotions, social interactions and some other things my whole life. But I always attributed it to my "difficult childhood" and some ADHD (and not fitting in due to ADHD or compensating for it). But apparently, some or many of these issues are part of being autistic.

I try to come to terms with the diagnosis, but it's difficult for a couple of reasons:
1. I always saw how I was ADHD-y: chaotic, loud, impulsive, high-energy, sensation-seeking, a bit out of control, at times overly outgoing, messy. But when I think of autism it seems to be the contrary or at least the portrayal in media so opposed to how I see myself. Maybe I am more prejudiced against autism than I previously wanted to admit. But right now it's hard to perceive autism as anything else then a homogeneous label, that forces all my personality in a tiny box. I know autism is a spectrum and none of us is just autistic, we are still individuals, but there is a part in me that doesn't get that.
2. Even when reading more scientific literature on autism, there are things that I am not sure if they applies to me. For example, I don't see much rigidity or repetitive behavior in me (or I don't want to see it). In the last years, I learned to develop a functioning theory of mind. I hate rules (even though this might be because I hate not being able to do it my way and having to follow the "illogical" ways of others) and I get so easily bored.
3. I am afraid of what it means to be autistic. Somehow, I hoped that with therapy things would get easier. But if my brain is hardwired that way, then I will always be overwhelmed when I am in crowded places, I will always be overwhelmed by information or got sucked into topics that are interesting to me.
4. I don't know what "healthy" means for me when dealing with emotions.
5. I love being alone sometimes and I need time to process social encounters. But I want relationships, I don't want to feel alienated or unconnected, I need love and somebody who cares for me every now and then. I am in my mid-30s and never had a relationship. And is hard feeling connected. And if I do, it's not reciprocal.
At the moment I compensate autism, but I would want to just "be" again, when I am around others. But that often ends in me being misunderstood or rejected or conflicts or even violence.
6. I struggle to make sense of me feeling unloved, my past experiences with mobbing and adverse childhood experiences. I don't get the connections and I notice that I tend to self-blame: it's as if something in me thinks I brought it on myself by being socially incompetent. And I don't know if I am just insecure or if it is still likely that I will be victimized or lonely if I don't do my best to behave "socially competent".

Can anybody relate? Well it get better?

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

You are the same person before your diagnosis than after.

I relate to being an Aspie (someone who has Asperger's Syndrome). I fit well within the traits of other Aspies. But I do not relate to autism or being on an autistic spectrum. The labels are so broad that it makes the diagnosis non distinct.
There are some different sub tribes of Aspies. They are not all alike. But most Aspies fit within these groupings.

So if being labeled an autistic or someone on the spectrum causes you distress, you may not want to use the term. Stick with Aspie instead. Whatever label you use should help you explain more about who you are. It should help you overcome your weaknesses and evolve your strengths.

For me the Aspie label describes who I am. I do not have all the traits exhibited by the definition but I have figured out why I am a different Aspie. I understand my sub tribe of Aspies.

tl;dr : skip to the bottom.

1.

I don't even consider autism a spectrum, that implies some kind of univariate gradient. I ain't no photon.

Autism lines up to labels about as well as chemicals do. You group chemicals under a label but all that can really be said of them is that they share -some- property among them. But the truth of an individual chemical is in its exact nature rather than its broad properties, and labels rarely capture that.

I don't call myself autistic. I call myself a meat popsicle, because that lines up with my philosophy and I can flag anyone who balks at its use as too critical for me.

2.

I could swear that with all the misunderstandings occurring among NTs that they're just sometimes-artful face-scryers who went on to claim they can see inside each others' minds. That phenomenon of "resting b***h face" seems to throw their interpretations off quite easily though. Perhaps it's another case of an NT making a hasty claim about what it is to be human. Souls, rationality, ToM, they get everything wrong.

The scientific literature is all over the place on simple things too. One day they say we have low global neural connectivity the next they say high. One day it implies this, the other, that. When they learn to respect the complexities of highly nonlinear systems I'll start listening to them, until then the science is basically a Rorschach test.

I too hate doing things in their horribly illogical ways.

3.

I'm not going to say that being overwhelmed by crowds and information will get easier. It tends to wax and wane for me relative to my overall mental state. I use headphones in crowds and I treat them more as a physical medium to move through than actual people. The video game Assassin's Creed taught me to pat peoples' shoulders to get past them when they're drunk and not paying attention to their surroundings.

Having the diagnosis helps put a name to it but it's still a journey of self-discovery. Some aspects do appear to be more or less hard-wired into the brain. But the things hardwired into their brains do some nasty stuff too (like give them their illogical ways, eww).

What's worse, being overwhelmed at a noisy establishment or being part of millennia-long perpetuations of illogical ways? Food for thought.

4.

I don't know what healthy means for you, but I'm slowly figuring out what it might mean to me from what it definitely isn't.

Healthy for me isn't:
Drinking, ever again.
Clinging to "friendships" just because they exist to me, despite their content.
"Trying too hard" to have someone like me back.
Hating parts of myself I can't change.
Not eating all day.
Speaking anger into myself.
...

5.

I've had two relationships, but I swear they were partly just our combined fear of being alone. I'm hoping I might find someone I click with again sometime in the next decade or two.

And there's also the idea that whatever relationship I get into doesn't have to -be- anything in particular so long as we're both happy with the time we spend together. A relationship involves another person and should make both people happy via some manner of interaction, that's all.

No real advice here, I'm in this boat with you. But I wish the humans didn't bring violence on you for just being you.

6.

I know the feelings.
Repeatedly being thrown into the "quiet room" to enforce compliance, and in the process being humiliated in front of peers as a child just sorta does this programming to a person where there's a deathly need to know what proper protocol is in a situation, and if anything goes wrong then they're automatically the one at fault. Novel social settings give me fight-or-flight panic attacks if I don't have a trusted friend along to observationally distill the accepted protocol from so I just stay home most of the time. The world isn't a fun place when terrified of people.



I can relate to what you say. And you're here now so you're definitely not alone. Unless you're a die-hard solipsist, then you really can't be sure. As for if it gets better, I think so, but only as I've given myself slack and let my sights drift form those I was once told to aim for to ones that are more "me."

Welcome Naela!

Enjoy your stay!

I had a successful relationship with an NT for 15 years before she passed away. But, it was a difficult learning experience. And I'm better at doing things than most Aspies. I do a pretty good job of keeping the house I bought fixed up. Not many here have a paid up house.

My guess is that you may be better off hooking up with someone else on the Spectrum, and avoiding NTs for relationships. Though you can learn an awful lot by talking to non-Aspies who will honestly discuss social situations. A NT is likely to want more than you can provide in a relationship. That unbalance will cause the relationship to fail.

What you really what is someone similar to you. If you are ugly and marry someone really pretty it is likely your insecurities about the relationship will cause it to fail. You may constantly worry that she will find someone handsome and leave.