Hi there, I just wanted to introduce myself, I hope I'm not going to be too wordy...
I'm 35 years old self-diagnosed Asperger's, I always had the impression there was something missing about myself since I was a child, I had to face many challenges, on several occasions I struggled where others haven't, to be honest I wasn't even aware of my sensory issues before informing myself about Asperger's, I thought the way I experience the world was normal, apparently it is not.
Long story short, after moved to a different country three years ago, my issues somehow amplified so much to be unbearable, and I started to ask me some questions, I became aware of what Asperger's Syndrome is, I read about it, and everything made sense, so I kept informing myself and I did some tests (like the RAADS-R), which cleanly confirmed my impression resulting in being very very far from a neurotypical result.
Those results pushed me to remember about the struggles of my childhood/adolescence and everything it didn't come up back then, I realized I've been coping by masking my whole life, I lived all my life unaware of being on the spectrum, and it's been overwhelming, exhausting.
So... I am now just an adult who has been pretending to be neurotypical, for obvious reasons it doesn't work and I really don't know what I'm supposed to do, I'm great at masking symptoms, but there is a price to pay for it, like small burnouts, terrible headaches, sleep disorder, depression...
I'm glad I'm aware now, I just wish I had known it sooner, I could have been helped to understand myself better, and I'd probably be able to handle my issues to improve the quality of my life by now.
Please feel free to give me any advice.
Thank you