Diagnosed at 30. existential crisis. Help?

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I grew up the child of two alcoholics, ran away at 16, was homeless for a while, have lived in at least 2 dozen different places, with at least 50 different people, have been fired from pretty much every job for attendance issues due to crippling bouts of depression and an inexplainable inability to function as a human being upon waking up, am exceptionally attractive(refused to believe this until I checked against the golden ratio mask and fit it to a T, and got 9.9 on hotornot.com yay body dysmorphia), have Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder, had no real long term memories until my physically abusive father killed himself, which unlocked up to age 18, but I couldn't remember anything that happened before that age.

Until I was diagnosed with autism last week(I had suspected for several years, as you can see by the join date but assumed all my difficulties were bad parenting and trauma). This Friday the shock wore off and I was flooded with all the memories before then because now I could handle remembering the horrible horrible horrible awful traumatic events and all the awkward years of school and attempts at social interaction but being cripped by auditory hallucinations and the GAD and MDD which were diagnosed when I was 8.

I have been in varying states of catatonia, crying fits, and on Friday I was cutting myself(as I have since I was a kid to cope with the overwhelming sensations of everything.) and for the first time I cut my face. Pretty bad. And sent a picture of it to all my bosses.

Now that regular working hours have resumed my entire body is covered in slowly healing wounds due to my habit of not eating for extended periods of time then eating terrible quality food, and I am freaking the f**k out. For the first time in 6 years I've been thinking about suicide(Can't do it though, know how much it hurts everyone for obvious reasons) and I think the only reason I'm not screaming and ripping out my hair again is because Ive got a ridiculously loving dog and cat on both sides of me and hulu streaming.

My employers are being ridiculously understanding and know about all of my diagnosis and their difficulties and it's just making everything worse because I've never in my entire life felt any sense of security or safety in any situation and for the life of me I just can't trust them when they say they just want me to feel better and take care of myself. It's a small company of about 15-16 people who all have great hearts.

But...I'm still freaking out and haven't gotten out of bed for 12 hours, all of them wide awake staring at the ceiling thinking about my childhood traumas and awkward experiences through their original lenses and then also through the lens of autism(banging my head against walls repeatedly, sometimes on request because I thought everyone was lauging WITH me) and with that attractiveness thing in the mix I feel like I can't trust literally anything at all. My body, my job, my family, my friends(Who I am paying rent for out of guilt from being homeless and the costs are crippling me), my girlfriend(who is very likely also on the spectrum now that I think about it, another lucky break like the loving animals), or any of it because I feel like I can't trust any of the reasons I had for anything anymore because so many people(some admittedly) put up with SO MUCH for attractive people and knowing how ostracizing it is even WITH that advantage(I go into fits of isolation where I talk to no one for months and do nothing. Usually lose a few friends. Usually make a few new ones on the internet when I come back out)

I really need people who can help me make sense of the lens of autism who might or might not have similar experiences because I'm so confused.

Also this is kinda help keep me a little sane

Hi, I was diagnosed as an adult too, after both my parents had died and like you say, it makes you review your whole childhood through a different lens. Glad to hear suicide is off the table because it happened in my family and you have no idea of the anguish and far reaching, rest-of-your-life effects. I love your cats. I have two of them and three dogs and they are my best friends. Having been diagnosed just last week, this is still so fresh for you. I think it's pretty normal to be freaking out and confused at this point. You have a great thing going for you that you have a job (hopefully one you enjoy) and bosses and coworkers that are so understanding. I know it's hard to trust people when you have been abused in the past, but try letting one or two of them "into" your life struggles bit by bit. I bet some of them are really worried about you now since you sent them that pic. Right now you are on the wild plunge and twists of the roller coaster of life, that should shortly be followed by a slower, gradual ascent, where things will be calmer for a while. Hang on!

I can't imagine what you must be going through, and I'm glad you've still got friends a gf. Don't be afraid to lean on them. To have repressed memories rise to the forefront is such a scary thought to me. It would be one of the worst things I think I could imagine happening, I saw a friend go through it, she'd go into a state where she thought she was dreaming but she was remembering, and then she'd 'wake up' from the remembering and not remember what she had recalled.

My fairly new cat Baboo helps me out too.

OP you were already a courageous survivor by the day you left home. You seem to be reeling from the re-intensified impact of old and unhealed wounds. For now, I suspect the bravest thing to do is to feel the feelings rather than doing anything to shift awareness away from them (like wounding yourself).

You are at the start of another major journey in your life now. Hang on in there. Stay connected to safe others meantime, if that means posting here a lot, then post here a lot. Support, Safety, Validation, Connection and Time are the factors everyone needs on any healing journey. Keep in touch over the coming weeks as you absorb a new set of meanings relating to ASD into the many strands of your Self and you may feel very tired as these kinds of transitions often take up a lot of inner energy.

I am sorry that you are experiencing so much right now.

It sounds like officially realizing that you were neurologically different has caused you to be thrown into processing the traumas with this new knowledge. I am just guessing here.
Is it possible that seeing yourself as autistic is making you believe that you somehow deserved the abuse even more so than if you were "normal" (NT)?

For me, I believe I when I was abused as a child, I had like a 20 year brain shut down. I was basically emotionless and unresponsive to most stimuli, constant disassociated state. It's only been the last 7 years or so that I have gradually gotten my emotions back. And with those, I have "developed" my sensory issues (and more meltdowns). I believe I always had the sensory issues, I just wasn't equipped to deal with them while I was turned off.

it sounds like finding out you were atypical has triggered you to feel all the feels. You don't need to feel guilty for needing more support right now. It sounds like you have been through hell, and you just have been surviving until now.

This overwhelmingness will NOT last forever.

The thing that has helped me the most with dealing with my emotions was a short little thing I learned in the hospital not too long ago.

The more one tries to stop emotions and when you think you cannot deal with them, the harder they are to deal with, the stronger the emotions become, and it all gets worse. The emotions literally become overwhelming. If you think you can cope you will be able to cope. The emotions will still be s**t and hard to deal with, but you will be able to get through it.

This is definitely true for me with emotions, especially with dealing with grief when a loved one dies. You can't try to shove emotions under the rug and expect they will go away, instead they stay there and build up, kind of like the stuff inside a volcano stays there and builds up like the big bulge they saw forming on Mt. St. Helen's before it blew up. I have also noted that when people blow up at me for something insignificant, like I forgot to give them a napkin at the dinner table, the napkin isn't really the issue, it's something else bigger in their life that they haven't dealt with. The napkin just became the last straw in their ability to bottle up the unresolved emotional issues. Hope that made sense, I may not have expressed it well.

I haven't had to deal with even a tenth of the stuff you have, but the confusion is familiar. Trying to figure out what messed up things in my life are due to autism, dredging up horrible, stupid, disgusting and embarrassing memories. The couple of months since my diagnosis I've been dazed, fearful and full of rage. At the same time, I've had a wierd sense of relief at finally having some hope of understanding. I'm sorry to hear you're just getting the distress and confusion side.

In the long run... the diagnosis could help you be more compassionate to yourself. Hell, you've had a life most people who AREN'T autistic couldn't handle. All the bad stuff, the homelessness and the lost jobs... you have a disability that makes fitting into society hard. You didn't know this at the time. On top of your hard upbringing it's no surprise these things happened and no-one can reasonably blame you.

And the good things in life... you worked much, much harder than the average person to get them. Please remember that!

Buddy I was exactly where you were at last year when I was 30 and first was dianogoised. I know how you feel and know what its like eating once a day and being taken advantage of. There is a light at the end of the tunnel now that you taken the first steps to fight for who you truly are, you have to keep fighting like I did! Read my post I get into detail of what I went through.

viewforum.php?f=23

It changes and settles down. A lot of denial at first. Reframing the whole of my past. The acceptance came slowly for me, and now I don't feel that crisis of the knowledge, but there is some, I don't know, anger I guess at my life.