I was diagnosed today.

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I was already aware of my other disorders and mental illnesses, but today I was officially diagnosed with autism.
For some reason, I am very distraught, and have been crying quite a bit. I have always loved my friends who have autism and have never seen people who have autism differently than myself, but for some reason being told that I am autistic was very startling.
I think the biggest part of it is all of my problems from when I was very small, all the hateful and abusive actions committed against me... I wonder if it would have been circumvented if people knew I was autistic instead of just "weird" in their eyes for my behavior and special interests. Would I have been bullied less because people would have known why I was the way I was? Would my parents have abused me less? Would they have been more patient, knowing the reason why I was the way I was?
This is all so overwhelming. I feel very alone and isolated.
I suppose I just don't know where to go from here.

I hope that your diagnosis can be a positive going forward, so I'm going to say congratulations. I can't offer much but wanted to say that I do understand. I'm just getting ready to seek a formal diagnosis, but I'm confident that I'll get it - though that is hard to deal with.

I grew up believing that I was at fault for the way people treated me. After all, how could EVERYONE hate me? It must have been me, not them. As I grew I developed a whole lot of self-confidence from thriving in the face of adversity, and as a result my attitude changed to 'I'm not the problem, they are', and that just fed my self-confidence even more!

Recently I seriously looked into autism for the first time. I'd always wondered, but never cared. I self-diagnosed after a lot of learning and research, and suddenly I realised that maybe I had been a part of the problem all along. It doesn't excuse the behaviour of others, but it explains it somewhat. Then I was stuck in between 'it wasn't my fault' and 'it wasn't their fault either', and that was a new place for me.

Then I decided last week to seek a formal diagnosis. And that's been hard. When I self-diagnosed my husband accepted it without saying much - he was so keen to prove that it didn't matter to him, that he just avoided the topic and we carried on as normal. But to get a formal diagnosis I need his support, so we sat down and made a list of all of the reasons that I believe I have Asperger's, and that was a painful experience. All of these things that I've used to self-diagnose but thought 'maybe they're not as obvious to other people' have now come out as being very obvious to other people. Each thing I listed he was saying "Yeah, you do that. Yep, you do that as well. Yeah, that is a weird thing that you do...", and not only that, when I thought I was finished he came up with a list of his own things to add, that I hadn't even realised I did!

Suddenly I've ended up feeling so embarrassed about my behaviour, and it is difficult to deal with. Now I can see other points of view and look back over my life thinking just how odd I must have always seemed to other people, and so it's no wonder that they acted the way they did around me. And then, like you, I wonder if it all could have been different if I'd been understood more - maybe my 'apology' for all of the things I did that people found to be weird.

And it's a painful place, but I hope that I can get my formal diagnosis and that I'll have the confidence to be open about it in the future. At least then, I won't have to go through the future like I've been through my past. Though I'm not sure at which point I begin with 'Hi, nice to meet you. I have autism, so I may be a bit odd'. Still, I have to look on a diagnosis as a positive - a step in the right direction - and I hope that you see that, too.

I think I felt sad when I was diagnosed. I almost didn't believe it. I think it took a few weeks before I was ok with it. You will probably need some time to adjust and go through all of the feelings that you have.

It's only been about 10 weeks for me since I was diagnosed, and I feel much better about it and optimistic for the future (most of the time).

My childhood was horrible and I was abused as well. In school I was always in trouble, and the kids thought I was weird. I was bullied and mistreated a lot, and have missed out on a lot of things. So I do feel the same about how it would have been had I been diagnosed as a child, but Asperger's was relatively unknown until I reached middle school.

It's impossible to know what might have been, and too late to change the past, so the present and future are what you should focus on.

Thank you both; it means a lot to me.

I would give everything I have to either be diagnosed very late in life, or not at all. Unlike you ladies, I was diagnosed as a child, and I think it did more harm than good. I don't feel like I remember enough of it, though (my faulty memory being one of MANY reasons I've wanted to commit suicide in the past), but I do remember some people telling me "Maybe you don't have Asperger's," or "You don't seem autistic at all," which to me is just a euphemism for "You're not f***ed up enough to be autistic." Even my 66-year-old therapist, who has pretty extensive knowledge of autism and other conditions, says "I don't think you're autistic - you were just mistreated by a narcissistic, non-supportive, alcoholic mother, and didn't have ANYONE else to turn to - not even your own father." (my parents divorced when I was three, and my dad wasn't really in my life early on)

Honestly, I'd say "be grateful that you received a late diagnosis," but I haven't experienced that, so I don't know if it would really be any better than an early diagnosis.

This is very true.

I think there are positives and negatives to both. I can say all that above, how I can look back and think 'if only I'd known earlier', but the fact is that I've spent nearly 30 years trying to fit in with everyone else, and though it's been hard and though I've not entirely succeeded, I am married, I have a child, I've built up a successful business - I have everything I could want, just with the struggles added in as well.

I don't doubt that if I'd known earlier, there's a good chance that I would have felt a more 'defeatist' attitude - maybe there are things I wouldn't have tried to push through, because I knew that there was a reason I was like that...maybe I would have resigned myself to not trying to socialise. Maybe I'd be a lot more 'obvious' as an autistic. Even now I'm getting the sense that an autism diagnosis will let me relax with the things I've always struggled with (like, for example, wearing sunglasses more often and having an 'excuse' to do so, to deal with any light sensitivity, or perhaps explaining to select people that I simply can't use the phone and that they'll have to communicate with me in a different way). I don't want to 'overuse' a diagnosis, or surrender to it, but I can say that as a woman nearing 30. I think as a teenager trying to find my place, without a supportive partner by my side, I would definitely have surrendered more.

Let's face it - a diagnosis is going to be a painful experience at any stage, but there are definite positives (otherwise, us adults wouldn't be seeking a diagnosis after many years!).

And these are things I doubt I'll ever have - even my ex-girlfriend, who believes quite firmly that she is autistic and is seeking out a diagnosis - ended up leaving me behind (not really because of the diagnosis - it's a little complicated). And if she is autistic (which I don't doubt it), and there are few women out there like that (probably quite literally "one in a million"), how do I stand a chance? I know that the very moment I tell a non-autistic love interest about my condition, she'll probably dump me without warning in favor of some charming psychopathic a**hole with a bunch of money and cool stuff and a smile that people like us can see right past. Basically, I don't feel like there's any hope, because of a stupid-a** diagnostic label for a condition better left alone.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. I've lost count of how many times I've tried to kill myself as a teen and a young adult because I felt like one of God's "aborted projects" who's completely worthless and too incompetent to breath. What makes it worse is I see autistic people dx'ed at 30, 40, 50, and older (or never dx'ed at all) who became exceptionally successful, even by freaking NT standards, and who are actually happy about their diagnosis - HAPPY, not "content," or "relieved," but actually HAPPY.

Try without a supportive partner, without supportive teachers, without a supportive community, without supportive parents, without supportive ANYBODY. All as a teen struggling with their identity and place in this world.

I would argue that someone dx'ed on their deathbed wouldn't experience emotional pain from it - that's probably the one exception. Also, you're fortunate that you learned about the condition first, then openly sought a diagnosis for it - as a child, I had no choice, no say in it. It's been part of my reality since some of my earliest memories (which have been pushed forward to age 6 or 7, partly because of repression, and I think partly because of rx overdoses that screwed with my brain a bit).
Sometimes I draw comparisons between my early diagnosis versus others' late diagnosis and a concept that Stephen King, my favorite author, bounced around a bit in his magnum opus, The Dark Tower - the concept of "moving on." I haven't finished it yet, and I guess I should say SPOILER ALERT before I continue - just in case - but basically it's another of King's works taking a stab at what it's like to live in a "post-apocalyptic world," only instead of a nasty little super virus called "Captain Tripps" being responsible, it's a nuclear war (and, more significantly than that, I suppose, a villain of purest evil trying to "breakdown the fabric of reality by destroying a tower holding everything together - a nexus of time and size, as King puts it - thus plunging the universe into a state known as 'Discordia'). And King describes such a world as one that has "moved on" - it's people moving on with it. He then contrasts it greatly with our world, a world that has "not (yet) moved on," and when the main character crosses over to this world for the first time; when he sees paper everywhere, and sees how people so nonchalantly throw it away (paper's more valuable than almost anything else in his world, because of its exceptional rarity); when he sees "sky carriages" crossing at blinding speeds in the air; and when he takes "astin" (aspirin) for the first time in order to prevent an infection from killing him (a magical medicine in his eyes); it's all a major ontological shock for him, because he never knew such luxuries could possibly exist (although the Great Old Ones before his time had all of this and more).
And I feel the same way - as if I've grown up in a reality best left to peoples' nightmares, and can only have a glimpse of another world in which things seem so much less bleak. When I was supposed to find my identity myself, as anyone rightfully should, it was instead handed to me on some s***-stained platter, holding what amounts to some half-gurgitated excuse for food, and the person who handed it to me said "Eat up, buddy! It'll make you big and strong!" (and maybe they were just delusional enough to really believe that - or possibly just high as f***), and for a moment I thought I saw a friendly smile cross their face , but after taking a bite ("Yum! Tastes like chicken, doesn't it buddy?") and then looking toward them again, it changed to a horrible, malevolent grin that made my skin crawl ; because they didn't really believe what they had said - they knew too well for that - nor were they high on anything; they just wanted me to believe it, so that I could remain a good, complacent little boy who'll stay "in his place"...forever.

I asked myself that as well. When I finally got diagnosed, it was a relief, but at the same time I was really angry at the fact it was missed by so many so called professionals who should have known better. I wonder how much of the abuse I could have avoided and how my life would have turned out differently. At least I can see a noticeable change in my father, I think he gets it is not an attitude problem anymore, and treats me better and with more respect. Getting a diagnosis didn't change what I had already been my whole life. A diagnosis meant I could continue to learn more about myself through others with the condition and hopefully be able to live a more meaningful life than I had been.

Please stop...


This is a hopeful thought, thank you so much. Now at least I know there is an explanation for my abnormal behaviors and traits that I couldn't explain through my PTSD. Knowing a bit more can help me, maybe.

Obviously there are going to be some people who feel that they were harmed by an early diagnosis, or misdiagnosed. However I do not believe the assertion by another poster that people diagnosed later in life are more successful because they didn't have a stigma attached to them.

For myself, I was an outcast, weird, bad, etc. It was assumed that I was bad and strange, and a juvenile delinquent. I'm the black sheep of my family. Everyone seems to think I'm some sort of crazy, trashy, weirdo.

I know that my life would have been better with a diagnosis. I would have known what my problems were and fixed things earlier. But I couldn't see what made me different, why I was having so many problems, and why people didn't like me.

So now I feel hopeful that I can make things better, and I'm quite a few years older than you are. You have your whole life ahead of you.

Welcome to the club, OP. I was diagnosed a little more than a year ago, and at that point I was really having a horrible time trying to figure out what the f%$# was causing my mental health issues. I found it a relief, personally, to put a label on my problems. I'm also a bit disappointed, as another poster said, that several so-called professionals I had seen before weren't able to realize I was on the autism spectrum. All that aside, I hope that the diagnosis proves to be something that drives you to work on your weaknesses and appreciate your strengths as a person, and most importantly, give you inner peace.

Welcome to wrong planet, and know that you are not alone thanks to the power of the internet.