For those with a late in life diagnosis...

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A few questions for those who were diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome later in life:

Were you sad/bitter for the autistic child you once were for falling through the cracks?

Were you mad at the important people/mentors in your life who failed to take that child seriously?

Also:

What is your stance on disclosing this diagnosis to the people in your life? I am not talking about family, rather the friends and acquaintances who have known you for a long time. Part of me believes if my friends knew I was Autistic they would have an entirely different perspective on me and my past behaviors/meltdowns etc. At the same time though, I am worried about the stigma, judgement and/or people thinking that I am just attention seeking.

I am not bitter about how I was misunderstood and fell through the cracks because there was no way for anybody back on the 1960's and 1970's to know at all. For all the hell of bieng undiagnosed until age 55 caused it was a lot better the hypothetical alternatives. If I was diagnosed with autism in the 1960's I would have been sent away to an institution never to be heard from again. Intitutions were hell on earth back then. A teen today that was diagnosed very young has a label telling them what they can not do. They are subject to 25 to 40 hours a week of behavoiral therapies. They get the "privilege" of reading about how people think they are mutants caused by vaccines, about cruel "therapies" bieng used on autistics out of desperation to "recover" us. And "autistic" is the new popular online insult. I never had to deal with any of that s**t.

That I have concluded that not bieng diagnosed until so late was a lot less damaging then what the young early diagnosed autistics have to deal with today makes me very angry.

^ I second that. I am about a decade older than APOM. We were not given a stigma and encouraged to live down to it, we didn't internalise stigma, or develop a self-defeating schema of anticipated failure and personal worthlessness. We were urged to be the best we could be by our teachers, to aim for our personal best, and they didn't give us the message that they expected us to achieve little, quite the reverse - they set the bar high. Yes, we were often lonely and bullied by other children; some of that was driven by their resentment of our capacity for higher academic achievement. I was labelled "gifted" and if I was the same child today, I would just be labelled as autistic/special needs and treated as APOM outlined. So why would we be angry? They didn't know and we didn't know. We look back in sadness sometimes, I think, but not anger - it's just a waste of energy (and anger takes a lot of energy to maintain).

I feel desperately sad for the toxic messages that young people on the spectrum have to contend with today. I do feel angry when I see some of them internalising and acting out those negative messages, but that anger is for the victimisers and stigmatisers, not the victims.

Only one member of our extended family is young enough to have gone through school already diagnosed. He had a far worse time than the two generations of us that preceded him in the education system. We countered the discouraging messages he got there, because we knew that he could succeed just as we had; fortunately he had more trust in us than the special needs education system. I am relieved to be able to say he is doing brilliantly in his chosen field now. But if he had been born into a family that didn't have any previous generations or family members on the spectrum, he wouldn't have had any AS role models of achievement to encourage his confidence.

The bullying of AS young people now seems far worse than even in our day. Now they can be bullied online 24 hours a day, and if their NT parents buy into the messages of these young people being too disabled to achieve anything but minimum goals, if that, then their situation becomes a desperate one because they have no adults encouraging and inspiring them to be the best they can be.

I too have an Autistic lineage. I grew up thinking we were just unusually bright I went through the whole 'gifted' thing and it wasn't viewed as a bad thing. No-one ever suggested I had a neuro-developmental disorder and I'm thankful for that. We never knew why we were the way we were, we just were. My Son was diagnosed as a child and that's how the rest of us found out. He did cop it more because people wanted to view his as disabled and he certainly isn't. We have been right there with him fighting the ignorance in the world and particularly that of the education system. I feel sorry for kids who don't have family to support and counteract the nonsense they will get thrown at them. For the record, my Son is studying law and aims to be a human rights lawyer. We always believed in him and did our very best to encourage him to be the best version of himself he could be. I think he's doing a pretty good job of that
So no, I don't feel bitter about finding out late. I think it let me define myself rather than have others define me.

When I was dealing with my suspicions, I did record in my journal a concern that had I need identified early in life I might have ended up living down to the label rather than up to the potential in the strong points on my profile.

The blind spots really only entered the picture in my twenties when I was living in a different city from my home for work. Establishing a social network was a bit of a difficulty, and I think I snokkered myself by not realising that the passionate interests and doing things on my own were in fact perfectly natural for my profile and I should not feel guokty or try to grow out of them in favour of more social persuits.

That having been staid, I have a very mild presentation of the traits and adapted well enough using the strong points yo the point where a diagnosis process would identify the profile but not any significant disablement from it.

I have described myself and all those autists of a certain age who weren't recognized as such as "survivors." We made our way in the world without the benefit of knowing why others criticized us. Somehow, most of us made life work out for us, but it came at a price which deeply influenced our involvement with others. I have written on Wrong Planet that I believe it is a good idea to tell autistic children about their diagnoses at about 12 to 14 years of age. They are old enough to understand and accommodate the knowledge, while also understanding why others might treat them badly. This knowledge is important if only to spare the children from believing that they "choose" to invite harassment from others.

And, because of this, yes, I disclose my autism at every chance I get. Typically developed adults are really just larger versions of their childhood counterparts, and too many of them need to learn what they were never taught as children. Sadly, too many of them continue their bad behaviors well into adulthood.

Not bitter about childhood as mine was pretty much fine, up until I was just around school leaving age and could have hugely done with some life guidance rather than being left to get drunk/high end up in a sh*tty office job with few qualifications and the social circle I had drifted off into higher education etc and I was left on my own. Not that I would have listened, I was quite headstrong*






*an a***hole

Thanks for all of the replies, this is really helpful information!

Mixed feelings. While I'm grateful I was given the freedom to try things rather than be told what I cannot do, that "freedom" was actually neglect, in my case.

I do have some bitterness, yes, because as a child I was quite brutally vilified within my own family, and if only they had known something was actually "wrong" I do think I would have received more understanding and help and would have thrived much better than I did.

I too was considered gifted or borderline gifted but I feel that I wasn't helped to make the most of what I was able to do. I tried very hard under my own steam to make sense of life and make my own way, but had zero guidance and floundered around in wrong directions nobody even told me there were other directions. I don't think I've made as good a life for myself than I might have had if the "light had been turned" on for everyone around me in the years I would have been nurtured better. Instead I was shut in closets, literally.

It's not that I think about this all the time, though, don't get me wrong. It doesn't eat me up. I just get on with the life I've carved out for myself. But I do think I could have done better in life -- and when I say better, I don't mean by anyone else's standards or societal expectations, I do mean better for my own hopes for myself.

Edited to add:
I have only told very few people. I have no family to tell as they estranged me a long time ago. Sometimes I do wish I could tell them now, the people who rejected me from their lives. Although, they are toxic enough that it wouldn't change anything anyway.

And I have also only told my wife and my boss. No need for my family to know.

I have made Very limited disclosure. I have disclosed to the wo people who gave accounts of my traits which went into my assessment, and the circle to which I am close.

I am not bitter because Asperger's wasn't a diagnosis when I went to school. I am bitter at myself for the dumb things I did, however.