Advantages from late diagnosis?

Post Reply New Topic

I can definitely relate to that last statement about resolving he tension. It'sbeen so hrd over the years wonderig WHY I was so different. WHY didn't I seem to GET what everyone else GOT! Why do I get so irritated at what other people seek out. Those were the big questionsof my life. Havng a diagnosis has made a world of difference if fo no other reason than to have an answer. A answer that was a long time coming.

Since i have had to deal with it all my life and 59 now, i really wish it had been better known when i was kid and some things that aspies or autistics have difficulties with they saw and dealt with but the social were missed totally but perfect example was step father punishing me and saying it looked like i was laughing while crying and i said i was crying and didnt know any other way to look and begged him to tell me and he had no answer and it was so traumatic at 9 i remember it 50 years later and cry again at the memory.

I am glad that there was no name or diagnosis when I was young. I knew that I was different but I learned to get by in the world and accept myself as I am. If I had been diagnosed at a young age I might have felt that there was something wrong with me. in finding out as an adult I was able to accept the diagnosis without it affecting my self esteem.

Sorry to hear about all your troubles. I had an overbearing step-father too. He couldn't understand why I didn't want to be a ladies-man like him. When ever I came home from someplace he would ask if I "got any tail". When I would tell him the thought never occurred to me to "seek out tail at every opportunity" he would just give me this look like maybe I was gay or something because I wasn't screwing chicks left and right.

On a lighter note I wanted to comment that I did gain something very helpful from my ordeal: willpower! I have a very strong willpower, especially when if come to exercise and running. The drawback is it gets out of control and I will exercise myself in to sickness. Also I can only focus it on one thing at a time.
Anyone else have a specific strength they believed they gained?

I found out at 22. I think it was the right time, my sense of identify was just firming up when I received the final piece of the puzzle.

I think my parents might have know and kept it from me, if they did I kind of agree.

I agree that a lot of things would have made more sense if I'd known earlier and I think dx is really important. However, I had enough resiliency to handle the challenges and I do think given my resiliency level I was better off not finding out until later.

When I found out was about the time that my career started to stagnate. I'm okay with not getting a promotion because I realize that a promotion would actually make my life worse (given my disposition). So knowing has made me okay with that rather than beating myself up for why I don't do the 'politics' very well. It did make me realize that it was okay that I struggled with certain things, made me accept myself better and made life a lot easier because it finally made sense.

That said, I do feel that if I'd found out earlier I wouldn't have developed the coping strategies and I think I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did in my career. I really lived 'on the breaking point' for about 20 years but I think anything less than that would have resulted in career disaster. I didn't have other skill sets so being very 'on top' of things, knowledgeable and eager was critical to my career success. Without it, I would have probably never got a job.

So would I want to live through my teens and twenties again? Definitely not. But I think those really hard years were the only way I could get to where I am.

I was diagnosed with ME (I refuse to call it Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – ludicrously and comically inaccurate) at age 40, and Asperger's at age 50. I'd had ME since I was in my teens and of course AS since early childhood.

I wouldn't have wanted to be diagnosed at a younger age for all the money in the world. If someone had told me at 17 I had ME and AS, I would probably have given up – they're both extremely challenging and together they're nothing short of debilitating. As it was, I forced myself to go to work every day through a fog of pain and exhaustion and to deal with other people through a fog of utter confusion, basically because there was no alternative. OK, so I was odd and I was fragile, but I didn't know there were medical/developmental reasons for this, so there was no reason not to go out to work. I just had to get my head down and get on with it. I worked for a few years in an unchallenging office job and then decided I needed to do something more interesting; eventually I found a way to get a job in the arts. Over the years I've become a specialist in one particular field, where I'm not in a senior management position (I couldn't handle that because of the long list of challenges I have), but I earn enough to live comfortably, I love my job, and I've managed to learn just enough social skills to get by.

I've had to develop the strength of Atlas to keep going through it all, and there are years I wouldn't want to relive, but no – I feel I only found out about my challenges when I was mature enough to deal with them, and I wouldn't have wanted to know sooner. Anyway, knowing the reasons for difficulties doesn't mean they can be solved or made easier. Some people do achieve more by knowing about their AS now because of modern education programmes and support systems, but I was a child in the early 1960s and neither autism nor ME were widely understood then. And instead of being handed a depressing life sentence of major challenges and ill-health in my youth, I've had a very liberating experience learning in middle age about why I've struggled with things. Late diagnosis certainly worked out well for me.

I've got mixed feelings over this. Until I reached retirement age I'd not been aware of AS. Reading about it quite by chance I realised that this had most likely been my problem all my life and, after a struggle, I was able to obtain a diagnosis. The result was a huge feeling of relief, like a burden being lifted. It wasn't my fault that I am the way I am, it wasn't that I didn't try hard enough to be 'normal' - in fact, according to the psychiatrist I had actually achieved a great deal.

I couldn't help wondering, though, whether I could have achieved more and been personally happier, if I'd had an earlier diagnosis - say in my 30s or 40s - but might I then not have struggled so hard (and in many ways successfully) to fit into the NT world? I always worked because there was no alternative. The question of going on 'benefits' didn't arise. I also achieved a long-term relationship, which, although difficult at times worked as a result of a great deal of input from both me and my partner.

So, as I say, I have mixed feelings. I just don't know whether an earlier diagnosis would have made any difference.

No offence to anyone, but after registering and loitering around here for a couple of months, I'm glad I didn't know what AS was until recently. There's a very defeatist and 'us and them' attitude that seems to be rife here. People seem to get their diagnosis early and give up their place in the world assuming 'NTs' a term I just cannot get along with are superior.
To my mind I can count on one hand the number of people I've felt are equal, the rest are largely unthinking, unquestioning, idiotic herd minded self-serving and opportunistic douchebags.

Last edited by ZX_SpectrumDisorder on 21 May 2012, 11:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

This very much annoys me when I see it. I like to offer advice when people seem sincere in their asking, but many times I find people just want to gripe or use excuses, and I lose interest in those threads or those individuals very quickly. The "us versus them" gets on my last nerves, because it seems like the people that put fourth that way of looking at things are being very hypocritical, especially if in the same breath they tout how autism is "just a difference" and not a disorder. If it's just a difference, then there is no "us" and "them".

I'm glad that I grew up with my autism simply being a personality trait. I feel sorry for whom it's a true disorder. I don't feel sorry for people that want to use it as a shield. I have made plenty of mistakes in my life that I can now understand are a result of my particular lack of understandings, but that doesn't excuse me from having to apologize and make amends.

There's plenty of "unthinking, unquestioning, idiotic herd minded self-serving and opportunistic douchbag" autistics as well.

Heh, I don't doubt it.

I was not diagnosed until the age of 54 (2010). About two before that, I came upon some articles about Asperger's Syndrome, and for those intervening ten years, I strongly suspected that it was the answer to my lifelong search for self-discovery, but it was not until I was diagnosed by a professional that I actually researched autistic behaviors and the nature of the autistic spectrum.I submit that the main adverse impact of late diagnosis for those of us who grew up in the fifties, sixties, seventies, is that we knew we were different but never knew why. Because there was no diagnostic label for us, we were led to believe that our failure to live a "normal life" was due to character flaws, that we were lazy, rude, clumsy, selfish, behaved like children when we were grown-up, didn't try to control our emotions, etc. We were taught to blame ourselves, and that is one burden that young people today with ASDs do not have to shoulder. Your failures are reinforced and perpetuated because you think, deep down inside, that "it is all my fault," and you feel helpless and powerless and become much more susceptible to bullying, isolation, discrimination.
My own case was quite severe. When I was a child I was considered gifted, exceptionally bright and advanced, but at the age of 13, my parents sold our house in my hometown and moved up to the country where I had no one to talk to. I lost all my friends, all the familiar surroundings that made me feel safe, the aunts and uncles and grandparents that had lived nearby and whom I had seen almost everyday in my childhood. I totally collapsed and regressed. Then I spent four decades constantly apologizing for being such a loser.. On the other hand, not having the excuse that I was autistic forced me to keep brushing myself off each time I fell flat on my face and getting back up. I had great difficulty in entering the employment world, and did not have a real job until I was thirty.A year later I was fired from that job and it was another couple years before I found work again.. Had I been diagnosed with Asperger's at that time, I most certainly would have sought disability benefits, and, like many people who live on disability (not to offend anyone who must rely on SSDI), I would have basically given up on improving my life.. Not knowing I had that option. I just kept plugging away until I put together a patchwork of part-time and free-lance jobs that, not only landed me an income, but forced me to absorb some social skills and learn to live independently. In addition, because I never knew what was "wrong" with me or why I did not fit in, I developed an intense curiosity the oddities of human behavior.So, yes, I do wish I had been diagnosed earlier in life, I would have been spared much heartache and shame and my life would have been less stressful. Late diagnosis, however, does carry its benefits as it causes one to struggle for self-knowledge and keeps one for giving up.

He he, yeah, me too...

I haven't been able to find the answer to this, so many youngsters are being held back because of their dx, and I lack some very basic skills, that I should have learnt 35 years ago, that would be taught as part of the "early intervention" programs going on if i was a child now...

I did not learn about AS until my early 30s, but like many people once I learned it explained so many things.

I did have to learn a lot of things the hard way growing up and I might have been able to save myself a lot of misery had I known more about what was causing a lot of my difficulties as far as dealing with others, forming relationships, etc., but I think I was probably better off not knowing about it. There were fewer resources back when I was a kid, and a lot less was known about the spectrum. I grew up in a small town and attended a rural school, so it's likely that I would have had fewer educational opportunities and would have been put in the "special education" classes with developmentally disabled students.

I think it might have been good to know about it during my teenage/young adult years, I might have had a better time at that point. It is a neurotypical world and if I had known more about what made me tick I might have had a better time adapting to it.

Ahoy! I don't know where to start, like most my age a diagnosis was not possible early in life as it did not exist. Like most I just though of myself as weird and most of the time it did not bother me. The mistakes I made were mine no one to blame but me. While it does help explain how I think about thing's I would have to agree that labeling is bad growing up. I finished middle and high school in three years, was asked to join MENSA and once I understood what it was turned it down because of being labeled. I grew up thinking everyone else learned social skill's the same way I did, watch, learn, mimic. Now that I understand that I think differently from NT's I am having to re evaluate my life. Having a diagnosis explained allot and changed allot. Would be like having to rework an algorithm with an equation being changed, not that it changes the outcome just how you got it. I think it is to easy for most people in today's society to grab something and use it as an excuse or justification for bad behavior. This way they feel they don't need to change and every one else should change to fit them. I am glad the syndrome has been identified as I think it helps more people find answers, but do not agree when some one uses it as a crutch when they don't need to. I do hope I did not upset anyone, this is just my opinion and nothing else. I think my parent's would have exploited a diagnosis for there benefit, for what little time they were around at least. Cheer's!

I'm 43, self-diagnosed Aspie or maybe just PDD-NOS, an American. It wasn't known as a diagnosis till my 20s..

The first few posts did well to show what the plusses and minuses are, but every person is different. I'd agree witha few of the thigns but would like to add some of my own take.

I'm very intelligent, so there was never a need to diagnose as far as learning abilities, but I have congeintal visiona nd hearing problems. And, while I never realized it, I had a classmate tell me years later that they coudl tell those at my elementary school suspected I had something else becasue I was so hypersensitive and had made-up words nobody could figure out how or why I used till 3rd grade or so, always had my nose ina book, and often jsut wandered the playground my first couple years at recess talking to imaginary friends, usually in my head. (Stuffed animals mostly) When i told him it was likely AS it made a lot of sense to him.

What would early diagnosis have given me? Well, I'm ont he cusp so it's actually possible it would have been missed, but let's say it was... I don't know if it would have a lot in grade school. I have fond memories of a few friends, one in particular, who encouraged me so much as far as playing with her and others that my socializing did get better. Conversation was already good becasue I'd seen thought balloons going back and forth in comic strip collections, and kids asking me to say presidents or whatever in order starting around 3rd grade (I'd read almanacs for fun) helped that. I had a mobility instructor already for my vision.

I think where it would have helped more was relationships later. I'd have figured out more what was going on with some friendships. People would have expained things to me in more detail. I can even see one friend who left me saing bluntly, "I understand you're like a 10-11YO with all your Abbott and Costelo stuff, your need for good, clean humor, and your hatred of swearing and stuff. Look, I'm not saying I dont' like you as a friend anymore, I'm just making a conscious choice to be more like these college kids I'm hanging out with. Yeah, we;'re cruder, but you'd still those other gusy. ANd we can still write backa nd forth and stuff." If he explains himself that way I wouldn't have had a problem with that - however, thigns spiraled downward when he changed from what he was like in high school.

I also had a weird experience that I don't know if I would have had had I been known to be an Aspie - my speech team coach asked me to mentor a kid who was a year younger and also to include him in stuff with my friends. He was new in the school. Now, I figured he was jsut really shy. We had the same political interests and football so I was like, "Sure, why not?" But, his attitude was odd, and *very* sarcastic. Turned out he'd faced some trauma as a child, either abuse he saw with his aunt or faced hismelf, and while my parents could tell and knew his sarcasm wasn't really meant, I thought some of the thigns he was saying - okay, all of them - were real.

Now, I was chosen because I was nice to everyone, kind, considerate, etc.; my family was the same way. We were the kind of people this kid needed. He *did* improve a lot. But, it wasn't very good for me and still some of the thigns he'd say are mean-sounding years later.

So, we might have been the best choice, but our coach might hve explained better. If I have a script I'm great. On the speech team I didn't and while I had to give a 5-7 minute speech each time I struggled to keep it under 10 and once came close to 15 minutes! (I was bright enough to get it downa nd actually make the state tournament my senior year.) But, working with a script is a lot better, and walking around prepping for it was always very helpful.

So, what that coach might have done is monitor the situation more closely. He'd have known what was going on in this boy's life from the English teacher at the Junior High that recommended him. So, I could have told him one thing that I thought was just teasing and he'd have told me, "it was probably a flashback" and maybe revealed *just* enough. My friends coudl have been told, too, so they could pick up on thigns and try to encourage this kid. We did a good job, he told me later, for the fact I didn't know what I was doing, but I wish we'd havedone better. I think individual experiences would have beent he biggest difference.