Late Diagnosis Anger?

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If it helps...I was one of the early diagnosed. It hasn't stopped the misunderstandings, or accusations of unsociability or laziness. For most of my life I didn't get support, and ended up in a school for people with moderate learning difficulties.

My mum fought for the support I did receive, but she and my family still treated me as a horrible person when growing up. I was shamed for self harming and crying. I was never comforted when crying, just left alone and I would cry for hours.

I'm not trying to make out my problems to be worse, I'm just saying being diagnosed early only gives you the advantage, though granted, a big advantage, of knowing that there's something to "correct" early on. It does not make people who know about it sympathise with you. Not even those who are close to you. Think of the way brothers and sisters act - they'll bully their siblings, but stand up like a knight to anyone who dares insult their siblings.

Also, as some of you may know now, there's a bunch of people who will pretend to know but really have no idea, and still accuse you of the symptoms you display as being deliberate. People knowing about it doesn't make them any more likely to sympathise.

Me too.


True.

I was diagnosed with ASD this year by my Psychologist and evidently my Psychiatrist had suspected it before, thanks for telling me. When I was in school, a small school in the midwest United States, you were not diagnosed ASD unless you were nonverbal and diagnosed by a real Psychologist. Plus, the DSM-III was quite a bit more narrow on what was considered Autism. Aspergers, well that was unheard of. So I was diagnosed ADHD, they said I had it severely (which I do fall at the top end), along with speech and language issues. But, I could talk, perhaps not like other children but I was verbal. I had half days in mainstream classes and half days in special ed up through second or third grade. I also had speech therapy up through second grade. From then on I had in-school therapy every week or every other week up until high school. I would take my tests in the libraries, offices, or latter on when we got it resource room (which was useful for much more than just tests like studying). I would love to see my IEPs, to see if anyone wondered about ASD and me. Looking back I had, and still have many to this day, several traits that very obviously now would fall under ASD, like having to count everything, touching everything, unproductive repetitive movements continuously, and as I like to say I have the social skills of a pariah.

I would have liked to have been diagnosed back then, I do not think it would have changed much for me as far as schooling, teachers and my counselor would have still treated me the way I was treated (which for the majority part was not very good), but it would have helped my Grandparents that raised me understand what I was going through and why I was the way I was. It would have also helped me not to feel like a lone vulcan on the "wrong planet" up until this year.

Yah, diagnosis would have been nice, or at least having my IEPs would be nice. And, yah, it hurts going this long without knowing, just feeling so off.

I received a diagnosis just a couple of months ago, at age 32, so this is a pertinent question for me. I actually struggled with anger a little more before my diagnosis, or at least exasperation; whether it was at other people for their dismissive judgments of me, or at myself for the nagging doubts that those people might actually be right. So far, having a diagnosis has sort of brought closure for me, but also instead of anger, just resignation.

For years I thought that if I threw myself into demanding situations, eventually I would just kind of snap into normalcy, as many people do who struggle with life skills. That strategy occasionally brought some rewarding experiences that most people with an ASD diagnosis would probably never get, but also gradually wore me down and made me waste some key years of my life. I got a graduate degree in something that it turns out I hate doing. If I had understood at that point, I probably would have tried to work within my limitations instead of denying that they existed. I am pretty high-functioning, so if I had received therapy as a child, it's possible I would be blending in easily as an adult. Getting diagnosed now, I get a little closure, and in my case not much else.

Kind of surprising really, that I don't feel more anger about it, but probably a good thing, as I have enough to deal with besides anger issues.

There are some aspects that I'm angry about, mostly that I would be a lot farther along in a job that I actually like by now had I known all this time. In elementary school, I learned early on that other kids don't like it when you know too many answers. And I learned that teachers don't like it when you turn their handout tests in too quickly and I had a humiliating situation with that. So basically I learned that being really into subjects was a bad thing and nobody liked it. So I held myself back a lot. I would only raise my hand every ten questions. If I was picked without raising my hand, I said I didn't know the answer. I had a rule that when I finished a handout, I wouldn't turn it in until half the class had turned it in, then I'd take it to the teacher.

I would tell my mom this stuff and she would just think it was cute and funny. Never occurred to her to find alternatives that didn't require me pretending to not know anything. So I grew up staying away from all the stuff I liked. Even before the Aspie revelation, I had started back to college at 34 because I can't spend anymore time at a boring job and now I'm concentrating purely on science and stuff that I like. But I'm annoyed that I probably could have taken this path a long time ago if an adult in my life had bothered to look deeper at what now seems like an obvious pattern.

But hey, it was a small town in Oklahoma, so maybe my teachers and mother didn't know what to look for. I do try not to blame them (too much). And I'm not so much mad about the explicit failure, but really just all the time I feel like I've lost with things that really interest me. I've gone through a few rounds of depression in adulthood that ultimately stemmed from boredom.

Adults really dislike that also. The will think you are doing it to be a show off. In a work situation other workers will think you are doing it to suck up to the boss.

Yeah, that's true, but at least you can corner adults with logic to where the only way out is to make an arse of themself or own up to the truth of the matter. And when that ruffles their feathers, what are they going to do? Not invite me to their parties? Good

Hopefully in a scientific setting people mostly just want to be left to their work and to heck with what other people are doing (hopefully).

Own up to the truth. That happens once or twice a year.

ha! my services coordinator at developmental disability services thinks that I am generally lost cause and "too difficult" of a case to help...

This is due to the treatment I have received by every rung of social ladder (fundamentally beginning with "family" rungs) during 28 years of lacking proper diagnosis and support... Today my support needs are "far greater than your diagnosis will allow for funding" and so I am deemed a losing battle from the social services perspective...

I expect to also be victim of police doing their terrorist thing soon too, when they attempt to take from me the only living being who really gives a s**t about me. my medically prescribed service animal.

"no residence no rights" they like to think...

Why are the police wanting to take your dog?

because i'm a "mentally unstable homeless guy" who chased a manager at a store around for threatening me, plato was trying to stop me by attempting to stay in one place but instead got dragged around because he's not heavy enough. they are alleging "animal cruelty" but can't get a warrant on it. The 2 cops in particular who are stalking me are 2 cops that have already committed felonies against me when they threatened me with unlawful use of force in order to deprive me of my right to receive equal access to goods and services from a local gas station not terribly long ago. These particular cops are bullies who like to pick on poor people with mental disabilities. And around here, if you have any trouble out of a homeless scum f**k, all you have to do is take their dog and that'll teach em. Yeah, they have a practice of stealing poor people's dogs around Portland, just so happens my dog has medical documentation... Honestly, I feel like they view me as "useless eater scum" and think they can service their community by ridding it of me. Which is why I don't think they really want to take my dog so much as instigate a reaction to "justify" extreme use of force against me. Is what it is. In Portland, Oregon, cops kill poor people with mental handicaps and then celebrate afterwards. No BS.

Sounds like your dog got caught in a scuffle. Good thing he's not a biter. I had one once I had to have a muzzle on. He would not have reacted well to such a scuffle. I hope your dog is okay.

It is happening to me right now. It wasn't actually that I had a late diagnosis: I was probably diagnosed quite early, when I was 4. But my parents always kept it from me, until I dared to ask whether my first psychologist had diagnosed me with anything. This happened last year, when I was 20. My mother reluctantly told me that I had a pervasive developmental disorder, probably hoping that I would not know what in meant. I did some research and figured it out by myself.

I am very angry about this. Al my childhood I have been mocked for not understanding jokes, sent to time out for having meltdowns at school during transition times and even at home I was expected to act neurotypical (my mother got annoyed with me when I took what she said in a literal sense, and if I asked what she meant she would tell me not to ask silly questions). The worst thing, though, is that now I feel I can't talk to my parents about my problems, because they kept it from me. I feel I can't trust them anymore, and I have to come to terms with my diagnosis on my own. I understand that they did what they thought was best, and I don't know how an early diagnosis would have affected my already low self-confidence, but learning it as a young adult was quite hard. It made me feel depressed, and I couldn't even tell my family why I was crying or locking myself in my room for so long. It just sucked.

This year in my 35th year on this planet I will be getting tested. I have felt different for as long as I can remember.

I have a friend who asked me if I wanted to be reffered by his mother a nurse for counselling about 5 yrs ago to which I said no ill be fine I'll get over it. Thinking my social issues, as tons of blokes have told me over the years, we're just that I need to grow a pair (my social issues are mainly with women).

From what i remember as a child (very little) I was a loner, any friend I had never stuck around long, some of the parents I later found out would tell their kids not to hand around with me. I spent my days climbling trees having my own adventures, until SNES. My primary school forced my mother to get me tested for ADHD. The doctor (not a psychiatrist) saw me once said I was just hyper and to keep away from cola and e numbers. Guess what it didn't work.

This of course I found out in November when telling mum I'm getting myself tested because I can't cope anymore.

I can't blame my mother for not following it further when the advice didn't work. She didn't want me sent to a school for children with emotional behaviour problems.

I mean I'm not that bad as my issues are just with women. Not ones I work with (well one but that's a whole other story) I can talk to women I have no interest in and I'm quite funny in work.

I just bore blokes because I don't shut up.

Some people have said do you not think your just a little weird (I'm beyond a little and it's affected my life too long) could it be all the drugs we you've taken (I took them to deal with these issues so they are the same as before I started taking drugs).

Everything I have read , tests I've taken, anecdotal evidence all make me think this is me to varying degrees.

So I'm sorta angry that we've only really come along so far because the 80's left me out to dry because I am adjusted just enough to get by.

I was diagnosed at 43. Until then, I felt inferior because I didn't "fit in" anywhere. So now I'm mostly angry at our culture for being so xenophobic.