Anger

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I am very late to understand that I am on the spectrum. I am undiagnosed but I have taken many tests and read quite a lot about it. I am a 70 year old female and I am retired. I have been reflecting back on my live and I find myself getting quite angry. I have been bullied, pranked, made fun of , rejected and made to feel unworthy by my own family.
My parents are dead now but I find I am furious with them for not helping me more. I know at the time, many years ago, autism was not well understood and certainly not in females.
I am so angry with so many people right now I am not sure how to deal with it. Has anyone had a reaction to discovering they were autistic like this? I would like to hear about it.

Absolutely. I'm 56 and self-diagnosed last year. I got so excited that I told everyone immediately. What a mistake. Then I started going through my life, and seeing it all in a new light.

I'm not speaking with my mother any more. She's a self absorbed depressive with a superiority complex and no real empathy to speak of. And I've tried speaking with her over the last year, but done is done. So I'm still very angry with her, but not just her. My sisters are my biggest support, even more so than my wife. They are great.

On the other hand, I realize that having been gaslit throughout my life, I can discard what I was told. Get rid of that damaging self image. I'm not sick, or "too deep" or "living in a fantasy world". I just experience the world differently. So my self esteem has gone up quite a bit.

Never stop learning

I am a 68yo man and I am self diagnosed. Remember that autism is a inherited disease and one or both of your parents were probably autistic too. I feel my father was probably autistic so I don't think it is right to blame him as he did the best he could with the knowledge he had. This was the hand I was dealt and it is up to me to play it the best I can.

Hi! I can quite relate - 54 and realized I was autistic all my life. Before autism I realized I also have CPTSD caused by extreme love and hate, very dramatic and co-dependent relationship with my second mom ( my older sister) who was most probably narcissistic or borderline with strong narcissistic traits. At first I was angry, but then I realized she couldn't do better because she was a victim of a victim of tragic circumstances (not to go into details) that screwed three generations, ending with me having God knows what kind and degree of autism, I identified myself as a high masking autistic women..Now I blame nobody. I just keep loving them no matter what, like I always did. I realized that they were not aware neither of their own struggles nor that something is wrong with me although I know they were sensing it. My (real) mother always worried what will be with me since she knew that I will never get married and have kids. Which for her was an ultimate failure a female creature can live up to - "Who will give you a glass of water when you get old, get sick and fall into bed!? At least give a birth to a child, you don't have to get married!"

On the other side I never wanted to pass my genes and my obviously inherited screwed patterns of understanding this world , to another human being. I wouldn't know how to raise it to survive in it and still be happy and healthy.

So, even though screwed up, I live this life the best way I can. Because, what else can I do
.

Thank you for the replies. They have helped me. At the age of 50, I had a boss who would purposely embarrass me in front of the employees I worked with. To this day, I despise her. She seemed to delight in ridiculing me in front of others. I was mortified. I will never forgive her unkindness. I am trying to go forward and forget.

I do not mind being autistic. I like the gifts that it has given me. I just can not understand the cruelty of people towards autistics.

yes, recent diagnosis can be overwhelming! Everything looks different once we see how autism worked in our lives for so long and yet nobody knew. I was diagnosed a few years ago at the age of 68, and it has taken a long time to sort out all of the past, painful whys, and misunderstanding, conflict, just all of my experiences before diagnosis. This new perspective changes everything.

Give yourself time to work it out and you will gain understanding of yourself, your past, your interactions with others up til now. there is certainly a lot to sort. Do your best self care. You are likely to be angry, afraid, sad, you may feel full of grief or you may sometimes be excited, and a whole bunch of other emotions as you work through it all.

Its OK to feel almost every/any emotion over a new diagnosis as an older adult, and there is no shame over it all, nobody knew!

For me diagnosis was a huge relief because it finally made sense of the 68 previous years of my life.

I have had plenty of "lightbulb moments" or "aha moments" when another memory finally snaps into place with the answers that autism provides. I am going to be 73 this year and life keeps getting better as I sort it all out and figure out "work arounds" that make every day living better and less distressing.

Eventually, things will start coming together, and you will feel less confusion and distress as, bit by bit, all the clues fall into place and begin to make sense. Cheering you on. One of the best things about finding diagnosis was learning I was not alone, but that there were many others "out there" who actually understood, and could relate. That was a relief!

Thank you for your response. It was really helpful.

I often feel a lot of anger, both related to injustice broadly but also with how "missing some device drivers" has impacted my life and my ability to make use of the strengths I possess.

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Someone who is almost my age. As a child, I was bullied in school for 3 years by a gang of boys. It happened almost daily. They tried to break me. They used both mental and physical torture each day from around 6th-8th grade. But they could not break my will. They came very close to killing me. On one attack I could hear my skull crack and it scared them and they stopped.

I do not blame my parents. They did the best they could. It was my peers.

Many times with autism, it is an inherited condition. If you look around your family, sometimes you can find the trait in your close relatives.

Thanks for your reply. I could probably identify 3 or 4 family members that were on the spectrum. Most were better at
socializing. It is a real handicap for me. I was very shy. Still am to a certain degree. But now that I am older, people
Are more forgiving. A little blessing of old age.

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Welcome to WPea