How was your life after been diagnosed or selfdiagnosed?

Page 1 of 2 [ 21 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next

Shohei79
Hummingbird
Hummingbird

Joined: 20 May 2023
Gender: Male
Posts: 20
Location: Europe

24 May 2023, 9:05 am

How was your life after been diagnosed or selfdiagnosed. For me I am the same person. Still I now see things from another perspective. So how about you?



Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

24 May 2023, 9:12 am

My life was great in the 8 years of not being diagnosed. Then things got s**t the day I was diagnosed. Everyone and their dog were told, and it has always been something I'm known by since, which wasn't what I wanted. I would have been better off without the diagnosis, or at least a diagnosis that fits me more, such as anxiety and ADHD. I have a huge anxiety disorder but that has never been diagnosed, even though I've shown anxiety since I was 3 or 4 years old. But they just say that Asperger's is basically anxiety. So all the NTs with anxiety disorders are Asperger's/autism? :?


_________________
Female


Handa Rei
Snowy Owl
Snowy Owl

Joined: 22 Jan 2020
Gender: Male
Posts: 143
Location: UK

24 May 2023, 10:48 am

Initially life was good after diagnosis. Maybe 6 months later it really took a turn for the worse and I'm still struggling 3 years later. I'm doing pretty badly to be honest. It's a mess. Coincidence? Maybe.



carlos55
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 5 Mar 2018
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,779

24 May 2023, 11:37 am

Was a sort of explanation at last but i don't really consider it a proper explanation since autism is not a real diagnosis of what's going on, as the explanation is still largely unknown.

If i was told i have a mutation in gene x and it led to x not being produced which causes this to happen, that in my interpretation is a proper diagnostic explanation.

A man asking questions from a clip board on a spectrum, with massive disparity of symptoms, with no biological work done is not really a medical diagnosis, but i suppose it will do for now.


_________________
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man."

- George Bernie Shaw


Fern
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2011
Age: 38
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,339

24 May 2023, 11:50 am

Shohei79 wrote:
How was your life after been diagnosed or selfdiagnosed. For me I am the same person. Still I now see things from another perspective. So how about you?


It's a good question. Remarkably similar for me as well.

The main thing that has changed is recognizing the fact that I need support and that the only way to get it is to ask people for help. I don't like either of those. Why don't I like admitting that I need support? Well, often when I ask for help people say 'no'. Then they know I'm 'not normal' and I still didn't get help. In the past, my way of dealing with this kind of situation has generally been to blame my circumstances or the people around me. It's difficult confronting the reality that a lot of it is, well, me. Whether it's because people find the way I ask for help to be unappealing, or whether the find the idea of offering me help "not fair" I'm not sure. It kind of sucks to know that I'm the one that's strange, not them.



IsabellaLinton
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 1 Nov 2017
Gender: Female
Posts: 67,988
Location: Chez Quis

24 May 2023, 1:02 pm

It's hard to say because I had already left work on permanent disability for other reasons. Any transition I've encountered could be related to my diagnosis or to the fact I'm no longer forced to take part in the rat race we call life.

Psychologically it's done me a world of good to understand why I'm the way I am, and to make peace with some bad choices from my past. I used to gaslight myself that everything was my fault or I should have tried "harder", when in retrospect I realise I shouldn't have tried at all with some of those situations. They were all over my head and out of my comfort zone. I shouldn't have tried at all, and I should have sought appropriate support instead of thinking more effort was needed.

It's allowed me to forgive myself for those mistakes, or at least take ownership for the parts that really were my "fault", without catastrophising and hating myself as a failure, or self-gaslighting with negative self-talk that carried on for decades about my inability to be a normal person.



naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 33,873
Location: temperate zone

24 May 2023, 1:41 pm

Psychologically ...fine. Better than before dx. Made me more focused in some ways.

As far as practical day-to-day stuff ...not much change.

There is possible bad "behind the scenes kinda thing" that maybe Im a bit paranoid about. Dont wanna go into it right now.

Potentially there could be benefits to being officially diagnosed with a disability, but I havent reaped any of that either. Not yet. Might have been able to had I been diagnosed years earlier.

So... psychologically it was good thing, but on a practical day to day level not much change.



Double Retired
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Jul 2020
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,141
Location: U.S.A.         (Mid-Atlantic)

24 May 2023, 1:51 pm

Shohei79 wrote:
...I am the same person. Still I now see things from another perspective...
Exactly.

Though the world has changed a lot since I received my written diagnosis in December 2019. The world has been "interesting" since then. But nothing to do with my diagnosis.


_________________
When diagnosed I bought champagne!
I finally knew why people were strange.


Winters Gate
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 20 Apr 2023
Gender: Female
Posts: 713
Location: Scenic over there

24 May 2023, 2:21 pm

Mostly my perspective about myself changed and the way I work through my issues. Finding out that I'm not just inexplicably broken has helped my self esteem somewhat also.

Seeing videos from other people on the spectrum talk about how they navigate life has helped. Because they have strategies that actually work for me. Rather than me trying to do what everyone else does and failing and not knowing why.



kitesandtrainsandcats
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2016
Age: 60
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,965
Location: Missouri

24 May 2023, 2:58 pm

Shohei79 wrote:
How was your life after been diagnosed

Was diagnosed in 2009.
There was eventually a massive improvement when the treatment for the bipolar I did not have was stopped.

Turns out that taking psych meds for a psych problem you do not have can mess you up more than actually having the psych problem will.

Wow, who would have ever even merely imagined that.

And that went on from 1982 until 2010.

So, the psychiatric medical industrial complex in the USA owes me 28 years worth of reparations, right? :lol:
Or if they don't have the cash on hand I will accept them adding 28 healthy years to my life.


_________________
"There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good."
Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011


Shohei79
Hummingbird
Hummingbird

Joined: 20 May 2023
Gender: Male
Posts: 20
Location: Europe

24 May 2023, 3:30 pm

Thanks for all the answers. They are all helpful for me.



jared11235
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

User avatar

Joined: 25 Apr 2022
Age: 46
Gender: Male
Posts: 48
Location: Earth (mostly)

24 May 2023, 6:14 pm

The big difference is that I understand why I am the way I am. I can be more forgiving of myself now. Because of the social deficits, I understand why making friends is so hard. Because of the alexithymia, I don't feel loneliness so much. This helps me understand why I like being alone so much. Because of the communication deficits, I understand why people usually don't have a clue what I'm trying to say. I love how my brain works. Now that I understand that I have autism, I don't need to feel broken anymore. I can just be happy to be myself. I'm starting to learn how to ask for help from people when I need it. Otherwise, life is mostly just the same as before.



Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

24 May 2023, 6:27 pm

Being only 8 when I was diagnosed it never answered anything for me. I just saw it as a label to single me out from my peers and I resented it. And that resentment is still with me now. I can't bear it.


_________________
Female


funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 39
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 25,176
Location: Right over your left shoulder

24 May 2023, 6:28 pm

It kinda served as a reset for some patterns of thinking I had developed. I became less paranoid and more capable of compensating for my less than stellar ToM.


_________________
"If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made... and they won't even admit the knife is there." Malcolm X
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う


Eliza_Day
Blue Jay
Blue Jay

User avatar

Joined: 23 Aug 2016
Gender: Female
Posts: 91
Location: England

24 May 2023, 7:02 pm

I was diagnosed nine years ago.

Still haven’t received any kind of support because I don’t know how to access it. The NHS doesn’t provide therapy for Autistic people and I can’t afford to go private.

The main problem is that I need help to get help, and as I don’t have a support system, personal or professional, I’m lost. I’ve got my mum but she’s unable to help as she’s hard of hearing and has osteoarthritis so has her own problems to contend with.

I struggle to make and answer phone calls so phoning around isn’t an option. Several years ago, after my diagnosis, I sent lots of emails to various organisations including Mind and a few Autism charities asking for some help but was just sent round in circles. No one seems to be able to (or want to) help.

Another issue is that I’m unable to work, at least for the foreseeable future, and I’ve found that neo liberal attitudes are becoming more prevalent even in the more caring professions. The emphasis is very much on receiving help so you can ‘get back to work’ as opposed to general wellbeing and personal fulfilment. Not that being employed shouldn’t be a goal; I’d love to earn my own money and have a career, but I have so many other things to work through before I attempt that.

So no, my life hasn’t changed at all since I was diagnosed.



Edna3362
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 11,363
Location: ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜔

24 May 2023, 8:22 pm

Probably the same whether diagnosed or not -- not coping with puberty, not coping with whatever I've been dealing since age 8, still sneezing for no apparent reason.

I'd probably put myself in a shut in state. Diagnosis was the only reason I've been searching about autism.


_________________
Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.