Well It happend today I got a diagnosis

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After 30 years of suffering, someone finally put it all together and diagnosed me with Autism.. I always knew there was something going on but i never in my mind thought it would be this sigh. Its kind of a shock to the system even more so that i am now 30. Any advice on just where to go from here?

Well, you have closure on the answers you've had your whole life. That's a good thing. From here, I would simply suggest you further research AS and Autism. Check out books by Tony Attwood, for instance. It's comforting to me to know others are going through the same things I am.

I found out after 46 years. It sucks to think about the time lost, but then I remember the generations of my family who never knew....

Where to go from here? well, all I can say is, remember that you are still the same person but with the difference of added knowledge. It's profound, yet everything is still the same as before you knew.

My psych said to read books on Aspergers. Yeah, she's a specialist and yet felt the need to tell an aspie the obvious. duh. Of course, I already have a large collection of books on the subject, why did she think I was in her office in the first place? So I assume you, being aspie, don't need to be told to read up on it, but there ya go anyway.... advice from a professional.

There really isn't anywhere to go from here, except to live your life with more understanding, and be more patient with yourself, and cut yourself some slack. Look for support, but don't expect it, learn to advocate for yourself, and be patient with yourself. The things that don't come easy, just may have to figure a unique alternative way of dealing with it. Life doesn't get easier with knowing, but you do learn to allow yourself a little more time, or leeway to tackle obstacles.

Welcome to the club Massacrew:

As you may already be realising -- but will certainly appreciate with growing keenness in the short, medium and long-term future -- you have just had one set of specific and personal questions and puzzles answered/solved definitively by an authority figure.

That authority figure's decisions will have had, and are probably still yet to have, greater or lesser effects (and to some extent, effects of unpredictable magnitude) upon your perception of your self, in both its privately innermost and publicly outermost manifestations.

However, what that clinician could not possibly do (and made no pretence of doing) was to attempt to solve your uniquely personal (and condition-related) problems.

So you will also now be faced with an unforeseen and currently-unquantifiable (but definitely numerically-superior) host of entirely new, directly-relevant and less easily-addressed personal questions that no authority could convincingly attempt to answer for you, even if such an authority existed in the first place, which it arguably does not.

(This is not to even mention the ultimate and inevitable arrival of a lot of currently-undefined (or even currently-unanticipatable) questions and problems and dilemmas -- hopefully presenting themselves somewhat predictably on a one-by-one basis and therefore addressable individually, but all-too-often clustered, inter-related and requiring concentrated application to even begin to separate let alone solve -- which all-too-often tend toward the greater than the lesser in terms of importance, considering both their direct personal relevance (which even with AS should usually be perceivable to you) and their individual social implications and repercussions (which due to AS may not be perceived by you, quite possibly until it's too late), which will assuredly pop up unpredictably as you attempt to proceed with your life).

In the meantime, here are the Club Rules for your consideration and (it is hoped) acceptance:

(If you get bored, or confused, skip straight to sections "l" and "m")

The club's membership policy is such that we will only consider potential members who:

a) Would rather not be considered eligible for membership at all, on any avoidable basis, and who characteristically tend to

b) Sincerely profess (or demonstrate) a personal and temperamental opposition (which should ideally be unalterable in principle) toward even the idea of personal identification with any club or clubs (let alone potential or actual formal membership of them, personally or by anyone else); whether this predisposition is

c) Held as lying somewhere (perhaps undefinably so) between the two extremes of:
(i) Theoretical or vaguely inexpressible feelings, tending toward unquantifiable or otherwise irrational antipathy toward; and
(ii) Demonstrable as (and ideally evidence-supported as examples of) practical adverse reaction(s) to
Clubs, whether considered as theoretical members of, as individually identified examples of, or en masse as a class of entity in general;

d) Whether this aversion is actually manifested (or is potentially demonstrable) to an individually greater or lesser degree of intensity,

e) With requirement for potential eligibility (which will be adjudged in highly-individualised cases, i.e., most of them) being measured with regard to the following (deemed desirable) characteristics:

f) At the very minimum threshold of eligibility, an above-average degree of proven or demonstrable personal indifference toward the abstract concept of membership (potential or actual) of any conceivable or actual club or clubs, and

g) As the ideally-maximum manifestation of eligibility, ideally a high degree of opposition thereunto; regardless in either extremity of

h) Whether or not clubs are considered as
h.i) A broad species of entity, and therefore necessarily being highly diverse in nature, or as
h.ii) A general class of identifiable and often uniquely-variable entities; and ranging in their natures between extremes typified as
h.iii) Unqualified socially-undesirable nuisances, or
h.iv) Individually-variable in impact but inherently-negative with regard to both of the following considerations:
h.v) Whatever their professed specialisation of interests might be and
h.vi) The (predictable or otherwise) consequences arising from the theoretical pursuit and ultimate practical application of findings arising from such a club's declared or secret specialised interest(s), whether such actions be
undertaken by
h.vii) An individual member, or
h.viii) A group of members (of variable number, and of possibly changing composition), or
h.ix) Formal or informal unanimity of action among members, whether such actions are considered as occurring or arising
h.x) Separately, simultaneously, consecutively or concurrently

I) If after all the above-listed considerations and qualifications have been met (to a degree that at least meets the relevant minimum threshold requirements, or ideally to a degree that decisively and incontrovertibly surpasses the maximal relevant expectations),

j) The prospective (or simply potentially-eligible) candidate for membership continues to express definite opinions tending to imply a demonstrable degree of disinclination toward the possibility of, or tending to directly and openly state explicit preferences (reasoned or not) which are definitely and wholeheartedly against, him or her being considered in any way as a possible candidate for membership, let alone a prospectively fully signed-up member, of this particular club

k) And where this apparent predisposition of the subject's is evidently beyond any possible means of practical inducement to the contrary, or any other form of amateur or professional persuasion (including but not limited to the sociological, technical, moral, cultural, scientific, or clinically-relevant), then

l) His or her enrolment as a club member is considered to have occurred automatically and involuntarily, with immediate effect, and to be indeclinable and unresignable, and to be permanently binding in all conceivable ways (whether these ways are presently applicable or may unforeseeably become desirable in the future), for the rest of the member's physical life, whether this 'life' be regarded as an ongoing and continuous state of existence which is reasonably expected to be completed in one full natural term of manifestation (regardless of whether it be prematurely-concluded by illness, accident or other intervention) or whether it may come to be regarded (due to potential scientific advances presently including but not in future limited to the practice of cryogenic suspension upon individuals and the subsequent intention of successful reanimation of such subjects) as an interruptible or otherwise suspendable state of existence which may be recommenced at some later date.

Termination of membership

m) Club membership is considered to expire simultaneously with the expiration of the individual member, but even then former membership will continue to be regarded as a major aspect of the deceased member's personal and social legacy, in perpetuity.

As CharityFunDay says: Welcome to the club! As some comic once said, "I will never join any club that would have me as a member." However, I made an exception for Wrong Planet.

Finally finding out what was wrong with me was a tremendous load off my back. Not knowing for decades why I was so different, and imperfectly functioning, had caused me a lot of problems and grief. Now I no longer feel like some kind of mental/emotional freak. Once I found out what was wrong I was able to research the condition and find out info that explained myself to me better. The research has also helped me with coping methods, some of which I had come upon on my own already.

Keep up with your own research. It will definitely help, especially with coping methods. Once people are up in years it is harder for them to change their patterns of behavior, so the therapies used on young Aspies are less effective on older adults. However, coping methods can be used effectively to help even older people deal with problems at any age. We each just need to find what works for our own individual circumstances. It takes time, but is worth it.

Good luck on your journey of self discovery!

This is probably one the emotional if not the most emotional times in your life. It's a second birthday of sorts. You have the rest of your life to deal with the consequences. After 30 years of repressing and hiding things this time is about letting it flow and feel it all. It is lot to take in, add the intense emotion positive or negative it is stress. So what stress reduction technique works for you use it.

Once the newness starts subsiding the advice with dealing with it given above is great.

its one thing to think you may have something its just another to hear that you do but alas i digress .. I am however glad i found this website it makes me feel less alone =)

You're in good company.

Welcome home.

Welcome to the club.

Be careful of that advice about trusting experts. Some of them are good, and some of them are terrible.

I've got horror stories of being almost killed by "experts." They're all over WP if you want to feel sick to your stomach.

Keep your wits about you, and don't lose your self-respect over a label.

Now that you know for certain what it is you can move on and find appropriate strategies to better your lifestyle. And this includes a certain degree of depreciation of the self.