Finding Who You Really Are

[Hoomi]

I've been recently diagnosed late in life as an Aspie (HFA to be specific) and have spent that last few weeks looking back at my life. I've realized that I've done such a great job "acting like normal people" that now I'm wondering who the real me is. Am I in my current career because that is what I thought I should do and not because it's what I want to do? Quite honestly, I'm questioning whether I even truly know what I like. Anyone else go through this and if so, what things did you find that were helpful?"

 

[DesertRose]

I never really thought about myself, and who i am much, until I started researching Aspergers, because my son was informally diagnosed. Then I found that both my children likely have it, one definitely, as well as probably myself, and several family members possibly on the spectrum. Maybe I have been acting all these years, and didn't realize it. Too bad there's no one to ask, either totally ignorant of it, or can't remember back that far, or simply not around me enough.

 

[clg114]

I was diagnosed when I was 62. I was delighted with this. It answered so many questions that I had about myself, I felt like I knew myself better. I spent my career working with my special interest, machinery. I was a field service technician, which meant that I worked alone almost all of the time. Perfect for a Aspie. All those years, I did not know that I was on the spectrum. However, I did not do to good at "acting like normal people". I was and still am seen as a "smart weirdo". I do not fit into groups very well. The only groups that I am involved in have to do with a specific activity.

Welcome to Autismforums. I think that you will like it here.

 

[SusanLR]

I was diagnosed late in life also and it answered so many questions for me also.
Now I can look back over my life and understand why I was as I was.
I think since I was home schooled during high school, and I'm glad I was since I didn't really care for
socializing, peer pressures, dating, the usual teen year things, that when I went to college and university
that was when I started getting good at acting as I knew the world wanted.

I took acting, art and singing classes along with the medical studies.
I became a model and instructor while going to university.
This really helped with how to 'act.' I wasn't shy, just different and not social.

As far as looking back and asking did I do what I wanted ?
Not really. I would have probably been doing something in arts or living in AZ in a metaphysical
commune had I done what I really liked. But, I was looking at pay and keeping my living at home arrangement.
Working for a large pharmaceutical company wasn't bad and I didn't have to interact with the public.

Regrets? Only that I wish I had know about being on the spectrum sooner and now I wish I had looked ahead to retirement so I would have enough money to live a better way of life.

 

[Progster]

I have a job which involves a lot of interraction with people, and it has always felt like I'm pushing against myself, that I'm not naturally good at it and that it's not me, because I'm not really a people person and I'm trying to be something that I'm not.

 

[AO1501]

As with others, I was diagnosed late in life too, and discovered that I had been working hard at being 'normal' for so many years that it was hard to know what or who I really was. But the diagnosis answered so many puzzles and confusions, and explained so much that I realised that for the first time ever, I actually made sense to myself.

It is the person who makes sense to me that is the one I know to be the real and actual me.

I am fortunate that I was once advised how to decide what I want to do with my life, and having followed that advice, without knowing it, I ended up in the perfect job for me, and gradually made my way to management in it, where I am left alone to get on with what I need to do, and don't have supervisors to report to.

But it's been a struggle sometimes to learn to be the real me, rather than the version of me trying to be normal. I am far happier now.

 

[Gracey]

I crash landed on this site 12 months ago in a pretty bad way (if I’m honest)

Didn’t know who or what the hell I was and getting somewhat desperate.


I think the hardest thing to accept was that I’ve always been me.

I just had a different idea of what ‘me’ was and believed it wholeheartedly.

I thought I knew everything there was to know about myself to date.
Non of which included anything to do with Autism.
I’d explained it away to myself using different explanations.

I feel like I have to take apart many years of trusting the ideas I had about myself -
It wasn’t ‘this or that’ like I’d originally thought, it was autism all along.
- and I now have to rebuild it to include autism as an explanation for some things.

It’s a massive relief and scarey as hell at the same time.

My doctor has referred me and I’m on an NHS waiting list for assessment.

I think it’s probably taken me 8 - 12months to ‘settle’,
having gone through astonishment, disbelief, denial, curiosity, more denial, anger, sadness, more curiosity, some research and I think I’m just starting to level out.

not sure I could have done it without this site and the information on it, also the tolerance, acceptance, and help offered when I’ve asked, from the people on it.

 

[Bella Pines]

Yes, I found out in my late 30s. What is your career? Mine sucks, Looking back, I now realize that I took it because it pays the bills, I'm trying to change but it's difficult when you are in your 40s with kids.

I also realized that I had spent so long pretending that I didn't have the foggiest who I was. I was a software engineer, a scientist, a technical manager, a business analyst, a wife, a mother, a face painter, a friend, a photographer.

Each iteration of me became a fully fledged personality, down to the point where my name has changed accordingly, I use variations of my name, my middle name and several completely made up names. At my wedding, my school friends met some people I worked with, and when they talked about me, apparently they were confused as to if it was the same person.

I even went through a phase of wondering if I was anything at all, without the masks or the personas, is there anything even there? I don't really feel much, I'm really very neutral, I went through a phase of thinking that maybe there is no me?

The next phase was miserable! I called it a mid life crisis where all I knew was that the current iteration sucked. I was trapped in a job I hated, if I quite I could lose my house and my kids would suffer, if I changed then I would likely get a job doing exactly the same but with less money and more travel. I spent a few years being depressed at this point!

But after 10 years I can confidently say that I'm through it. I realize now that I am simply me. That I don't have to "be" something, or call myself something or define myself by my job. It's okay to just be me. I realize that the trapped sensation is in my head and in actual fact everyone is trapped to a degree, at least I am trapped with an awesome coffee machine and a family that means the world to me. Not only that, I now know I can be whatever I want if I choose to. So mostly I am a working mother with a strong moral code. So once I let go of my hang ups (feeling trapped) and everyone elses expectations (how to define me), I found an inner peace and am now comfortable just being me.