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Greetings all.

D

Drulgren

New Member
Greetings.

I’m truthfully quite bad at introductions, whether they be online or in person, but I’m going to try my best here.

I’m not quite sure what to expect in a place like this, forums aren’t my forte (neither is any form of social media, let’s be honest here) and I’m not the best at engaging in things due to my severe social anxiety, but I finally worked up the courage and decided I’d give it a go.

I’m not sure if this is appropriate to mention, nevertheless I was recently diagnosed and my mental health is in pretty bad shape because of it. Part of me doesn’t fully know what to exactly think of this, and another is glad that I finally got an answer as to why I am the way I am to some degree.

I literally don’t have a support system so a place like this is honestly all I had to come to.

Is it normal to feel this way? Just kind of lukewarm about it, I mean. I really hope in time this is something I can eventually come to accept as a positive thing about myself. I just consider this to be a life changing deal and I don’t know if I’m overthinking it or if it’s true.

I apologize if I sound like a mess. It’s just been a lot for me to take in lately and I wish I had someone to talk about it with.
 
welcome to af.png
 
First of all, welcome.

Second,...it's been my experience with this group that we are all pretty supportive and respectful to each other. Third,...it's a forum,...but at least in my experience, it's not the Facebook-type experience here. We can discuss things, share personal experiences,...in stereotypical autistic detail that other social media platforms really are not designed for. It's been good for me. I thought I was the only one who loved to write a "book" when responding to people, and got chastised for it on FB,...but here, quite a few of us are good at elaborating,...sometimes just venting our frustrations about this and that to the group,...and its OK.
 
Drulgren said:
I’m not sure if this is appropriate to mention, nevertheless I was recently diagnosed and my mental health is in pretty bad shape because of it. Part of me doesn’t fully know what to exactly think of this, and another is glad that I finally got an answer as to why I am the way I am to some degree.
Click to expand...

You're not the only one that has shared these same feelings on this forum. Everyone has a unique story to tell. I am curious though, why is knowing that you're autistic affecting your mental health? Literally, nothing has changed,...that is, you're still you. It's curious, because, for me,...it was like this huge weight pulled off of me,...finally,...an answer that has eluded me for decades. It opened up a new "special interest" in studying autism,...I am learning new things almost every day. Now,...I have this forum group here,...it has helped me,...and hopefully I have helped a few people in return.
 
Welcome. Because I was diagnosed late in life I came to the realization that while ASD impacted my life, sometimes negatively, I am not my ASD.

I experienced profound social anxiety as a teen and young adult. What I failed to recognize at the time was that, whether NT or ND, we have common desires and are just muddling through at times. It was incumbent on me to change, and I managed it. But now I am getting CPT about some trauma from feeling isolated.
 
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Welcome. I am 54 and just realized I am on the spectrum this year.
I totally agree with @Neonatal RRT. He voices my thought elequently.

There is nothing to fear with an a.s.d. diagnosis. It is better to know because you can get appropriate mental health care not just whatever is flug out of the mind of a doctor who really does not understand and know nothing about a.s.d.
 
Neonatal RRT said:
You're not the only one that has shared these same feelings on this forum. Everyone has a unique story to tell. I am curious though, why is knowing that you're autistic affecting your mental health? Literally, nothing has changed,...that is, you're still you. It's curious, because, for me,...it was like this huge weight pulled off of me,...finally,...an answer that has eluded me for decades. It opened up a new "special interest" in studying autism,...I am learning new things almost every day. Now,...I have this forum group here,...it has helped me,...and hopefully I have helped a few people in return.
Click to expand...

I think I’m looking at it in a negative way because it’s a label, like my diagnosis’ of PTSD and clinical depression.

It’s almost got the same feeling as some trauma responses I have to certain things. Yes, it’s good to know why I handle things the way I do, yet there’s still this hangup of how I see it negatively.

I’m sorry for confusing you. It’s hard for me sometimes to describe in the detail I want how I feel. My brain has a habit of trying to throw things out faster than I can say or type.
 
Drulgren said:
I think I’m looking at it in a negative way because it’s a label, like my diagnosis’ of PTSD and clinical depression.

It’s almost got the same feeling as some trauma responses I have to certain things. Yes, it’s good to know why I handle things the way I do, yet there’s still this hangup of how I see it negatively.

I’m sorry for confusing you. It’s hard for me sometimes to describe in the detail I want how I feel. My brain has a habit of trying to throw things out faster than I can say or type.
Click to expand...

Sometimes YOU need the label, within the context of doing your own scientific research into the topic, knowing what questions to ask, how to find help, etc. On the other hand, there can be a social stigma with a label if you are sharing it with others,...worries about how another may react,...and that's a result of their own ignorance and resultant false judgements. Many of us are concerned with this,...the who, the how, the context, and the reasons for divulging an autism diagnosis are quite varied and is often a topic of discussion here.

As far as throwing things out faster than you can say or type,...I have a serious problem with that,...I really have a difficult time articulating things in a meaningful way verbally. I do a better job writing things out.
 
I can definately relate to the busy brain. At times, often really, it feels like my thoughts are a train racing down the tracks, not bothering to stop and just blowing by the stations, leaving a trail of flying paper debris and puzzled commuters on the platform.

It can take some getting used to, but I think it can be a positive thing, this new self knowledge. For me it was like finally having the key to understand many puzzling aspects of my personality.
 
Welcome to the forums. Join in, everyone is very accepting here so the social anxiety shouldn't be a problem. Plenty you can learn about yourself here. I had long known I was ASD (self diagnosed) but didn't understand myself until I discovered all the online resources like this one.
 
Hi and welcome. Understanding that you have autism is useful, for me it helped me understand myself better in various ways. Over the years I have changed and developed and yet was puzzled by some areas where progress seemed hard, particularly related to unstructured social communication, and recognising that autism explained the challenges I experience in that area was helpful. Maybe just having an answer for why I appeared to be untypical in that area was enough.

It's good that you found us, I think many here would have quite a small amount of contacts and might sometimes feel lonely or unsupported because of that, and here you can join in discussions with others and learn more about their challenges and strategies and ideas.

Autism is just an aspect of who we are, like being tall or short, or right or left handed, which we also can't much change, but we can find strategies around. I'm short, but I can stand on a chair to reach stuff. There are strategies that we use to manage effects of autism.

Like I realise in retrospect I always spent more time than most on some aspects of my paid work, to get it all done to the standard I wanted. I think people with dyslexia often do that too. And similarly for some with depression, which you are also up against. It's a challenge, but it's also something you learn to have strategies for.

I hope you will join in discussions here, and/or post some threads, and feel supported by others who are in some ways similar to you.

:hibiscus::turtle::blossom::bee::cherryblossom::beetle::herb::bug::seedling:
 
Welcome :)
This forum has been really helpful for me since I don’t have a lot of irl people who I can talk to about autism. I’m scared of opening up about that and about my mental health issues irl. But I really like it here. I’ve found most people on here to be friendly and delightful and helpful. I hope you will find that on here too :)
 
Drulgren said:
Part of me doesn’t fully know what to exactly think of this, and another is glad that I finally got an answer as to why I am the way I am to some degree
Click to expand...

That was how I felt when diagnosed and I wasn't diagnosed until mid-fifties.
I was glad to know why my life felt different to others and I was different.
I think @crewlucaa_ hit the reason why I felt a degree of negative emotions at first.
No real life friends to talk with and fear of opening up on mental health issues to people irl.
Always felt it would make them look down on me as less.

Autism was not known about much back when I was growing up and most people associated
a lot of the traits to something shameful and off.
As a kid, my Dad was always making remarks about me saying I was going to grow up to be
retarded which he meant in a duragatory way.
My Mom would have been in denial with the come back that I was highly intelligent and made
good grades.
So, really I am glad I suppose, that they didn't know.
I think the stigmatism of all that stuck with me and that's why I felt split emotions when
I did finally find out.

Finding this forum was so helpful. Here I don't feel that way and can talk openly.
So Welcome to the forum!
 
We have so many challenges with being somewhere on the spectrum. The funny paradox is we have so many feelings inside, pure emotional info dumps, yet zero ways to express socially how we feel without fearing the villagers will jump in their Hondas with megaphones running us all out to the wasteland. We truly become frighten to express our self especially when we finally discover that others (78.90%) don't think like us.

Self acceptance is so important. Then the realization that there are many talented people that have autism or degrees of it. There are many success stories at this forum of people caught in the quagmire of multiple diagnoses, bad family dynamics, stressful jobs or no jobs, no significant other, horrible friends, yet they do flip their life around because we seem to be a determine lot of people.

Welcome to the tribe ☺☺
 
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Welcome! As others stated, I really like that this forum is come as you are, and there's no commitments, drop in whenever you'd like and post when you have the energy :)
 
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