Hi,
I am in my mid-forties and I found out a little over a year ago through some online tests that I have Asperger’s. Since then I have been reading very widely (one of the most mind-blowing and affirming experience of my life – autistic people’s writing seems to fit with my consciousness so effortlessly! This always makes me smile.) I have also been doing a lot of work inside my own head. This has involved analyzing my entire life until now (makes so much sense in hindsight, doesn’t it?) and working hard on how I interact in real time (“say less, do less, think less, feel less” seems to work very well for me if I want to ‘mask’ effectively, which I do), as well as trying to ‘orientate’ myself better to my surroundings (controlling the daydreaming and being more ‘present’ essentially). All this has been hard work and incredibly rewarding, but I have now reached what feels like an inevitable buildup of stress that is leading me to seek change (pre-self-diagnosis, once this feeling started accumulating it kept building, and it led me to suddenly change degree course, suddenly quit jobs, suddenly move country – essentially run away from my current life in order to relieve the pressure).
However, I am not in a position where I can responsibly run away from my life now. What’s more, thanks to my self-diagnosis I have been able to identify the cause of the build-up of pressure in this case.
This time, I am struggling with my autistic identity. I have told just one person that I am autistic. Initially, she was skeptical, then slowing accepting, but she has always told me that I do not need to seek the approval of others. That I do not need to get others to understand me. That the only person who needs to understand me is myself. This has been hard to take over the past year (I wanted to rush to tell the world about my self-diagnosis and seek its validation), but I have been truly blessed by her wisdom. She has saved me from a lot of unnecessary confusion and heartache, and given me a wonderful quiet space to process so much of what I needed to process.
However, the fact remains that I do have a lot of difficulties, and perhaps getting an ‘official’ diagnosis might help me to gain insights that I couldn’t gain on my own (is this me seeking others’ validation again?). Perhaps more than anything, for the first time in my life I want to meet some people who ‘fit with my consciousness effortlessly”. However, I would feel like a fraud somehow turning up to an Asperger’s self-help group (in my imaginations this self-help group is a group for ‘genuine’ Asperger’s folks who would be suspicious of my self-diagnosis…I have even worked through countless simulations of things I could say so that I could effortlessly fit it without standing out as NOT being weird…masking at an imaginary Asperger’s self-help group…see how messed up I am?)
For now, I am going to hang out here and try to pick up some of the wisdom of you folks (I am happy to share my own insights for what they are worth).
Sorry if that was rambling. I tend to do that!
Cosmus
I am in my mid-forties and I found out a little over a year ago through some online tests that I have Asperger’s. Since then I have been reading very widely (one of the most mind-blowing and affirming experience of my life – autistic people’s writing seems to fit with my consciousness so effortlessly! This always makes me smile.) I have also been doing a lot of work inside my own head. This has involved analyzing my entire life until now (makes so much sense in hindsight, doesn’t it?) and working hard on how I interact in real time (“say less, do less, think less, feel less” seems to work very well for me if I want to ‘mask’ effectively, which I do), as well as trying to ‘orientate’ myself better to my surroundings (controlling the daydreaming and being more ‘present’ essentially). All this has been hard work and incredibly rewarding, but I have now reached what feels like an inevitable buildup of stress that is leading me to seek change (pre-self-diagnosis, once this feeling started accumulating it kept building, and it led me to suddenly change degree course, suddenly quit jobs, suddenly move country – essentially run away from my current life in order to relieve the pressure).
However, I am not in a position where I can responsibly run away from my life now. What’s more, thanks to my self-diagnosis I have been able to identify the cause of the build-up of pressure in this case.
This time, I am struggling with my autistic identity. I have told just one person that I am autistic. Initially, she was skeptical, then slowing accepting, but she has always told me that I do not need to seek the approval of others. That I do not need to get others to understand me. That the only person who needs to understand me is myself. This has been hard to take over the past year (I wanted to rush to tell the world about my self-diagnosis and seek its validation), but I have been truly blessed by her wisdom. She has saved me from a lot of unnecessary confusion and heartache, and given me a wonderful quiet space to process so much of what I needed to process.
However, the fact remains that I do have a lot of difficulties, and perhaps getting an ‘official’ diagnosis might help me to gain insights that I couldn’t gain on my own (is this me seeking others’ validation again?). Perhaps more than anything, for the first time in my life I want to meet some people who ‘fit with my consciousness effortlessly”. However, I would feel like a fraud somehow turning up to an Asperger’s self-help group (in my imaginations this self-help group is a group for ‘genuine’ Asperger’s folks who would be suspicious of my self-diagnosis…I have even worked through countless simulations of things I could say so that I could effortlessly fit it without standing out as NOT being weird…masking at an imaginary Asperger’s self-help group…see how messed up I am?)
For now, I am going to hang out here and try to pick up some of the wisdom of you folks (I am happy to share my own insights for what they are worth).
Sorry if that was rambling. I tend to do that!
Cosmus
