I need to know if this is a collective experience for anyone else who’s found out they’re on the spectrum later in life. I’ve been researching everything there is to know about asd and Ive realized my whole life my symptoms were downplayed and overlooked despite authority figures in my life suspecting I might have add or adhd at one point. I never got tested as a child when I should’ve. Anyways I’ve lost all sense of who I am now that I know I’m on the spectrum because of how much I masked myself to fit in and now I don’t know what my real personality. Like I’ve been looking for an explanation for why I act differently from everyone else for years and have desperately needed somewhere I belong but now that I’ve found it I realized my lifetime of internalize ableism caused by my parents and childhood peers and the normalized use of the r word as an insult is making it extremely difficult to accept who I am now. I could go into a lot more detail but basically did anyone else experience a painful identity crisis after a late diagnosis
I wasn't diagnosed until I was 52. Many of us were not diagnosed until we were over 40. There was no such thing as an ASD when we were younger,...you were either of the phenotype where there was "severe disability" diagnosed as a small child,...or you had "behavior issues" that needed to be punished. That was a whole different experience and upbringing. Talk about behavior modification,...sucked.
Masking is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the reality (like it or not) is that in order to deal with the public, hold a job, deal with people, etc,...you almost have to mask. You're always "on stage" and acting it out intellectually. On the other hand,...as you say,...you can loose a sense of your real self over time.
The main problem is that neurotypicals, in general, have a difficult time dealing with people who are different than themselves (skin color, LGTBQ, religious affiliation, political affiliation, rural vs. urban, rich vs. poor, etc.). There is a lot of "tribalism" and wanting to be a part of a group,...and a deep desire for "sameness" and "conformity". Many neurotypicals, often out of a sense of insecurity, will find someone they can control with mental and physical abuse. DO NOT allow that to happen to you. Once you realize what it is and why they are doing it,...it is sad and pathetic,...but you have to protect yourself from it.
On the other hand, many of us on the spectrum generally do not care about people enough to be a part of a group, nor care about what differences people have, and tend to be neurodivergent, out-of-the-box thinkers. But,...we live in a neurotypical world,...so we have to deal with it as best we can. The mental approach to all of this is to have some degree of narcissism about yourself to realize that "those that are the best, do it different than the rest". At NO point in human history did anyone, ever, become financially successful or make a meaningful contribution to society by being the "same" as everyone else.