Well, This Escalated Strangely...

[Strong Sad]

Hello!
I’m a dad, a husband, and a teacher.
For most of my life (I’m 40ish now) I have been able to “get by,” but have always felt “different.”
Like, I’ve had a pretty comfortable, moderately successful, rather lovely life. Job, family, education, material comfort. Sure, some weird social/emotional problems, but nothing that wasn’t forgivable or life-altering. Life dampening, perhaps, but most everything was reasonably ok.
BUT THEN THE MAJOR LIFE CRISIS HAPPENED.
For close to two years now I have struggled to hold together my marriage, my relationships, and myself.
Over these two years I have considered divorce, suicide, fully committing to alcoholism, becoming a recluse, running away, hiding, or just lying down and giving up.
I could not come to an understanding of what had happened in my life, how to make sense of it, how to understand myself, how to understand the needs of those around me, and this caused immense stress, resentment, mistrust, and pain.
One day recently I tried to explain all these things to my wife, and said to her: “I just don’t understand. I don’t understand how you feel, I don’t understand how I feel, I don’t understand what has happened, and I don’t understand why it has happened.”
And I though about it, and thought “there must be a descriptor for someone who is having my problems with communication, and understanding social/emotional circumstances.”
Which has brought me here:
After exploring a lot of resources, reflecting on the trauma of the last couple of years, and aligning those with my life experiences, I am now pursuing an ASD diagnosis.
What I hope this might help me with is finding the right support so that I better understand myself and others, and to finally have an explanatory narrative for my life experience and challenges. I hope it may lead me to form healthier relationships. I really hope it allows me to tell myself “this is who you are and this is the work to do,” which would be an improvement on how I feel now: hopeless, defeated, selfish, hurtful, lost. So, I am cautiously approaching this diagnosis with optimism. Thanks for reading!

 

[Crossbreed]

Hello & welcome @Strong Sad .

You may want to reconsider your login name. (It may not still apply after you have been here for a while, and you can only change it early in your membership.)

 

[Strong Sad]

Thanks for the note! I understand what you are saying, but I’m pretty comfortable with it. It’s a reference to a homestarrunner character - it’s maybe a little too on-the-nose, but it’s also a little funny to me - Strong Sad is hilariously melancholic.

 

[Wolfnox]

Sup.

 

[Mia]

Welcome Strong Sad to the site,

This seems something like a painful epiphany. The beginning of a journey you have to take in search of your true self. The one that was stuffed deep down inside a long time ago by fitting in, and doing the things that everybody is supposed to do.

No matter how painful and confusing it is, it's worth it to find that tiny kernel of truth about yourself that you lost somewhere, as I did. I hope you find some answers and understanding here in your search.

 

[Strong Sad]

Welcome Strong Sad to the site,

This seems something like a painful epiphany. The beginning of a journey you have to take in search of your true self. The one that was stuffed deep down inside a long time ago by fitting in, and doing the things that everybody is supposed to do.

No matter how painful and confusing it is, it's worth it to find that tiny kernel of truth about yourself that you lost somewhere, as I did. I hope you find some answers and understanding here in your search.

Thanks for responding so kindly, I appreciate it, and your response really resonates with me. I’m torn between the idea of finding relief in a possible ASD diagnosis, and worry about what it might mean. But I feel like it might be the “missing link” for understanding myself, my marriage, and my social challenges. It feels right ‍. “Fitting in.” Lol. I’m passable, but I have never felt “in”!

 

[SusanLR]

Welcome Strong Sad!
I never felt I "fit in" either. But, it didn't really matter as long as I had a family that cared and
could make a comfortable career.
Life changes and traumas brought me to seek resolution in diagnosis of ASD.
It was an answer to why and how my life had been.
Hope you find some comfort here and answers.

 

[Shenandoah]

Welcome.
I was also hit hard in my early forties. All of a sudden similarly comfortable life went massively sideways with extreme anxiety that I have never felt before. In retrospect, there were signs building up some years prior but it sure went down in a hurry.
8 years later I am doing ok but things are very different now for sure.

 

[Judge]

Self awareness is where things can begin to improve. Though at times it can be like going down a rocky road strewn with potholes. I'm another late-bloomer as well, stumbling onto it all a few years back in my mid-fifties.

Welcome to AF.

 

[Isadoorian]

Welcome to the Forums! I hope you make new friends and enjoy your stay in the process!

 

[Nitro]

Hi Strong Sad

 

[FreeDiver]

I think what you maybe experiencing is what known as a "midlife crisis". MLC can hit most anybody and it happens around your 40's. It's like you woke up one day and the whole world came crashing down even though nothing bad ever really happen. I can relate to how you feel. I too had this happen to me when I was in my early 40's and it can take a few years to get over it. Just be prepared to realize that your personality has changed and your just going to have to adjust to it. This is very common thing that happens to a lot of people.

 

[Thinx]

Hi Strong Sad, welcome, I hope that you enjoy it here, people are kind and supportive and there are many interesting threads to read. Lots of us didn't really understand what we were experiencing until later in life, as like you were could get by and often happily enough, though puzzled by ourselves.

The more recent growth in understanding of neurodiversity has meant we are more likely to stumble across this information and realise we probably have a somewhat different brain. There's an upside too, I would say much of what I like about myself is related to my different brain, and it enables me to think outside the box... what box, indeed? To me it's often an open field.

I have self diagnosed as many of us here have, so whilst you may find a diagnosis helpful or useful, I think it's fine to self identify after research, particularly because diagnosis is behavioural and a lot of us have learnt neurotypical ways and our internal experience is masked by use of these apparently pointless yet expected behaviours.

Good luck on your journey, it does help to find strategies that are useful when you know more about who you are, I find.

 

[George Newman]

Welcome to Autismforums.com, Strong Sad.

I share your story almost perfectly. I too am strong but sad. I am glad you have added this forum to your life experience.

Autismforums.com has played a big role in my process.

 

[Streetwise]

Thanks for responding so kindly, I appreciate it, and your response really resonates with me. I’m torn between the idea of finding relief in a possible ASD diagnosis, and worry about what it might mean. But I feel like it might be the “missing link” for understanding myself, my marriage, and my social challenges. It feels right “Fitting in.” I’m passable, but I have never felt “in”!

You are exactly the same as the second before you thought the word autism ,you will not grow an extra head ,you will probably just keep on being autistic and research it until it kills you.
What is very Very slightly comforting is you can now communicate with people who will not verbally abuse you ,if you want to openly discuss anything whatsoever and not keep it to a topic ,use the private message (inbox )section !at the top right hand of the page.
I use it quite regularly as I am not from the social media generation or to be truthful the English comprehension generation.
If you want to discuss anything that you only want the members to see post it in private discussions and it will not go on to search engines.

 

[Bolletje]

Welcome! I was also diagnosed as an adult (age 29) when I’d had a few unexplained depressions and periods with difficulty functioning in areas I normally do great at. Luckily I met a young psychologist who specialized in ASD in women, who decided to pursue that avenue of diagnosis. It explained so much to me, and I am a lot more comfortable in my own skin now that I know why I am the way I am.

 

[Strong Sad]

Thanks for the reply, Free Diver! I have wondered about confounding data for my self-diagnosis - age, gender, depression, trauma. Maybe what I see in myself is the extreme consequence of male socialization, rather than ASD? Maybe I am enduring some midlife ennui, rather than ASD? My trauma has been this: my wife was diagnosed with a traumatizing, life-threatening illness that while survivable, will forever define our lives. It has been the trauma that seemingly has exposed me: in trying to understand and meet her needs, in trying to understand and meet my needs, I have left a destructive trail in my wake that has resulted in ruined relationships, and the consensus (amongst stakeholders, therapists, friends, and my wife) is that I “don’t get it” and I seem to have little social/emotional understanding. I have tried my best, but everything social/emotional that I have touched has resulted in ruin. It’s like I am living a separate reality from the people I care about, and we have no means of understanding each other or agreeing on a common reality. I feel terribly misunderstood without the vocabulary to make myself known, and pretty much everyone has given up on the idea that I am a reliable, trustworthy, empathetic person.

 

[Streetwise]

Thanks for the reply, Free Diver! I have wondered about confounding data for my self-diagnosis - age, gender, depression, trauma. Maybe what I see in myself is the extreme consequence of male socialization, rather than ASD? Maybe I am enduring some midlife ennui, rather than ASD? My trauma has been this: my wife was diagnosed with a traumatizing, life-threatening illness that while survivable, will forever define our lives. It has been the trauma that seemingly has exposed me: in trying to understand and meet her needs, in trying to understand and meet my needs, I have left a destructive trail in my wake that has resulted in ruined relationships, and the consensus (amongst stakeholders, therapists, friends, and my wife) is that I “don’t get it” and I seem to have little social/emotional understanding. I have tried my best, but everything social/emotional that I have touched has resulted in ruin. It’s like I am living a separate reality from the people I care about, and we have no means of understanding each other or agreeing on a common reality. I feel terribly misunderstood without the vocabulary to make myself known, and pretty much everyone has given up on the idea that I am a reliable, trustworthy, empathetic person.

you need to talk to a psychologist !avoid psychiatrists all they want to do is drug you .It could be a result of your trauma that you’ve blocked something out or lack of socialisation or autism that’s the problem ,I can’t see! how you communicate ,you are using body language right now but I can’t see it.

 

[clg114]

Welcome to Autism Forums!

 

[Strong Sad]

Welcome.
I was also hit hard in my early forties. All of a sudden similarly comfortable life went massively sideways with extreme anxiety that I have never felt before. In retrospect, there were signs building up some years prior but it sure went down in a hurry.
8 years later I am doing ok but things are very different now for sure.

Thanks for sharing, Shenandoah. Different good? Or just different? There have been signs all my life (I experience a number of the symptoms, relational feedback reinforces a diagnosis, I ACE the questionnaires lol), but I have chosen to ignore/devalue them because I have been “comfortable?” Now that I am extremely uncomfortable, it no longer seems that I can avoid looking at myself in this way.