VeraVulcanCasual Contributor
Trying to Reach Acceptance For My ASD Diagnosis
First time doing this sort of thing, so here it goes.
To start off, I recently got diagnosed. Late.... Diagnosed.... Going undiagnosed for years takes a huge toll on your mental health. And quite frankly it's hard to mentally process and accept it for me personally. It's just quite infuriating when you went unheard for years, years of bringing up how odd you are, how isolated you felt. How inept at everything you felt and no one ever took you seriously until a psych points it out without you even bringing it up. Go figure I guess. I had my moment of "I knew I was right". But.... Well it was sort of this realization, this feeling of dread that.... You know that you're different. No matter what you do, you will always be processing the world differently and always have your entire life. If you are curious what level, it's level 2. As to why I was late diagnosed? Well my friend, it's the classic I'm a AFAB individual. Not getting the right help because of stereotypes and what not. I have my entire life tried fitting in, I do have distinct past memories of highschool, when I'd copy another individual, which well... Didn't go well. Not to mention everything else that made me different to others. I am trying to process my emotions and stuff, but it's so hard to do so. Some key people in my life aren't exactly letting me talk about it, without them spinning the conversation on their issues that isn't even autism. The people who claim "everybody is a bit autistic". Or the people who react like you've gotten cancer with the ASD diagnosis. It just hurts and makes me furious. ASD doesn't make you stupid, lesser or useless. Something that in my experience was hard to realize and still is...
I guess what I'm asking in plain terms, is how have some of you overcame being late diagnosed? Some strategies you've learned to cope with that fact that you have finally been diagnosed?
