Adult Diagnosis

Also posted to Aspie Women Speak on 27th May 2014

A week ago I sat in a room with my Psychiatrist and listened to her tell me that she agrees that I fit the criteria for Aspergers Syndrome. I can’t remember much of what was said after that because all I wanted to hear were those words. I had spent months leading up to that day. From the moment I told my husband I was going to seek a diagnosis to the day I visited my GP to the day I had an assessment. I still thought I was wrong and I was somehow broken by a life of disappointment and rejection from others. Leading up to my feedback appointment my nights were filled with panic attacks and little sleep.

I was so full of panic thinking that I may be told that I am not an Aspie that I hadn’t prepared myself for being told that I am.  I thought I would feel a total wash of relief and vindication and that I would stop hating myself for all my flaws. Instead panic set in. I could only see all the mistakes I had made, all the misjudgements and all the time I had felt so totally alien to the rest of the world. I dreaded the rest of my life being just the same. I felt total despair at the sheer misery I feared lay ahead of me now that I realised I couldn’t be ‘fixed’.

One of the misconceptions of autistics is that they do not want friends and are happy alone, don’t get me wrong a lot of Aspies enjoy their own company and I do too, however that is not the same as the loneliness imposed on so many of us. The loneliness I feel when I sit in a busy room and I do not now how to join in or start a conversation, when I see others going to events I am not invited to, when others laugh and joke and I never seem to be in on the joke but worst of all the loneliness I have imposed on myself because years of rejection makes me back out of chances to make friends.  That loneliness is the thing I fear most for my future.

It is so hard to look ahead and not be afraid, yet to deal with fear I try to plan ahead. For now I have to try to live in the now and not allow my thoughts drift while I try to find where aspergers fits into my life.