The Relief of Being Diagnosed with Autism

Imagine feeling so exhausted all the time that you can’t get out of bed, you can barely move, you just feel so physically and mentally drained that functioning is impossible… And you feel like it’s your own fault… you’re just lazy and you need to pull yourself together. But then you go to the doctors and after lots of tests you find out it’s just an iron deficiency… You’re not just lazy after all! There’s suddenly a reason why you can’t function like other people, and you have proof! You don’t WANT to have something wrong with you, but you do want the relief and support that comes with answers!!

That’s pretty much how my diagnosis of autism felt for me.

I had spent my whole life knowing I was “weird” and that I just wasn’t trying hard enough to be friends with people. I would be able to go to parties and be super sociable and cope with all the sensory input if I just tried a little bit harder!

I have been lucky enough to be from a family where it was just accepted that I was quirky and that I wasn’t being “different” on purpose. I found parties hard and that was okay. But that didn’t stop my self esteem from taking a battering, because I knew I should be able to do better and I truly believed that I was just lazy or I didn’t care enough.

I had known about autism and Asperger’s syndrome for a while, but when I came across an article specifically about females I felt light headed with relief. Suddenly I wasn’t cold and uncaring. Suddenly there were others like me. Suddenly there was a reason I was quirky and different and most importantly I wasn’t doing it on purpose.

My lovely GP described it as carrying a really heavy coat around all your life and then suddenly having a place to hang it up. I wasn’t alone anymore and my whole life made sense. The struggles I faced weren’t my fault and actually it turned out that I had done pretty well for myself considering I hadn’t had the early intervention recommended for people with autism.

It isn’t that I want to be autistic but as it happens I wouldn’t take away my autism as it is so integrated into who I am and I feel like it helps a lot with my job, it is just a relief, even 18 months post diagnosis, to have answers and know that I am not alone.