There’s also a certain amount of grief and indignation that goes along with a late diagnosis. Suddenly, you as an adult have tools and/or medication to manage your life, in ways you never did before. When you get your diagnosis and start receiving help, things suddenly get easier.
And the grief happens when you look back at your entire life before then, and realize how much easier it would have been if you had been given those tools from the start. School probably would have been much easier, your life would probably be way more on track, relationships might not have ended the way they did, jobs wouldn’t have been such a constant struggle, etc…
Why didn’t a single teacher ever tell your parents to get you checked? Surely they had noticed the signs, right? Or if they did and your parents brushed it off, why the hell did they feel like they knew better? Were they afraid to admit that something was wrong? Were they boomers with the “if I ignore this medical problem, it’s not a problem” mentality? Why the hell wouldn’t they want you to be prepared for life? They forced you to put in all this extra effort this whole time, for absolutely no reason? You could have been living instead of struggling to finish your homework until 11 at night.
All of the small daily “why the fuck is this so difficult” traumas you have built up throughout the course of your life suddenly coalesce, when you realize that they could have been completely avoided, or that you could have had the tools to help manage the things that were giving you trouble.
There’s also a certain amount of grief and indignation that goes along with a late diagnosis. Suddenly, you as an adult have tools and/or medication to manage your life, in ways you never did before. When you get your diagnosis and start receiving help, things suddenly get easier.
And the grief happens when you look back at your entire life before then, and realize how much easier it would have been if you had been given those tools from the start. School probably would have been much easier, your life would probably be way more on track, relationships might not have ended the way they did, jobs wouldn’t have been such a constant struggle, etc…
Why didn’t a single teacher ever tell your parents to get you checked? Surely they had noticed the signs, right? Or if they did and your parents brushed it off, why the hell did they feel like they knew better? Were they afraid to admit that something was wrong? Were they boomers with the “if I ignore this medical problem, it’s not a problem” mentality? Why the hell wouldn’t they want you to be prepared for life? They forced you to put in all this extra effort this whole time, for absolutely no reason? You could have been living instead of struggling to finish your homework until 11 at night.
All of the small daily “why the fuck is this so difficult” traumas you have built up throughout the course of your life suddenly coalesce, when you realize that they could have been completely avoided, or that you could have had the tools to help manage the things that were giving you trouble.
I think I moved past drinking with my demons at this point in life, but I get it. Can’t help but wonder the what ifs.