Well, I’ve just joined the cool kids, having being formally diagnosed this week. - Not that anyone was surprised. I think I aced the test.
The psych asked at the end how I felt about the diagnosis, and honestly I don’t know. I’m not sure I feel anything, maybe it’s because I’ve strongly suspected for many years. - is this normal?
So now what? Not sure if I should tell work, there seem to be pros and cons to it. Being technical my work is already pretty accommodating. Family already knew, and socially there isn’t a problem, as I don’t do social.
It all seems a bit anticlimactic, but at least I I’ll have a letter that says I’m not neuroboring.
Research shows autistic people just aren’t compatible socially with non-autistic people, but get along really well with other autistic people. Maybe look into autistic social groups, like this community, or something more intimate, like a chat group, or local meetup. Even if you don’t think you need it, what’s the harm? Our entire identity is informed by our life experiences, which statistically means most of the social situations you’ve ever been in were incompatible with you, and probably made you feel less than good. This leads to masking behaviors to avoid the bad feelings, and that’s no way to exist. The stat is between 1/50 and 1/8 of people, largely shit stat because the establishment only diagnosed for disability until recently, but now the diagnostic criteria in a few countries includes people that can generally succeed at life, despite their neurodifferences.
It’s interesting to me you had any expectations of a climax. It sounds like you’ve been purple your whole life, you and everyone that matters to you knew you were purple, and you just paid someone to officially measure your color as purple. People, regardless of neurotype, can be pretty chill, or totally shit. Your totally chill people are likely to accept you harder for who you are, your totally shit people are likely to dig in and throw more shit at you.
I’ll try to DM you a link to a Matrix chat group for autistic folks. We’d (not me, the admin) rather there be a small barrier of entry than to just let people join. It’s a nice group, not that I have a whole lot to compare it to.