• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

S'mae!

Seladon

Seladon

Member
('hi/hello!' in Welsh, the beautiful native language of my people· ☆⋆｡°‧☆ · ✧. )

30s, female, U.K. based, been officially diagnosed Level 1/HF for 1 year now, and looking for direction and encouragement and practical advice, particularly as regards making progress with motivation, making art, self-employment and career-building/maintenance (in arts), image/grooming and presentation, and building intimacy in personal relationships.

In some ways, receiving a diagnosis has helped with self-acceptance and forgiveness plus allowing myself to rest or take things slower, while in other ways it's made me even more reclusive and passive. While I have no complaints about my assessment and know I was fortunate to get one, the follow-up care after was unhelpful, and my local council claim to have no resources or knowledge about any other available help. It seems like some people in my (small) circle are disappointed that I haven't even slowly improved since diagnosis (one has even requested that I go back to therapy, which has never yet worked for me), so I carry a certain amount of guilt around this.

Which brings me here:sweatsmile:

There's more I can say about my situation to provide context, however I won't infodump here to start with.
 
Welcome to the site. There are many supportive members here. And excellent resources.
 
Hello & welcome @Seladon.
full
 
Welcome.

You're not alone in your experience - for those who receive an adult diagnosis, more often than not, you get the report and... that's it.

Fortunately there's lots of resources - books, blogs, websites, social media etc. where various folks share their experiences, (we have some reviews and links here as well, from the menu at the top of the page), and sometimes they can be really insightful.

One of my favourite books is

www.autismforums.com

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

VictorR submitted a new resource: Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity - A self-help book for Autists to unmask and be themselves “For years, I’ve been using my skills as a social psychologist to make sense of the scientific literature on Autism, and connecting with...
www.autismforums.com www.autismforums.com

Joining communities such as this, whether actively participating, or as more of an observer, can also help with better understanding oneself and one's connections with the world. While this is mostly a text / forum based group, there are also other online groups that are more video chat / meeting (e.g. zoom) based as well.
 
Hi @Seladon , welcome to the forum :) sorry to hear you have not gotten any support after diagnosis, as the others have said, look around in the old threads or just ask questions in new ones, and I'm sure you will learn something :)
 
Hi @Seladon Welcome to the Forums.
Not getting any support after diagnosis is not unusual, but there are sources of support but you may have to go looking - which I expect you already have.

This place is a good place to find out more about how autism is for others and that can reflect on your experience and help you. At least that is what has been my experience.
 
VictorR said:
Welcome.

You're not alone in your experience - for those who receive an adult diagnosis, more often than not, you get the report and... that's it.
Click to expand...
My experience also. Just straight back to work. It's given me information that helps me be a bit more forgiving of myself, but it doesn't remove the stress. There's no support, there's just homelessness if you buckle. Back when I was still trying to do the whole working for a manager in corporate office thing there was a massive drive for diversity, just not THIS sort of diversity. I guess tired-looking, middle-aged autistic people don't make good photos for the company LinkedIn page.

Nice to meet you OP. Welcome!
 
Hi @Seladon :) . Lovely to "meet" you. I'm newly diagnosed, at 50 ( I'm 51 now) . The best resources I've found is in the online peer information sharing sphere. YouTube Autistic content creators have been an information boon to me. I read a lot too, before I got my diagnosis; I researched A LOT, for about 6 years. The best part for me, has been knowing how I need to manage my life to prevent burn out and breakdowns (I had a truly hectic life with a lot of children, a music career, and a non supportive, abusive co-parent). I find it liberating to, finally, have the knowledge about myself to work towards the kind of life that can, potentially, be about thriving, not just (barely) surviving.
Anyway, tangent. The point is welcome! I hope you find some support and resources here! You are among mindkin here!
 
Welcome! Acceptance is the first step. The second I guess would be to figure out if what you need to change according to the people around you is something that you want to change or if it's something that they want you to change. Acceptance goes both ways. One helpful part of knowing about ASD is that it offers an explanation for the way you are in general terms, but each person has on top of that a personality and a life experience that is unique. So you need to find your own identify.

Search some previous discussions or ask questions. It seems that you're dealing with "executive functioning" issues and trying to find your identify. Reclusion could be a way of finding yourself, but it can easily lead to inertia and lethargy.

I don't mean to dismiss @Neri experience, but be careful with YouTubers. For every good video I watch, there are 4 that are full of misleading information. Having autism doesn't make us experts on autism, in the same way that having cancer doesn't make one an oncologist. And YouTubers make money with clicks so...

Anyhow, welcome. This is a friendly community so ask questions., silly and serious.
 
Last edited:
Are the friends disappointed because you have become more reclusive and passive?

If that's the case I would say it is a matter of their not understanding autism. It is not a disease that once the doctors identify it they can then prescribe the right medicine. There is no medicine, it's not a disease. It's debatible whether diagnosis is of any practical use at all other then a piece of information. I think many would say they did find it useful but not all. And some like myself are glad we did not know unitl much later in life.

To make just a simplified statement. Once you know, it does provide clarity and some explanation, but making practical use of it is limited to just being a piece of the puzzle that involves much more such as adaptations, changes, experiments, possibly medications for co-morbids (like anxiety, depression, etc). And from what I have seen this is usually a very very long road for people.

But not without reasonable hope for results, which can sometimes be very rewarding and satisfying.

But as far as adult autistic support, that is very far and few between and more often non-existant. In some places children recieve services but it ends rather abruptly once they graduate or age out.
 
marc_101 said:
Welcome! Acceptance is the first step. The second I guess would be to figure out if what you need to change according to the people around you is something that you want to change or if it's something that they want you to change. Acceptance goes both ways. One helpful part of knowing about ASD is that it offers an explanation for the way you are in general terms, but each person has on top of that a personality and a life experience that is unique. So you need to find your own identify.

Search some previous discussions or ask questions. It seems that you're dealing with "executive functioning" issues and trying to find your identify. Reclusion could be a way of finding yourself, but it can easily lead to inertia and lethargy.

I don't mean to dismiss @Neri experience, but be careful with YouTubers. For every good video I watch, there are 4 that are full of misleading information. Having autism doesn't make us experts on autism, in the same way that having cancer doesn't make one an oncologist. And YouTubers make money with clicks so...

Anyhow, welcome. This is a friendly community so ask questions., silly and serious.
Click to expand...
Maybe this will shed light on your "misleading" autistic content creator disconnect.


I'm not sure in what context you mean by "misleading", as only specific information is going to be helpful, and shed any light on the subject. There are many, many, autistic content creators on yt. I'm sure the OP can make their own mind up, about what is relatable and not relatable, useful and not. I was only sharing my own experience, not being prescriptive.
 
As I wrote in my post ("I don't mean to dismiss @Neri experience"), my comment was not meant to say you were wrong or disregard your comment. It was my opinion, which is the point of the forum. I don't think all videos are bad. I think many are. I respect your point of view so I tried to be careful with my words. But I also wanted to warn a new person that not all of us think YouTube videos are a good source of information.
 
Last edited:
Hello and welcome, @Seladon.

I hope you enjoy the forum. I think self acceptance is one of the most powerful things for living a life that is good and mostly happy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New Threads

Top Bottom