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Older Diagnosed Peeps, what made you pursue your diagnosis?
(lemmy.autism.place)
A community for anyone to ask autistic people questions: non-autistic people to learn about the autistic experience and autistic people to get information or validation from their peers.
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Keep in mind: Autistic people are a diverse group with diverse experiences and perspectives. Not one represents the entire community.
I always knew I was ADHD, but I though it just made it hard to read. It wasn't until formal diagnosis and medication that I realized just how much ADHD was affecting my entire life. It wasn't just reading, education, or work. There were so many social and personal issues that would stem from it. People would think I was rude, careless, or selfish. Mix that with autism and us relating consoling people expressing difficulty by sharing a relatable personal experience, and people thought I only cared about myself, so I over-corrected by making everything about everyone else and stopped existing. As far as personal things, I would run late, forget central factors (like a suit for a fancy event), have terrible sleep habits, and all around clumsy. Finally got a diagnosis as an adult and getting therapy from an ND therapist, and wowsers! I had no idea how much ADHD was affecting my life. It's insane! I think that the difficulties of ADHD are severely dismissed.
Good job on unmasking. In my experience, it takes a lot of little experiments to find out who we really are since that person got buried so deep. There's a bit of embarrassment and minor regret here and there, but overall, I think it's fun to become who I really am. So much discovery!