Adult Diagnosis

An autism diagnosis that comes during adulthood can really re-contextualize an entire life’s worth of events, behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Even the phrase “autistic adult” can often summon imagery of childhood, or child-like behaviors in many - an overall ableist view of autistic adults that many of us internalize ourselves, whether we realize it or not. Rarely are there resources targeted towards autistic adults, and even more rare that those sparse resources address autistic adults as fully fledged human beings with their own wants, feelings, and will. Mostly, when an autistic adult wants to look into their own neurodiversity and explore symptoms and signs, they must first wade through article after article geared towards the parents of autistic children, and even of those, many lament the poor, unfortunate situation these parents are in - having an autistic child. The disabled in question are rarely given agency.

In addition to this, there is this overwhelming crush of grief that can sometimes follow a diagnosis in adulthood - the realization that this is what it had been all along; all of those connections that you’d struggled to make; all of those almost-there interactions that were so close to being “normal” but you know you got it wrong somehow because of the look on the other person’s face; each time you became overwhelmed and couldn’t understand what was wrong with you, or why you were feeling so strongly about this one particular thing. Or maybe you didn’t have that awareness as a child - maybe you went about your life thinking everyone else existed the same way you did. Sometimes it’s a confusing mix of both situations. Either way, there is often this grief; you truly didn’t grow up with the same tools as other children, but were expected to perform the same tasks on the same schedule with the asme startling lack of resources and guidance; and others didn’t see that struggle, or if they did, they didn’t pay enough attention. The signs were there, weren’t they?

You yourself can look back and see the signs clear as day, so why did the adults in your life not notice?

“It wasn’t as common back then,” my mother had told me after I opened up about my diagnosis, which came at the age of 22. “We didn’t know as much as we do now.”

And that’s not wrong, not really, but I had all of the tells, even at the time - I was quiet, studious, focused on my books and writing all day; I had a rich inner world, a pantheon of imaginary friends, and my plush toys were my closest confidants; I struggled expressing my emotions, and was selectively mute and non-confrontational to the point that I would often have meltdowns when spoken to harshly; I was labelled “sensitive” by every adult in my life from the moment I could understand what that meant.

Is that why my mother’s words sit so bitterly in the pit of my stomach? Is it unfair to expect more from my family? I’d like to think not, but I have the bias of months, years, spent researching a disability that at the time I hadn’t even known I had. Maybe that’s the disconnect. Maybe I expect others to look outside of their own perception and consider how things might be for those unlike themselves. I can’t bring myself to accept that that’s asking too much.