My life has pretty much been a train wreck ever since I left for college. I learned that this is fairly typical for people with high functioning autism. You take away their routine and you apply the pressure of having to manage their own lives and all the various things that that entails, and they start to unravel. I considered myself smart, capable and ambitious so it was very distressing to me that my life was not working and I didn’t understand why. I guess I’ve always carried that with me, wondering wtf happened. Now I know. It just feels better when you can make sense of your life. It puts you on better footing and you can move forward. Before that I was kind of stuck.
Even more importantly, I’ve recovered a sense of identity. For many, many years I used masking and mirroring as a strategy to navigate life and my interactions with other people. It’s a very effective strategy, but you end up not really knowing who you are or why you act this way. I spent a lot of time trying to act normal but had this nagging sense that I wasn’t a real person in the way that other people were. Being diagnosed with Aspergers was a game changer for me. You learn about it and you understand yourself in a way you never did before.
At least that’s how it was for me.
Also, you become more knowledgeable about your strengths and weaknesses, which of course helps you live your life. And you can employ strategies and find resources that help too.
Sometimes I feel like my identity is intact, more than other times.and less than other times. I might lose out the chance for therapy to discuss this. Maybe I should just tell my gp to make an assessment for me. I want to buy a good self help book on this if I do have it