So I been seeing someone to help me emotionally
With all the loss and struggles I been having I started seeing a therapist. During one of my sessions it was brought up that I should be tested to see if I am on the spectrum. My son is on the spectrum so I said okay lets do it. Not thinking that I actually am on the spectrum myself but now things make so much more sense.
I decided to talk to my mom about my recent diagnosis
So I am with my mom a few weeks ago and I said so you know how I been seeing a therapist right? She said yeah. I told her I was diagnosed with being on the spectrum and she says "Yeah I know, you were diagnosed as a kid, but we were told you grew out of it." Wait! What? Why is this the first time I am hearing about this? She then goes on to tell me, that all the therapy I went through as a kid was to help me grow out of it and her and my dad didn't want me to use it as a crutch so they decided not to tell me and because they believed I grew out of it, they didn't see a point to tell me. I told her mom you don't grow out of it, I apparently have been doing something called masking.
How did I have all that therapy and not know?
Some of my first memories was ladies coming in our home and playing with me. I didn't know it was therapy. When I asked about it when I got older, I was told they were nurses and came in because I was sick as a toddler. But it wasn't explained more than I had trouble eating and they came to make sure I thrived. When I entered elementary school I was taken out of class every day for either speech therapy or some of type of play therapy. This went on through out elementary school. Then all the sudden I was told they did all they could for me and when I went to middle school there was no more therapy.
When I was in middle school
I found out about something called the Middletown Studies. I am from that town they were done on and continue to be done. My hometown has been studied more than any other town in the United States and has been being studied since 1929 nearly 100 years. There was a handful of other students that had the same type of thing going on and we all thought we were apart of this study because no one explained anything to any of us. I have had conversations about these therapy sessions I went through with others who had the same thing happen to them. Still not 100% convinced we were not being studied for those studies. But I am grateful I learned how to mask. But wish my mom and dad would have said something to me before I said something to my mom a few weeks ago, because now things make so much more sense.
So that is how I been diagnosed twice with autism
And how I lived 44 years of my life without knowing I am on the spectrum, but now so many things make so much more sense. How I get over stimulated, how sometimes I will have melt downs when over stimulated, how I hyper-fixate on things. Why I suffer from emotional burnt out that can leave me nearly paralyzed. Why when I hyper-fixate on things I talk about it constantly to the annoyance of others. Why I have texture issues with foods and though I love some foods, some foods I can't stand if they are mixed together. Why I can't stand certain fabrics on my skin. There is many more things that I do that I never understood but now it makes so much more sense, and why I thrive working for myself and I don't thrive working for others.
I'm glad you finally got a diagnosis that made sense, but sorry you had to wait so long for it.
Do you think it had something to do with the studies you mentioned? Or is that something else just going on at the same time?
@winstonalden not sure it could have been both going on at the same time or just independent of each other. Who knows but someone instructed parents not to tell us and told them we would grow out of it. My mom said as I grew older I seem to grow out of it, so she deferred to the so called experts about not telling me about it and when I was a kid and would ask questions I was told it was just speech therapy but it wasn't just speech therapy but my mom didn't acknowledge it till I brought it up and told her the diagnosis. I am not mad about it but am floor that her and my dad would keep something like that from me and they knew. That is just weird to me, I can understand when I was young young but when my son was diagnosed you would think they would have said something then but nope. LOL