Late-Identified autism? How was this possible? The first time I thought I might be autistic, I was sitting on the sofa next to my husband watching You-Tube videos of other late-identified neurodivergent people. (How I got there in the first place is another story.) While it was difficult to relate to the cold, formal diagnostic criteria listed in the DSM, the videos of the lived experiences of others were an uncanny reflection of myself.
Before I’d had time to ruminate over anything, my gut reaction was a slightly giddy laughter. I couldn’t believe it. Autism was the answer? I continued giggling as I shared video after video with my husband, both of us pointing out trait after trait, explanation after explanation. This described me.
It wasn’t long before the weight of reality began to settle in, the excitement of discovery dissipated, and a haze of questions and confusion rolled in like a dense fog. Is this real? What does this mean? How was it missed? What about all the traits we see in the kids? Who do we need to talk to? Will I ever feel better? Will it always be this hard?
Creative Processing
While I’ve always been an emotional person, processing and expressing my emotions has never been my strong point. I needed some way to begin to get my thoughts in order. Some way to describe my experience. I remembered some of the ways I had done that as a teenager: composing music, making art, writing poetry. I often couldn’t directly tell you how I was feeling through my spoken words, but the process of creating. . . that did something special for me.
During adolescence, I spent hours pouring my heart out into journal after journal. My thoughts and feelings would often flow out in a sort of poetic stream of consciousness. Not quite poetry, not quite prose, but highly expressive and full of emotion.
It was my way of coping with that invisible barrier between me and my peers. A steam valve for the loneliness. A way to attempt to express all the overwhelm, big feelings, and intense experiences. Allowing myself the time to ponder and process. Why had I ever stopped doing that?
In the midst of this newfound reality, late-identified autism, I decided to tap back into what had worked for me before. I decided to process what I was thinking and feeling through writing whatever came to me.
The following piece of writing evolved over several days. It felt alive, and like it could continually grow and change forever as my understanding grew and changed. I ultimately decided to let go of perfectionism and let it be what it was. Maybe you will be able to relate to it.
Here is my poem, “Discovered Late.”
Discovered Late
I thought I was just a chronically misunderstood,
perpetually confused,
socially awkward INFJ.
Introspective, jumpy, and easily overloaded.
A lover of routine, comfort, safety, and the great books.
A homebody Hobbit
with a terrible sense of direction,
no sense of adventure,
an impressive sense of smell,
a strong sense of right and wrong,
a confusing sense of self,
and very few friends.
I was just a little weird, different, clumsy, sensitive.
A little–don’t step on a crack
or you’ll break your mother’s back.
A little deer-in-headlights.
Garbage at sports. Weak in the ankles.
A thoughtful writer with terrible handwriting and iffy spelling.
Lonely most of the time. Even in a crowd.
Always on the periphery,
I just had a
predisposition toward depression
and crippling anxiety masquerading
as my baseline state.
Or was it my baseline state masquerading
as crippling anxiety?
I was just a light sleeper
with persistent fatigue,
a primal longing for periods of complete solitude,
and a strange craving for sensory deprivation,
deep pressure massage,
hot sauce, and things that crunch.
I just had a constant drive for mental stimulation
which resulted in swirling thoughts,
the feeling of being trapped in my mind
and disconnected from my body,
and a creeping fog of existential dread.
Just a frustrated, poor specimen of humanity.
“Why do people think I can’t do things?
I can do things. Why can’t I do things?”
I was just brimming and bubbling with overwhelming feelings
that defy verbal description,
and a dash of random singing and swaying,
intense gum chewing, and jacket-pocket fidgeting.
I just had a heart bursting with appreciation
for truth, goodness, and beauty.
I was just a deep thinker.
A people watcher. A day dreamer.
Bad at small talk and being cute.
The quiet one.
“You can’t hear me? Sorry, I’ll speak up.
No, I’m not yelling.
I’m just speaking passionately.”
Turns out, I’m not just anything.
I’m #actuallyautistic
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like 👉Executive Function: Making Sense of Your Struggles.
Thanks for listening, friends.
