Late Diagnosed at 39

and Having to Re-Lean How To Human...

These are excerpts from my Notes app over the last few months as I’ve attempted to unravel what all of this means (and doesn’t)…

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I have to leave to take my daughter to the dentist in half an hour and all I’ve done is water the garden. Also I’ve swung in the hammock. And I read a little. I wanted to do other things. Like walk to get my steps done. Or organize my daughter’s closet. But I couldn’t. Because I knew the dentist appointment was looming and I wouldn’t have time to get in the zone on anything. And the frustration from getting in the zone and being interrupted is more adverse to me than the guilt and shame of not having accomplished anything on my to do list. My brain is the most frustrating person I know.

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If I could just accept the sheer luck and beauty of my life right now and actually enjoy it that would be amazing. I’m living a dream. But it’s drenched in bad feelings and self loathing and guilt and I spend all my time not doing things and feeling bad about myself because of it that I can’t even enjoy this. Just do the things. Why can’t I just do things?

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I *want* to want it. I want to love it. 

But… I don’t.

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I was raised by disabled caretakers who did not know they were disabled in a community where the belief was that the man was the head of the household and even if their partner saw an issue, they had to acquiesce to the man’s leadership or at least work around his behavior without ever publicly challenging or chastising it. So I got continual conflicting message that even though it hurt me, (redacted) wasn’t wrong and must be respected and honored no matter what. Oof.

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There’s something wrong with me and I can’t figure out what it is - a memoir 

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I texted my inner circle and asked them how much of this do I include. They told me to write it all. So here we go…

The room was dark except for the glaring light from my laptop. The sun had gone down without me noticing. That tends to happens sometimes when I’m really absorbed in what I’m doing. The blankets were tangled around my legs because I had changed positions so many times but hadn’t stopped to straighten them, I couldn’t be bothered. I had to pee but I couldn’t will myself to get up and stop what I was doing. I clicked on the emails one by one as they came in…

Test 1: 98% probability.
Test 2: No person without autism scored over 65. You scored 149.
Test 3: A score of 100 or more indicates social masking. You scored 147.

“Level 1. Aspergers. High Masking Autism. Low Support Needs.”

Welp…

I’m supposed to be figuring out how to get my child a 504 plan, not taking assessments myself. But as I was researching their specific combo of “quirks” I started to come across stories of other moms who were sharing not only how they were helping their children, but how in doing so they realized they were fairly “quirky” too. As I went down rabbit hole after rabbit hole in podcasts, books, and let’s just be honest, on Tiktok, I realized they had stopped telling their stories and they had started telling mine. And it was the first time I’d ever heard anyone “see” me like that. I checked all the boxes.

I was drawn in because I was in crisis. I wasn’t coping. I had flatlined. I was experiencing something I’d never experienced before and it sidelined me. I didn’t have any parameters in which to describe what was happening to me. And then… in those women’s stories I found the language and the answer.

Autistic Burnout has been the strangest health experience of my life so far. 

Wait… Becka… Autistic? Did we miss something? You’re not autistic. You’ve never said anything about that before. What the hell? What did we miss?