Official Diagnosis of Autism
I just received my official Autism diagnosis a week ago Wednesday. As the therapist said, “Well, this is no surprise, you definitely came back as autistic.” Making it official was emotionally draining. I started crying, and she asked me how it feels to hear it made official. How do you explain the grief reaction to a lifetime of regrets? Regrets for the help I could have gotten and never did, regrets around LT’s death. Anger at the misdiagnoses and bullying. Bullying by teachers, peers, coworkers that left deep wounds – and in LT’s case wounds that will never heal.
In the first few days that followed, there were cycles of relief and all out crying/sobbing into the sofa. I was also reading John Elder Robison’s book, “Look Me In The Eye,” which details his lifetime successes and failures with Asperger’s/Autism. He’s an entertaining author – so there were moments that I’d be crying out loud laughing so hard, barely able to breathe. Then I’d dissolve into fits of actual sobbing as the situations and feelings he described are so familiar and so easy to identify with (let alone the painful memories of my own that resurfaced).
Music Stimming for Comfort
Strangely, music has been my salvation. I guess that shouldn’t seem strange, but to me it is. I’d stopped being able to enjoy music in many ways. Every single song, whether from the songs I grew up with, or the songs I listened to with the kids, just brought back memories and feelings. And I had gotten really good at repressing feelings (in fact, now I’m certain that’s what the alcohol was all about). Somehow, after the diagnosis, it became okay to have the feelings. I think I’d just tried for so long and so hard to be normal and just keep on keepin’ on. To have feelings about something I was avoiding was just counter-productive in my mind.
Now I’m letting the feelings flow. The music hurts – it reminds me of all struggles and the times someone let me down. Even the treasured memories now have a different lens – and with that perspective, things that were important then aren’t now, or vice versa. The music is somehow like an emotional reprogramming – and I’ve spent hours every day listening. It’s hard to turn it off to get other things done. Sometimes when I was drinking I’d play my son’s music and force my thoughts onto the most depressing memories as I could just to try to feel something. Now it’s a random playlist of 1200+ songs I’ve collected through life (mine and the kids’), and it’s comforting. It feels like a new form of stimming – and that’s okay!
