Why I'm (Mostly) Glad I Wasn't Diagnosed Younger

I realised last night, as I was doing the two hour drive from Hoppy’s place in Wanganui to home and being introspective, that I’m actually kind of glad that I wasn’t diagnosed with Aspergers at a younger age.

This may just be rationalisation, but it feels like a pretty good reason to me.

Yes, I may have felt like I was going (or had already gone) crazy and the diagnosis would have been a relief for the simple reason that I would have known this is how I’m supposed to be, and no amount of pretending can make me “normal”.

But children are cruel. An already different child, who’s maybe just a tad awkward (okay, a lot awkward), not good at social things, clumsy… And then this child gets saddled with a diagnosis that she’s happy with (maybe I would have been unhappy at that age, for this reason or just because I was uneducated on the subject, who knows?)  so she tells people, children in her class.

And then the questions start. The teasing. The endless, oh my god, leave me alone…

Bullying. Worse than I already had.

And scratch that earlier thought. I would have grown up with a sense of shame (again, worse than I already had) because my Gran… Well when I told her about my diagnosis she was positive on the outside. But I could tell from things that she said that it’s not something she likes; she came from the era where depressed people were told to “buck up and get over it” or “smile and pretend you’re happy, eventually you’ll feel happy” after all.

--And yes, I may be an Aspie, but I’m one of the ones who (while I can’t tell if people are raging mad at me, at someone or something else, or not even angry) can read peoples intentions in another way… It’s hard to describe but I can kind of read between the lines – since I’m so into reading haha.

So, in summation, diagnosis later in life (29years minus 13 days is later in life) = a good thing.

JJJ