Loss of Dreams I never even knew were possible.

I was asked about my experience of a late life Diagnosis. This is my answer.

I was Diagnosed Adhd age 50, Autistic aged 52. It was difficult processing my Adhd but I wasn't sure I was Autistic. It was a bigger shock being told I am Autistic and I hadn't anticipated this. It is a grieving process y'see.

Recently I felt envy watching a peer start their Psychotherapy journey and it hurt that I'm at the other end of my career, tired and weary. It feels so unfair that I never had shiny wings to fly, all those years of heaviness and self doubt that needn't have been. So I tell myself it is right to cry and grieve now. It is valid and justified.

As a lifetime Masker it is hard for some to understand because I have seemed to have done well and succeeded.

My grief could seem to some as a sign that I am ungrateful for all that I have done, as if I don't value what I do have. It could seem to some that I have nothing to grieve as I didn't know I was Adhd/Autistic, so what's the problem. So I sit in this middle road of having done well and looking like I have nothing I should be sad about, whilst also knowing that an enormous, fascinating part of my Identity was denied and hidden. This hidden part of me, was denied existence, denied autonomy and denied flight and freedom to grow and evolve authentically. I will never know what could or should have been.

A supervisor once told me about the loss of dreams. Losing something you never had but wanted. The complexity here is that I never even knew what dreams I was missing. But I do now.

Imagine if I'd had no Imposter Syndrome, if I'd had no Rejection Sensitivity, if I'd never people pleased and never squashed myself small. Who would I have been? I will never know. I don't get that chance to know where my wings of innocence would have taken me.

I'm not grieving someone or something known to me. I am grieving that unknown unlived version of me. That lost child. That lost woman. And it feels right to honour that possibility and what could have been.

My grief is earned and I will respect it. Just as I respect my Autism and my Adhd.

I'm glad I know, I'm glad I get the chance to grieve and I'm glad I now at least have the chance to find Authentic Me.

Hugs.

Originally published on 27th April 2024 on NeuroDiversity University FaceBook Page

Pic description. View from inside my Studio looking out onto the garden. Bushes seen through the glass. Stick on cute bird and bumble bee and ladybird. Things with Wings.