Latest / Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD / My Autism Diagnosis at 26 (What I Learned)

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My Autism Diagnosis at 26 (What I Learned) · Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD

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  You have arrived. Welcome to the Aspy world.
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  Here's where we talk about anything and everything ASD in
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  an upbeat and informative way. And now here's your man on the
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  spectrum, your autism ambassador, Daniel Morgan Jones.
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  So I was diagnosed with autism at 26 years old and as a late
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  diagnosis of autism, this is kind of what I learned.
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  It's funny because, you know, all my life my parents had taken
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  me to see different kind of psychiatrists and different type
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  of doctors and you know, you know, meetings with the school,
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  meetings with psychologists, everything, you know, And then
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  they, they'd kind of gone through this, this pattern like,
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  oh, it's dyslexia and it's, it's shots and memory loss and it's
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  this suddenly then nobody really knew what was going on.
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  But I couldn't maintain, you know, friendships and stuff.
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  I couldn't play outside as a kid in the, in the, when all the
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  kids went outside of the class to go and play on the yard at
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  recess. I couldn't do that.
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  I had difficulties with, you know, learning all of the, the,
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  the ways in which children learn, which is quite funny
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  because when you think about it, we go to school to learn, but we
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  have to learn how to learn, right, which is a really weird
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  phenomenon. And, and that was really, really
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  interesting. And guys, if you're new around
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  here, my name is Dan and I have autism, ADHD and OCD and
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  dyslexia. And I make quickly videos all
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  about this stuff. So if you want to join this
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  journey, learn more about those things, then hit the subscribe
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  button down below. I'd really appreciate it to have
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  you on this journey with me. And it's funny because so I was
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  diagnosed at 26 years old, right?
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  And that was back in 2013. And before that I had a
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  diagnosis of dyslexia and like anxiety, depression, you know,
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  kind of like the usual stuff. But if you look at the timeline
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  in, in which this had happened, it's quite interesting because
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  you go from being a a child in the 80s who's ordained, you
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  know, needs help here, this start and the other.
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  And then you become like a teenager who's struggling in, in
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  a society. And then you become an adult
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  who's completely out of his field with work, relationships,
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  friendships, you know, professional, not professional.
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  And it's really difficult. So one of the things that I kind
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  of learned really early on was that if you, you are on the
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  autism spectrum, nothing changes from when you're a kid until
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  you're an adult. Those feelings stay the same.
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  You still have to struggle with the same things.
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  And it's not the diagnosis that changes anything.
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  Actually. It's the, if there's two,
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  there's two factors. There are the main things I
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  learned. So one of the main things that I
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  realized, oh, there's two main things I realized is 1 is that
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  the, the diagnosis itself doesn't change who you are,
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  right? So you get a diagnosis, you get
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  a, you know, somebody saying, Hey, this is what your, your
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  brain does, or this is what your personality is like.
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  That doesn't make any difference.
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  You are who you are regardless of a diagnostic paper.
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  The only difference is with a diagnosis is that you get access
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  to support and help from a government.
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  You know, could be financial, it could be legal, it could be
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  social, it could be practical, professional, all those kind of
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  things. But more importantly, and this
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  is the top tier, you begin to accept who you are.
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  You know, for a long time I thought I was this freak.
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  I didn't accept myself. I I was, I was angry at myself.
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  You know, I'd say a good 40% of the depression and, and the
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  mental health issues I had were Co occurring because I didn't
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  accept who I was. I couldn't figure out like what
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  what is, what is going on here? What you know, who is Dan?
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  You know, like, OK, so I've got these issues with social
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  processing, you know, like sight, smell, touch, the sound,
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  all these kind of things. And all of those things.
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  It allowed me to kind of wallow in self pity sometimes and also
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  kind of think, oh, I'm just so odd.
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  I have no answers for this. I'm just this and the other.
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  But if I had just accepted who I was, like, oh, this is me, you
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  know, yes, I, you know, got the sensory issues with the smell
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  and it was sunglasses and dolls sometimes and all this kind of
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  stuff. All those things would have been
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  fine if I'd just accepted who I was and said, OK, do you know,
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  that's who I am? And I think all of us inherently
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  have that and we just need to look and reflect on that.
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  So no matter if you're self diagnosing or you have an
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  official diagnosis, if you just accept who you are, you begin to
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  just really level up and beam like the sun.
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  And the second thing with the diagnosis is that when you have
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  the diagnosis, it almost becomes worthless because you go, I'm
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  not going to have this piece of paper define who I am.
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  And that is like super empowering because you go fears
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  you're going on, you know, wondering in the dark, thinking
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  like, is this for me? You know, is this for me or God,
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  do I do this? No, no, my weird for not going
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  out with my friends and hanging out and doing things like life
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  like other people do. And an actual fact the entire
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  time, the whole time you've been absolutely fine because you are
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  who you are. And if you decide to not go out,
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  if you decide to not have those friends over, if you decide to
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  not go out for that meal, those things are fine.
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  And everybody should accept that because that's who you are.
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  And, and we shouldn't, we shouldn't block, barricade or,
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  or, or deny people for the, the way that they want to be.
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  They're semi magical about autistic individuals because
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  we're not problem seekers. We're problem solvers, right?
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  So we find problems and then we fix them.
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  We look at a problem and we say, hey, this is a solution.
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  Most people look at a problem and say, oh, I have a problem,
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  I'm going to stop. Autistic people find
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  workarounds. Why do I find workarounds?
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  Because we have to when we're in school, we have to find a
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  workaround to socialize when we need to eat to survive, we have
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  to find workarounds to survive. When we're wanting to progress
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  in a job, we have to find workarounds to in order to keep
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  that job to survive. We adapt and survive, but we
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  need to thrive. And the only reason we're not
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  thriving sometimes is we don't believe in ourselves.
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  Take a reflection right now on the things that you've done in
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  your life that have moved you away from pain towards pleasure
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  because you pivoted on something that you didn't even think you
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  could do, but you did it. And I love that.
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  Like an example for me was that I never thought I'd be able to
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  write a book, right? Because I'm dyslexic and I have
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  ADHD and I have autism. But you know what I did?
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  I ran on a treadmill. I spoke to my phone, the text
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  dictation software. So I dictated and it text, put
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  the text out and it was perfect. I wrote the book in two weeks.
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  I ran on the treadmills, keep my ADHD occupied.
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  I spoke because I'm dyslexic and it was just great.
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  So we have so much potential. You have potential and I see
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  that in you. So go out there, kick some butt,
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  and let's do this. Let's go share this video.
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  We think it's empowering for somebody, but I'll see you next
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  time, guys. Peace.
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  Hey guys, thank you so much for checking out this podcast.
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  Make sure you are subscribed because there are people
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  listening right now who are not subscribed to this podcast.
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  I can see you. Make sure you subscribe.
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  OK guys, see you in the next one.
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  Peace.