Audhdistically Me
Questions after a late diagnosis
What do I do after a late diagnosis?
The short answer
The diagnosis made sense of everything that had come before, but it didn’t tell me how to move forward. I wanted someone to write the book that said: this is hard, you’re not imagining it, you’re allowed to be furious about it, and here’s what might actually help. So eventually I realised I was going to have to write it myself.
There’s a specific moment that happens after you get diagnosed with autism and ADHD as an adult. You’re sitting there with your assessment report, maybe in your kitchen or your car or wherever you’ve gone to process this information, and you think: right, now what?
Because the diagnosis answers so many questions. Why socialising leaves you exhausted for days. Why you can’t just “push through” like everyone else seems to. Why you’ve spent your entire life feeling like you’re failing at being human in ways you can’t quite articulate. But it also creates a massive new question that nobody seems able to answer: what do I actually do with this information?
When I got my diagnosis at 37, I was already burnt out from sixteen years of teaching. I’d left my career because my body had quite literally given up trying to keep me going. The diagnosis made sense of everything that had come before, but it didn’t tell me how to move forward.
So I did what I always do when I don’t know something. I went looking for answers.
The books that weren’t there
I read everything I could find about late diagnosis. Clinical books that explained the diagnostic criteria in painful detail but didn’t tell me what to do on a Tuesday morning when I couldn’t face leaving the house. Inspirational memoirs about people who’d “overcome” their neurodivergence through sheer force of will and elaborate systems. Well-meaning guides that suggested I colour-code my life and everything would fall into place.
None of them told me the truth about what it’s actually like to be 37 and realising you’ve been performing a version of yourself that isn’t real for your entire adult life. None of them acknowledged that you can feel profound relief and devastating grief at exactly the same time. None of them said out loud what I was thinking: I’m angry. I’m so bloody angry at all the years I spent thinking I was broken.
I wanted someone to write the book that said: this is hard, you’re not imagining it, you’re allowed to be furious about it, and here’s what might actually help.
So eventually I realised I was going to have to write it myself.
What this book actually is
Autism, ADHD and Me isn’t a clinical manual. It’s not going to explain the diagnostic criteria or the neuroscience of executive dysfunction. There are already plenty of books that do that brilliantly. It’s also not an inspirational story about how I sorted my life out and now everything is perfect. Because that would be a lie, and I’m really tired of lies.
What it is, is the book I needed when I was sitting in my living room holding that diagnosis report and having absolutely no idea what came next. It’s honest about the mess and the confusion and the fact that some days you’ll feel like you’ve finally found yourself, and other days you’ll wonder if you’ve made the whole thing up.
It talks about the things nobody else seems to want to say out loud. Like how getting diagnosed can actually make some things harder before they get easier. How the people who love you might struggle with it more than you do. How you can be relieved and devastated in the same breath. How success doesn’t make the hard stuff disappear, it just means you’re dealing with it whilst also being visible.
And it’s practical. Not in a “buy a label maker and your life will be transformed” way, but in a “here’s what actually helps when you’re overwhelmed” way. The stuff I’ve learnt from working with late-diagnosed adults over the last few years, combined with everything I wish someone had told me at the start.
The chapter I nearly didn’t write
There’s a chapter in the book specifically for the people around us. Partners, parents, friends, colleagues. The people who are trying to understand what this diagnosis means and how to support us.
I nearly didn’t include it. I worried it was too much, that it made the book less focused, that nobody would actually read it.
But then I thought about my husband a few months after my diagnosis, saying “I just don’t understand why this is suddenly a problem when you’ve always been able to do it before.” He wasn’t being unkind. He was confused. Because from his perspective, nothing about me had changed. But from mine, everything had changed. I’d stopped pretending. I’d stopped pushing through. I’d stopped performing the version of myself that made everyone else comfortable. The diagnosis didn’t make me neurodivergent. I’d always been neurodivergent. What changed was that I finally had permission to stop hiding it.
Our partners and parents and friends need support too. They need someone to explain what’s actually happening and why we might be acting differently. They need to understand that this affects everyone, not just us.
So I wrote that chapter. And based on the early feedback, it’s the one people are sharing most with the people in their lives.
Why “no bullshit”?
I nearly didn’t call it that. I worried it was too confrontational, too much, not professional enough. But then I remembered drowning in well-meaning advice that didn’t actually help, reading books that told me to be grateful for my “superpowers” when I could barely get out of bed. And then I remembered how I was desperately seeking others who are like me, who look like me and talk like me. I needed someone to tell me the truth. Not the sanitised, palatable version, the real, messy, complicated truth. So that’s what I wrote.
Who it’s for
Autism, ADHD and Me: Your No Bullshit Guide to Life After Late Diagnosis
If you’re newly diagnosed (or strongly suspect) and don’t know where to start, this is for you.
If you’ve been diagnosed for a while but still feel lost, this is for you.
If you’re supporting someone who’s been diagnosed and trying to understand what they’re going through, this is for you.
If you’ve spent your whole life feeling like you’re failing at being human and you’re only just starting to realise it might not be your fault, this is definitely for you.
I can’t promise it’ll fix everything. But I can promise it’ll tell you the truth about what comes after diagnosis. The messy, complicated, sometimes devastating, occasionally hopeful truth.
And maybe that’s what we all need more of.
Questions this speaks to
- How do I move forward with confidence with this information?
- How do I help my husband to understand?