mickelangelo

People that don't suffer don't need help, but those that need help can't get it if they don't get diagnosed. My diagnosis (slightly different) came at 38 years of age, and in the few years since, everything has changed. I've lost so much to my disability that it's hard to process at times.

What I do know, is that before the diagnosis, before all the different kinds of treatment and support, I didn't understand what I was missing. While I like the eccentric me, I am no longer forced to only be that. I have forged a relation to my daughter in a way I didn't think was possible. I don't only exist now, I live. Everything I am is coalescing, solidifying. I'm finally me, all of me. I live in a different world now, a world I can finally understand, because I know in which ways it looks different to me. Each year now feels like several did before, my life suddenly became much longer.

So while it's all nice that people discuss the finer points of whether diagnosis is a label or not, but if those arguments leads to somebody like me not getting diagnosed at all, the effect on their quality of life will be devastating.

I was 38,but for the most part I was little more than a teenager, my daughter needed a father. I can be that now.

But, obviously, no-one should get sent to the doctor because they don't fit into peoples preconceptions or society's most shallow norms. Most medications influencing the brain are crude and comes with very real risks, they should be handled with care.