{"id":23831,"date":"2022-08-10T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T10:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alliance-scotland.org.uk\/?post_type=humans_of_scotland&p=23831"},"modified":"2023-08-15T11:53:50","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T10:53:50","slug":"marions-story-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alliance-scotland.org.uk\/humansofscotland\/marions-story-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Marion’s story- part one: being diagnosed with autism at 39"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I got diagnosed myself a couple years after my son was diagnosed. So I didn’t find out that I was autistic until I was 39, shortly after my 39th birthday. I had a thunderbolt moment where I just hit me that I am autistic.<\/p>\n

I think people get really surprised about the wider autistic community and autistic culture. I remember the first time I went to a meet up of other autistic people, and there was just a connection that I’d never felt anywhere else. I mean, I obviously have a beautiful connection with my husband and he’s not autistic, but I’d never felt such a connection with new people that I’ve never met before, and I never felt so easy in a new person’s company.<\/p>\n

I remember leaving that meet up just feeling elated, because normally I would go to a social event and then feel quite drained. But I left that one bouncing- I was skipping all week from it. They’re just like me. I thought that I was this loner weirdo for a long time. There was this community that suddenly opened up to me and it was a really transformative experience.<\/p>\n

I know a lot of the autistic adults that we support really don’t know who they are because they’ve been masking who they are for such a long time. They’ve been masking their needs, they’ve been masking their sensory experiences, they’ve been masking their natural communication styles and all of a sudden these things start to spill out. And it’s the same as what I had.<\/p>\n

It’s taken a long time for me to get to a space where I’ve been really happy and fulfilled in that sense. And it’s meant having to do an awful lot of, you know, soul searching and working at who I am, finding out how best to support myself. Once I’ve been able to do these things God, what difference that makes! I think it’s about recognising that there doesn\u2019t have to be barriers to success, and I think that being autistic can be a reason why we succeed.”<\/p>\n

Find out more about autism via the Autism Understanding Scotland webpage (this link will take you away from our website).<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more Humans of Scotland stories. <\/a><\/p>\n

End of document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I got diagnosed myself a couple years after my son was diagnosed. So I didn’t find out that I was autistic until I was 39, shortly after my 39th birthday. I had a thunderbolt moment where I just hit me that I am autistic. I think people get really surprised about the wider autistic community … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":23832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"15916,24451,21117,18573,24163,23427","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"hos-category":[741],"humans_tags":[610,494],"area_of_work":[],"strategic_priority":[],"class_list":["post-23831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","hos-category-services-and-support","humans_tags-autism","humans_tags-support-group"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMarion's story- part one: being diagnosed with autism at 39 - Humans of Scotland<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.alliance-scotland.org.uk\/humansofscotland\/marions-story-part-one\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marion's story- part one: being diagnosed with autism at 39 - Humans of Scotland\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"“I got diagnosed myself a couple years after my son was diagnosed. 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