If I asked you to go get a piece of paper and something to write with and then write down all the things you think you missed or didn’t do because of your neurodivergence. How long would that list be? What kind of things would be on there? I assume some would be minor and insignificant and some completely souls destroying. Some don’t seem like really a big deal now int he present but really really did at the time. How do the things on that list make you feel ? Speaking for myself when I think of some of them now those missed opportunities can seem like a blessing that they didn’t happen and others will haunt me until the day I die.
But what does grief look like in this scenario? it probably doesn't look like grief in the traditional sense, no one dies just the potential you might have had perhaps. Maybe it looks like the career you think you could have had if you had understood why you struggled with deadlines, organisation or motivation. Maybe it’s the relationship that fell apart when neither of you understood why you were overwhelmed all the time. Maybe it’s the degree you dropped out of, the opportunities you never followed up on, the friendships you lost contact with, or the years you spent believing you were lazy, unreliable or simply not trying hard enough. For me personally it was the relationships i didn't pursue that could have led to me starting a family, the jobs i spent to long wasting my time in and not knowing that it really wasn't suitable for me, and most of all not rereleasing who i really was in terms of my neurodivergence. I used to think that my potential had died, but that simply wasn't true.
So how does mourning what could have been serve you? The simple answer is it doesn’t. But Mourning can serve a purpose. People sometimes genuinely need to grieve missed opportunities after a late diagnosis. The problem is when mourning turns into endlessly punishing yourself. Yes you might chalk some of it up to lesson learned and move on (and realising you are neurodivergent in the first place really helps btw)
When you look back at these events what’s the picture you have of yourself when these things occurred? Do you hate this person ? At one point I did have some bitterness to past me. How could he have missed that opportunity, how did he let that person slip away ! I would scream at the past me in my head late at night when all you want to do is switch off and sleep.
But this has changed in the past few years. Yes since getting my diagnosis (ADHD awakening) I now look back on that person with empathy. He was just working with what he had at the time and an understanding of how his brain worked wasn’t one of them. If I had just known how my brain worked back then, God knows what could have been. Maybe some of it was delayed development, or maybe some of it was simply spending years trying to live according to expectations that didn’t fit the way my brain worked. Either way, I didn’t have the information then that I have now. I was mature for my age in some ways but not in others it seemed.
But does having that diagnosis change the person i am now? honestly yes, i do look at things through that lens now, i perceive things differently. Some for the worst it has to be said and some for the better. I know what RSD is now and i can craft my interactions more carefully. i know not to overwhelm myself with forced interactions.I am far better at saying "no" to things and no longer feel the need to do things just to make others happy. I can understand how i'm feeling far more clearly where as before it was like "here is this pet Vulcan you have to look after, good luck"
Whatever way you look at it I want you to do something brave and let it go, give yourself a break and show your past self some empathy. You literally can’t change the past anyway
Let’s look at that list again. Im not asking you to pretend those things didn't matter. Some of them mattered enormously. I bet some of them shaped who you are today (I know mine did) Grieve them if you need to but don't use that list as evidence against yourself. You were doing the best you could with a brain you didn't understand yet.
You can’t go back and rescue that person but you can stop blaming them