Started meds at 34 and cried because tasks are just… doable now. Is this a normal reaction?
Nobody prepared me for the crying.
Two weeks on medication, diagnosed at 34 after a lifetime of "she'd do so well if she just applied herself." Yesterday I cleaned my kitchen, answered four emails, made a phone call I'd been avoiding — a normal Tuesday for most people — and then sat on the floor and sobbed. Not sadness exactly. Something more like grief? Twenty years of white-knuckling things that were apparently just… hard mode for no reason.
Is this wave a documented thing with late diagnosis? Does it pass, and is there anything that helps besides feeling it? (Québec, if that matters.)
2026-07-19 23:48428 views
2 Comments
cafe_froid_recharge
The 'hard mode for no reason' framing is exactly it. Two years post-diagnosis: the grief faded into something more like retroactive compassion for that kid. It passes, mostly. It's also allowed to just be sad for a while — twenty years is twenty years.
2026-07-21 12:03 323 views
laundry_chair_phd
Diagnosed 36, cried in a grocery store parking lot over a completed to-do list. The grief is documented, it's real, and in my experience it comes in waves for a few months — big at first, then ambushes you occasionally (old report cards are a landmine, heads up). What helped: writing angry letters to nobody, and one session with a therapist who got late-diagnosis specifically.
2026-07-21 03:32 323 views
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