So lonely even DD and DH don't understand me.

Did she travel hundreds of miles to see you on the same day that you shut down the cafe she was heading to to get a bite to eat and drink?

I can relate. If I'm dysregulated I simply can no longer cope the way I used to; I spent years and years working really hard to keep on top of It but now I'm hanging on by a thread. It happens to women with ADHD in midlife because of the loss of hormones that smooth the edges just a bit.

I'm sorry, it sucks. I don't think they'll understand - they aren't inside your head. And it's quite likely your daughter has ADHD as well tbf.

First and foremost, you are a person in your own right.

My brain totally remapped after I was diagnosed, I slept way more and instead of trying to think in straight lines, I now think in 3D. So much better. As my DH said at the time, a dx changes everything and nothing. He's so much better at knowing how to manage me now (for want of a better phrase) and being trapped in a small cafe would put me right on edge.

The OP has a right to be comfortable but maybe could have handled it better by organising the cafe stop earlier and knowing where might have been suitable. But you do need to externalise your needs and also sometimes work with yourself to compromise, it's a constant exhausting effort that NT people just won't understand. I get quite upset when I fail to manage my adhd and people comment...give yourself time to adjust. I think once I knew my ability to mask stopped and whilst it's better, it's not always helpful.

But if you read all the posts, you'll see that the o p never goes to the theatre or the cinema or goes anywhere, she doesn't like or even goes to visit her own daughter.

Daughter has to do all the running.Despite living several hours ago and growing up with a mum who won't even go to the cinema as it freaks her out.Maybe her daughters had enough.

Her daughters come all that way to see her parents, and she couldn't even choose a cafe. It might trigger mum.

To be fair, the DD is also an adult, and too old to be giving in to “hanger”.

Your adult DD stomped off like a teenager because she didn’t get to sit in the first cafe? FFS

So now it’s nothing to do with your diagnosis

and basically an unhappy family made up of 3 stubborn / angry / unhappy adults

What? The entire crux of your OP was about your diagnosis. From start to finish.

So you are flippant about your DD being hungry yet expect everyone to pander to your needs. You sound like hard work.

Well, that's one heck of a drip feed.

You opened your post with i'm lonely and misunderstood, and they wouldn't go to a cafe.I wanted because i'm autistic, and then you come out with that.

No that isn’t it. The OP really seems to have in hand thinking of her own experiences, that appears to be something she has consistently been doing before and after diagnosis. Where she appears to be showing serious deficits is considering others in her life. That is why she is getting a hard time.

I have a lot of ASD in my family, DH, two kids with it, they all have challenges, they are all capable of integrating others needs along with their own. The OP has a body of work to do on herself in this regard.

As an autistic person I learnt

1. don't invite people to my hobbies and interests unless they have same level of interest i.e. don't go shopping with them.
2. sometimes I'm wrong
3. some people will struggle to accept you're autistic (my mum, who doesn't like labels)

Edit: agoraphobia isn't autism

Don't let autism define who you are. First and foremost you are a wife and mother - sometimes we have to put others first. If you focus on your diagnosis rather than living your life in as positive manner as you can, you are asking for problems with your relationships. Your daughter will distance herself further. I would be texting her today, if I were you, and apologise.

My NT mum lives 5 minutes away and I would always let her pick where she wants to eat.

OP’s dd lives hundreds of miles away, it wouldn’t have hurt the dd to go with her mum’s choice.

Some of these posts are just intolerant of older women with ADHD.

She hasn't been shutting up and masking though. She has been avoiding visiting her daughter, eating out, going to the theatre or cimema, or going anywhere for years, as I understand.

It’s very tedious when people define everything about their daily life based on a diagnosis mental or physical. I have endometriosis a very physically painful chronic condition that has changed my entire life. I don’t tell people about it on a daily basis I don’t make people change plans because of it, I manage it myself and yes it feels lonely when people don’t understand but that’s life and I’m my own person with my own issues and needs

i also hate cramped spaces!

I feel very sorry for you OP, I think you've been managing around things for a long long time, and feeling terrible all the time. Depression. Anxiety. Now finally here is the diagnosis and you can start to unwrap it, you're not a horrible or inflexible person but someone who has always struggled.

However there's a long part of the journey still to go, you and your family coming to terms with your real self and working out how you make accommodations for the world and how it makes accommodations for you. It isnt easy - these sort of painful occasions where everyone doesn't get it quite right, are quite usual.

Your daughter may also be ND by the way, or may not, in any case she's on her own journey to find out about it.

I think you should seek support from therapy or other reputable support groups to help you work out your own new boundaries and how to engage with other people about it all. That's not the same as "always getting your needs met at others' expense" but it also doesn't mean "just shutting up and masking" like you have also always done.

I don't think there is anything wrong with sending your DH resources to read. It's good, why wouldn't he read them and understand this important thing for you? It just takes time for your family to absorb the implications. They don't sound specially caring or thoughtful but (like many posters on this thread) they haven't really thought about it before, and impatience and disbelief is a common first stage. It is a learning journey for them too. I would lower your expectations for yourself and family for a while. Just do less, or do things more slowly, or whatever you need.

One of us was diagnosed just before a holiday, it was the weirdest holiday ever, as we were much more shocked and surprised than we all realised. As it sunk in, all the normal things we used to do had to be revisited and thought about in a different light. It's not that "suddenly a diagnosis stops you doing something you once did". But when you are aware of what your feelings and responses really mean, often you can't just carry on as before.

You can't snap back to how you were, the knowledge does change you. Like ...when people on here realise they are in an abusive relationship, things they were doing and putting up with from their partner are plainly revealed as intolerable and they can't go back. Or realising that parents are toxic, or something like that. Not perfect analogies but I'm trying to express the idea that you can be mildly and subconsciously aware something is painful, and do it for years - but when you learn and fully understand that it harms you, and why, you simply can't block out the pain and distress after that realisation.

However you also can't snap straight into a "new normal", for the family, it takes a bit of trial and error. Good luck x

Having a diagnosis doesn’t just mean acceptance and having everyone adapt around it it means focusing and seeing what can be done to broaden your life.

Maybe she’s fed up with the world revolving around her DM, to the extent that her DM doesn’t make the effort to visit her… DD would have liked the cafe while she was visiting, but has to cater to OP’s wishes - she’s probably had enough of her needs never being factored in.

I don’t understand why your diagnosis is relevant - surely they’ve lived with you and known you for years and so they’re used to your likes and dislikes.

She shouldn’t have stormed off but mum mum will be really picky about going to a place that we’ve all decided and it’s got to be a place of her choosing - which is pure selfishness and needing to be in control and it has led to frustration over the years.
She was only happy if we went somewhere she chose.

It does sort of read like you expect everyone to do what you want but it’s hard to judge without us being there.

Op…. I think you need to see the diagnosis is a step forward in your own development.

Not a card you can thrown down whenever you want your way.

your daughter and husband fancied a particular experience. Fine, it wasn’t what you felt comfortable with. However occasionally, just suck it up. We all have to occasionally for loved ones.

Having said that…. No one comes across as particularly nice or accommodating in this scenario

Sounds like DD has a problem managing her temper.

Someone got out of bed the wrong side. Maybe it's time.to remember if you haven't got anythjng nice to say, keep.yer gob shut.

But you got on your soap box about autism. Just say you don't like the cafe.

Over such a small decision, you've come online to say, you're lonely and misunderstood by your family.

Yoyr family also Don't understand your autism just because you didn't want to go to hot cramped cafe.

I'll be cautious about where this is headed.

For your own sake, it seems to be you re using it as an excuse for everything and isolating yourself, whereas it's just natural differences and people's preferences, we all like different things. It would be a boring world if we didn't.

Shockingly, i've got enough problems of my own to the extent where I don't wander around constantly thinking, what can my partner not cope with. They were allowed to have a lapse. I am allowed to consider what I'd like also.