Existential Grief and the Late-Diagnosed Autistic Experience
On time, authenticity, and finding your way back to yourself
There is a particular kind of grief that I see often in my work with late-diagnosed autistic and neurodivergent clients.
It is not always loud or immediately recognisable. Sometimes it arrives quietly, through a sense of unease. A question. A heaviness that is hard to name.
It might sound like:
“I don’t feel like I’ve lived my life as myself.”
“Where did the time go?”
“Who might I have been, if I’d known sooner?”
An existential lens
I have long been drawn to the work of Irvin Yalom, particularly his exploration of death anxiety, meaning, and how we come to live a life that feels like our own.
In his book Staring at the Sun, Yalom writes: “Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.”
He speaks to something many of us recognise, that when we come into contact with our own mortality, we are often invited, sometimes abruptly, to reflect on how we are living.
Are we living in a way that feels true?
Are we living in accordance with what matters to us?
Or have we, in ways both conscious and unconscious, drifted away from ourselves?
A specific kind of grief
For late-diagnosed autistic people, these questions can carry a particular weight. Because alongside this existential awareness, there is often a dawning realisation:
That much of life may have been lived in adaptation.
In masking. In fawning. And in trying to meet expectations that were never designed with us in mind.
These ways of being are not failures. They are often deeply intelligent strategies for survival and belonging. And yet, they can come at a cost.
They come at a cost to identity. To agency. To the quiet, internal sense of “this is me.”
When diagnosis or self-identification arrives, it can bring relief, clarity, and self-compassion, but it can also open the door to grief.
Grief for the needs that went unmet.
For the self that was hidden or reshaped.
For the time spent living in ways that were not aligned with one’s values.
Naming the grief
In my work, I’ve started to think of this as authenticity grief, the grief of the unlived self, a way of naming the quiet but profound loss that can emerge when we realise we haven’t been able to live in alignment with who we truly are. It is the grief that arises when we recognise the gap between the life we have lived and the life that feels most true to us.
It is existential in nature, because it touches on time, choice, identity, and meaning. And it can feel especially sharp when there is a sense that time has already passed.
Values, and the life we are living
In therapy, I often invite clients to gently explore their values.
Not as a checklist. Not as something to achieve perfectly. But as a way of asking:
What matters to me, at my core?
What feels meaningful, nourishing, or alive?
Where do I feel most like myself?
And then, with care and compassion: Does my life, as it is right now, reflect those values?
For many autistic clients, this question can bring both clarity and pain. Because the answer is not always straightforward.
When the world constrains us
We do not live in a vacuum. Many of us are navigating systems that are not built for neurodivergent bodies and minds.
The education system.
Workplaces.
Economic pressures.
Social expectations.
Sometimes, we are required to stay in environments that feel misaligned or even oppressive. Sometimes, survival takes precedence over authenticity. And this matters, because existential ideas about “choice” can feel very different when there are real structural and safety constraints.
There may be times in life where our agency feels limited. Where our options feel narrowed. And this, too, deserves to be acknowledged and grieved.
You are not alone in this
There is something else I often return to in Yalom’s work.
He speaks about the paradox of existence, that we are, in many ways, alone in facing the realities of life and death, and yet we are also deeply connected in that very experience.
He offers the image of people in separate boats on dark water, each facing their own journey, but able to see the lights of others nearby.
We may be in separate boats, but we are not alone on the water.
If you recognise yourself in this kind of grief, I want to gently offer this:
You are not the only one feeling it.
I feel it.
Many of my clients feel it.
Many people, especially those who have had to adapt themselves for long periods of time, feel it.
There is something profoundly human in this experience.
Finding your way back to your values
I wish I could offer a simple answer to the question:
How do we live in alignment with our values in a world that does not always allow it?
But the truth is, this is something we each navigate in our own way, at different points in our lives.
What I can offer are small, gentle invitations. Not as solutions, but as possibilities.
You might begin by leaning into your special interests, allowing yourself to follow what feels engaging, absorbing, or joyful, without needing to justify it. There may also be ways to create small pockets of alignment in your life, even if things feel constrained overall, moments or spaces where you can live a little more in line with what truly matters to you.
Connection can be part of this too, finding people who see and understand you, where you can exist with less masking and more ease. And where it feels safe, there may be opportunities for advocacy or expression, using your voice in ways that feel possible, to share your experience or contribute to change.
Alongside this, there is something in gently reclaiming your own pace, and giving yourself permission to step away from timelines that were never really yours to begin with.
A gentle closing
Existential grief is not something to fix, it is something to be with.
It speaks to the depth of your awareness.
To your capacity to reflect, to feel, to question.
And perhaps, in time, it can also become a quiet guide.
Not toward a perfect life.
But toward a life that feels, in moments, more like your own.
