About 13 years ago or so my Auntie first suggested that I was neurodiverse (although she didn't quite use that terminology). She worked in adult education and realised that I probably have ADHD or Autism. My Mum had mentioned ADHD before and one of my teachers in yr 6 had suggested that I had it and she should get me diagnosed. At the time we were living in the USA and my mum was worried that they would just go "yup" and stick me on Ritalin without any discussion of how being medicated would help me. I thought about it for a while, did a bit of research, but couldn't decide which one I felt best fitted me. I didn't realise back then that you can have both, and many people do. I mentioned Autism to some colleagues at the school where I was doing my classroom support placement and they just dismissed it. I figured that I obviously wasn't as bad as some of the kids we worked with and therefore it must be ADHD.
I had just started seeing a counsellor on the NHS, I knew there was something wrong, I just didn't know what. I spent the entire first session rambling, just hoping that they would pick up on something and figure me out. At the end of the session the main guy said that I was not serious enough to need his time and I could spend the next five sessions that I was entitled to, seeing his student. The next week when I just met with the student I had planned what I thought were important issues and decided that I would mention ADHD. I stated with telling her about what my Aunite had said and she just cut me off with "you don't have ADHD". I hadn't shown her my research, she hadn't asked me "why do you think that?" nothing just "you haven't got it". So that was that, I muddled through the next sessions, nothing changed apart from I just felt like I was silly and over reacting, surely everyone feels like this and just gets on with life.
Several years later my mum gave me a book she had found that was written by a woman with high functioning autism and my mum realised that we both fitted into the description in this book like a glove. So again I talked it over with a colleague who said that everyone is on a spectrum somewhere. I felt at least like I was gaining some insight to myself but obviously because I had just about managed to hold down a job finally and was in a steady relationship that I can't be bad enough to need a diagnosis.
About 6 and a half years ago I had finally been convinced to go back to the NHS for counselling again. This time I mentioned Autism. The counsellor told me that if you look hard enough at stuff like that you can diagnose yourself with all sorts of stuff but that doesn't mean you have it. Again, there I was being told I was over reacting and it was nothing. Just get over yourself and get on with life. This is the same counsellor that told me that the 32 year old who groomed me as a teenager just "liked women a bit younger that himself" and I shouldn't report him to the police but I should "leave the poor guy alone". Not one of the people that I ever mentioned it to really asked me why I felt that I had ADHD or ASD they just dismissed it.
Five years ago I started a new job, I work a lot with children and adults with ASD. Both our caretakers are on the Autistic Spectrum, my boss is self diagnosed ASD and it's something that I have spent the last few years finding out as much as I possibly could about. My boss has for a long time been quite convinced that I am on the Autistic Spectrum and over the years I came to the realisation that I must be.
The last two years have been the most amazing revelation for me. I accepted my self diagnosis and embraced it. I shared it with the rest of my team and suddenly they understood, why I had a meltdown over a training day, why I needed the cupboards ordered in a certain way. I can now sometimes see a meltdown starting and take myself away, my husband and my colleagues know what to look for and help to diffuse situations before they get too much. I can go out on a night with my friends and cope with the noise and the lights now I have ear plugs and tinted glasses. I never realised how much of my life could be different just with a bit of knowledge and time to learn how other people are. One colleague who used to wind me up is now a really close friend because we have learned to understand each other. Socialising doesn't come easily to me but I have learned how to decipher social situations much better than before. Still nowhere near perfect but better.
If it was only about coping with day to day life I think I would just accept that I know who I am and that's what matters. Only thing is that the last two years have been a revelation in a different way too. Last February I finally accepted that the man who my counsellor had dismissed my concerns about had been abusing me and that I did need to report him to the police. My Independent Sexual Violence Advisor has told me that it might be beneficial to my case if I had a diagnosis and could prove that I was even more vulnerable as a teenager than many of my peers.
This week I was helping a single mother to prepare for her ADHD assessment. She was doing an online test and wanted to take the result to show to the doctor. While I was helping her I realised that I could answer most of the same things as her and did the test for myself later. I scored 46 out of 60 and the scale said that above 34 should seek professional help.
This gave me a bit of a kick to get on and get to the doctors but I am still worried that they are just going to turn round and say there's nothing wrong with me.