Hi all,
Apologies in advance that this may be a little long winded.
I'm a 27 year old woman, mum of three and after realising my son was on the spectrum and going through the motions of appointments, form filling etc. I seemed to direct a lot of the signs back to myself.
I understand that asd presents differently in girls/woman so I feel like I'm lost with it all.
From a young age I've always felt a bit "different" from my peers. Throughout primary school I was the very quiet one that attached to one friend and cried if anyone so much as raised their voice in my direction.
I was always "stroppy" (as my mum would say) as soon as I got home and EVERYTHING made (and still does make) me super anxious.
I struggle/d with eating certain foods due to the feeling of them, the smell and sometimes even the sight.
I'm very good at hiding my anxieties when I prep for it. For example if I know of a social event coming up I'll take weeks to prepare myself for it. I'll ask who's going to be there over and over so I know the way I need to behave.
I've got one maybe 2 close friends and that's is it because I struggle with maintaining friendships and approaching someone to start a new friendship is a huge no no.
I become seriously overwhelmed in situations where there is too many people around me or too much noise and this usually results in minor panic attacks that I've learned to down play so no one notices. The last thing I need is something to draw attention to me.
I'm very good at pretending to be confident if I'm prepared for the situation but in reality I am very much a painfully shy and self conscious person that is literally always on edge.
My brain processes thoughts so quickly sometimes that I don't even know what I was thinking.
I have what I like to call a hearing lag - basically someone will say something to me, I'll reply what and then respond to whatever it was they said because it takes me a minute to actually hear what they said after they say it.
I'm very emotional, I struggle with my emotions so much its exhausting, I go from being the happiest person in all the world to literally the pits of depression if someone says something to me in a funny tone or makes a facial expression I can't judge.
There's so much more but right now I've got brain fog and can't remember them all.
I live in NI so if anyone.has any advice on what I can do to get the ball moving for an assessment I would be truly grateful. I'd also appreciate anyone else's views if you were in a similar situation.
Thanks for reading 
