Hi everyone, I’ve posted here a couple of times before. I’m 24 male undiagnosed and very new to the community. I’m struggling at the moment and I’m feeling very overwhelmed. I recently left home and moved away and started a job which is good progress for me but equally as overwhelming. I really don’t cope with change very well and I’ve been very up and down and had a lot of shutdowns and meltdowns in the past month. I don’t have any friends or anyone to talk to apart from my mom and it’s very lonely. I like my own company and I want to be alone but at the same time I feel upset that I don’t have anyone to call a friend. It’s frustrating. I had a friend before but they’ve now drifted away, it was the longest friendship I’d ever managed to have but now that’s gone too and I struggle to maintain friendships.
I want to seek an official diagnosis, I support self diagnosis but it’s not the route that’s right for me. My issue is I’m struggling to find the courage to go through with it. Related to me really not coping with change, I also don’t cope with the unknown of not knowing what to expect in a certain scenario. Everytime I have to do something I have to know exactly what is going to happen and meticulously plan it out so that there is as little surprise as possible. Therefore the unknown of what happens during the assessment scares me and gives me anxiety. I believe that I have masked massively for years and years and I’m afraid that I won’t be believed and then I won’t know where that leaves me. Having a diagnosis would help me manage and understand myself. What can I expect in an NHS assessment? And what can I do to put myself at ease?
