Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello, I have just received an autism diagnosis. It explains a lot and it makes a lot of sense but I’m really struggling to come to terms with it and what it means for my life. I’m not sure how my autism can be a strength in my professional life for example as people keep saying it can be.
Does anyone have any advice on how to navigate adult life and university with autism.
One problem I have is that I experience quite black and white thinking and I’m therefore impulsive. I also feel that I say things without thinking that can accidentally come across differently to what I want to say.
If anyone also has any advice on how to be a good partner while also having autism I would really appreciate it.
Thank you all so much in advance for your help and I hope you all have a great weekend. Sending kind regards and positivity to anyone reading this.
Hello and wellcome to the community. I gained my degree before being diagnosed but the uni were very helpful and supported me with my other disability's. I am a life long bachelor so cannot advise on being a partner. When it comes to navigating life then please do not bee hard on yourself as modern life is so complicated anyway. Tamsin Parker's film "Force Of Habit" captures this so well. I am proud to be autistic and would not change how it allows me to see the world and to problem solve. I hope you have had a good weekend.
Too many, of us, were pushed; from pillar to post. That forged deep resentment, and the feeling that life is a war.
The way forward is to regulate yourself, rather than let others regulate you. The health crisis is a sign to become proactive, rather than reactive.
We need to start lobbying all of our MP’s of every party and every member of the House of Lords to get the law changed, start getting petitions put out online
Similar situation, I was diagnosed last month and I'm mid thirties and like...Now what....
I see feel like that a month on. I'm personally going to get some books to try to understand more. Because I still feel like the things I do are just something I do and I am starting to find out they're autistic traits, hence the diagnosis.
I've been told by the doctor who diagnosed that there may not be any services near me that can offer help, but she did advise joining communities like this, specialist websites and books etc.
I’m not in any position to advise, as I have not even had a post-diagnostic assessment since my diagnosis in 2021, without which I cannot advance, because I don’t even know what my support needs are - what I do have are ignorant people, who Karen/Kevin like, constantly giving their tuppence worth, saying that I need a live in carer, that I need ultra strict discipline as being the only way to manage my condition and such people are utterly determined to enforce their ignorant opinions in any way possible, legal or otherwise “because they “care” and are only trying to help” and “that I am the only one that is wrong in this situation” and I “need to accept that I do not understand that I am the only one that is wrong”
IrishInManchesterUK said:where does this leave adults living with autism?
Written off, it seems.
I’ve done all of that, I’m just not finding it super useful to be totally honest. The uni is fantastic though and have been really helpful
Hi!
Have you been in contact with your universities disability service to see what support they can offer? I was able to get some software/products/services from the Student Finance England disability allowance, which you may also want to look into.
Thank you so much for your kind reply and the time you’ve spent writing it. You’ve got no idea how much I appreciate it. I was just wondering if you have any strategies or advice on how to navigate the world as an autistic person. Thank you so much for your time.
As an older Irish gay man from an Irish Catholic background living 21 years in the U.K., with extended family in Rural Ireland, diagnosed later in life, after 30 years in supermarket retailing, I totally empathise - I was diagnosed online in 2021, having started the process in early 2019, even before a chance comment was made by a family member back home in Ireland, whose children were displaying traits of the condition after they had returned to Ireland from living in Australia as a student - what I found after diagnosis was a shockingly unacceptable and utterly disgraceful lack of adult support and even the most basic, post diagnostic assessment (which I believe and maintain must be a basic legal requirement) - while I get that the focus should be on children, whether public or private, where does this leave adults living with autism? Having been aware of the struggle for LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS awareness as a teenager in the 1980’s, I’ve signed up to some autism awareness campaigning groups, as the level of ignorance around autism, even within the LGBT community has been a real shocker
Thank you so much. If you have any advice it would be very much appreciated
Welcome