Hello everyone! :)

My name's Joe but a lot of people online call me Ferrets.

I haven't been diagnosed yet but I'm currently waiting for a referral to see a psychiatrist for one. I have been struggling with severe depression for almost 10 years and thought it might be something other than just depression. When someone posted about what it's like to live with autism, it really resonated with me and I started looking into it more. I found that all of my behaviours I kept kicking myself for that weren't "normal" and couldn't "correct" were common behaviours of those with autism. I'm also looking into an ADHD diagnosis too potentially as I have found a lot of behaviours there that resonated too.

I'm a PhD student in my third of four years (it's been very difficult wrestling with myself throughout this degree) and enjoy learning new things, playing guitar, playing piano, playing video games, playing board games, drawing, and painting. Always happy to chat about any of these things if people want to message me!

I wanted to join a community to talk about and hear more about people's own experiences with autism. It's been really liberating to learn everything and I've felt like, for the first time, people understand me.

Thank you for your time and reading my hello! I look forward to hearing from people and my time here.