Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone,
I am 41 year old Spaniard who has been living in the UK for almost 10 years now.
My wife convinced me to seek professional help last year. She was pregnant and I was having a very hard time coping with anxiety, stress and suicidal thoughts. Things got worse when our little one was born. After initially being diagnosed with general anxiety disorder I was finally suggested to go through autism assessment and as a result of that I was diagnosed at the beginning of this year.
Once I got my diagnosis everything seemed to make sense to me and my wife - being so strict about schedules and time boxes, strong routines, explicit communication, lack of friends, no interested in social interaction, etc.
And here I am wondering what to do next. It has been a wild ride. My wife has been wonderful all this time and she is making all that is possible to make sure that I don't get panic/anxiety attacks again. But these still occur from time to time, and suicidal thoughts have come back sometimes, especially after periods of great stress/frustration with the little one.
I am at the moment contacting different organisations to get some therapy/counselling. But given the current pandemic things are moving slow, and in the meantime I keep having attacks from time to time and I feel more and more like a burden for my wife. I don't know how should I tackle this in the short term. As a result of a 111 call my wife did during one of my latest episodes I was contacted by my GP, who suggested medication. I am considering taking that path.
To be honest, I don't know what to expect from this forum. I guess that I just need to find somebody out there who has lived through a similar situation and share experiences. But I thought that introducing myself would be the very first step. So here I am.
Welcome! I hope you find this forum a great place to discuss your thoughts around autism and hear other people's stories and ideas, I've found it so helpful. I was diagnosed at 30 (I'm 32 now), and one enormous thing that has helped me recently, that I can't praise enough, is recent advancements in hearing technology. My ears themselves are fine but there is something to do with the hearing / language parts of my brain where I can't follow speech very well and usually can't join in with conversations as they move quickly for me. There's some sort of sensory delay. About a month or so ago I tried some new hearing aid technology which is SINC (Speech In Noise Control), and the improvement was instant - my family said I was speaking better which was because I could hear myself clearly, and I could follow what they were saying and join in better. The tech dampens background noise and amplifies speech, which you can adjust for different environments, and it's been life-changing. Do let me know if you have any qs, wishing you all the best and welcome again!
wow Rach i think I need this SINC thingy -- my ears are fine, tested dozens of times but I have issues with certain people talking to fast, or at some rhymn. I cant "hear" want they are saying. Where do I start with my GP ?
This is exactly what I have! My ears are fine but it's something to do with the brain processing sound... The earbuds I tried out were from a company called Nuheara, and they were originally designed to be used by anyone for music etc. but have been found to be effective for people with hearing loss, autism and auditory processing disorder. They also do a 30 day money back policy so you can try them out. After trying these I checked online and found that some hearing aid technology is now starting to incorporate SINC along with other noise cancellation features etc... I think it's still a very new technology. There are some audiologists that specialise in autism / auditory processing screenings, which I think you could try to go through your GP about. I'm going to do the same soon, to see if I can get a referral or at least a recommendation. They have different types of sound tests that don't test your ears' hearing per se but your recognition of certain sounds in noise etc.
I'll have to investigate this. thanks Rach this is really helpful