Hi everyone

Hey! Thank you :) At the moment I'm reading books about meditation and spirituality. :) It helps me relax, if I manage to meditate...

Welcome to the community Sintija. What do you read?

Hi Paul and everyone else!

My name is Sintija, I'm 37 years old.

I'm very new here!

I'm an adult recently diagnosed with autism (level 2) and ADHD (combined type) after years of not having answers. I'm still adjusting to what these diagnoses mean for me, but it's already helped me understand myself better.

I am currently unemployed but I enjoy painting, reading, and meditating — they help me find calm. I’m also trying to connect with others as I find myself very isolated and now I understand why I've been feeling this way.

Looking forward to being part of the community :)

Aaaarrrggh! Reading what you guys have said is starting to stress me as we speak/I type.

I filled in a rather loose and generalised form, submitted it, waited patiently (this was in Jan '24). Went back at the beginning of this year only to find they have only just submitted my request! Pissed off does not cut it! I am in the throes of a divorce and can't help but think it could've all been avoided (although other factors did contribute).

So yeah, you've told me something I didn't realise and I feel like I might have been shunted back to square one!

Time to change surgeries. These guys I wouldn't trust to wipe my ***, if I'm honest.

Hi. Yes, the text is tiny on the phone too - not good for podgy fingers lol.

I too am not diagnosed, so I know your frustration with the NHS waiting time to get seen. It's not their fault. Their hands are tied to a degree, due to lack of funding.

I'm also in my 50s and my life has been a nightmare for the most part. Since, my son was diagnosed, I've been researching and slowly joining the dots. A picture is emerging and I've joined that miles-long queue to be seen.

Good luck with you're endeavours. I believe this is a great place to start 

I also saved all of the answers just in case   Also made it easier to write things up.

Hopefully you're sorted now, but I think mine was technically done as a self-referral rather than through my GP if that makes it any easier.

I believe it can still be done without the childhood part, it's just more difficult to determine because of masking.

(Hopefully none of that is violating the rule on medical advice)

The mini book club sounds fun, unfortunately I don’t know anyone that has the same interests as me in terms of reading. 

Yeh this sounds about right. I've had the same questionnaire sent to me 3 times by the GP. Also had a phone call with a GP who said he didn't have time to discuss 'a problem like that'. Urgh! I'm also not in touch with anyone who knew me as a child so that could be tricky if that comes up.

I've got the answers to the questionnaire saved on my phone now so I can just email them if I get sent it again. It does seem as if they want to push us into meltdown to prove that we're serious. Pretty incompetent and cruel. I hope the process is smooth for you from here on. It'd be nice just to be on the waiting list but that's proving too difficult for my GP practice to understand.

I'm awaiting autism assessment. Not sure the issues you're having with the GP, but I found the initial part of the process to be rather stressful. For example, my first submission was rejected because I apprently used an old version of the form (which had been provided by my GP). I think in the response, they included the correct form, and said a digital version was also available on the website. No link and searching for it didn't come up with anything. Ended up having to get in contact with them. My GP received the same response from the Autism service and decided to help by sending me the wrong form to fill out again. Then the letter said there were 3 forms. One for me, one for someone who knew me in childhood, and another for someone close to me. They only included 2 forms though, and didn't say which form was for who. Just had to figure it out from the questions. Then I think different parts of the form were using different fonts as you typed in answers which irritated me...

Almost feels like the first part of the assessment is just seeing how stressed you get from the process. All submit now though. Just waiting.

Hi WhiteD404. My partner and I have a mini book club so we read a couple of chapters from the same book together most nights, since we don't live together. It's fun.

We're currently almost finishing The Sirens by Emilia Hart, and before that we read Big Swiss by Jen Beagin.

Our preferred genres are a mix of cosy fantasy, dystopian future, witchy books and light real life comedy. Our next book is So Thrilled For You by Holly Bourne and it looks like a funny one.

My partner is more engaged with paganism than I am, but we both love spending time in nature and we find the nature based religion far more interesting and less controlling than any of the organised religion we grew up with.  It just feels a happier place to exist.

Hi Paul and thanks for the intro, what kind of things do you like to read? Paganism sounds interesting, is this around Druids etc?