Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello,
Just a bit of back ground. I am female and I have two young children my youngest is autistic my eldest son is autistic with a profile of pathological demand avoidance, dyslexic, possible adhd, we have recently sent back conners assessment forms to Camhs.
I very much believe I am autistic but I am scared of reporting my beliefs to the doctor. I’m scared that they may think I’m some sort of hypochondriac and not believe me. I have always been told I depression and anxiety and PTSD. I see a CPN for this but I just don’t feel that we click or she fully understands my fears worries etc. I am on medications also. I sometimes wonder if I do have depression & anxiety as I’ve always felt the way I feel about myself which is doubting everything, needing a lot of reassurance, and avoiding as much situations as I could. Having to write lists down about everything just to remember things or process what I need to buy/do/say. I am severely anxious is social situations which has got worse and worse the older I get I feel totally out of place In society and do things Like walk the long way home to avoid meeting any of my neighbours, looking out of windows to be sure no one is there gardens before I take bins out as I would then be forced into conversations. I regularly wear earphones to drown out the noises of people’s voices and cars when I am out as I feel like it’s drowning me and when my children have melt downs I really struggle with the noise and the behaviours it completely overwhelms me and I wish I could just pause the situation. I have 1 friend who I speak with on the phone fortnightly and I’m pretty happy being on my own as I do have my children. When I was in primary school and secondary I felt forced into situations and basically survived in groups but when it came down to one to one with friends it was awkward as I couldn’t think up conversations and I felt my body and face was sitting awkwardly. I would stutter or just not make sense as I would rush to say what I was thinking but my voice was saying it way faster than I should. I would look away in conversations and feel really uncomfortable. There is also a lot of risk taking behaviours which seemed to have calmed in the past few years. These are just some of the things. I feel very much like I live an act and I am acting when I conversations with my children’s schoo,l nursery, PSA etc it’s sounds stupid but I’m struggle a bit with getting my point across. Hope this makes sense and thank you if you read my post.
Lau :)
Hi Lau,
Thank you for sharing this with the community. You may like to look at our information about autism spectrum disorders:https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/what-is-autism
If you were interested in finding out if you are on the autism spectrum, you would need to have a formal diagnostic assessment. You may find it useful to have a look at the following link for further information about diagnosis and the benefits of getting one:
https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/diagnosis
Furthermore, it is important the professional you see has experience of autism spectrum disorders. You can find details of diagnostic services on our Autism Services Directory in the Assessment and diagnosis section:http://www.autism.org.uk/directory.aspx
You may like to have a look at the following page which includes personal accounts, which may help:https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/stories
If you have further questions, you may like to contact our Autism Helpline team. They can provide you with information and advice about getting a diagnosis. You can call them on 0808 800 4104 (Monday to Friday 10am to 3pm).Please note that the Helpline is experiencing a high volume of calls and it may take a couple of attempts before you get through to speak to an advisor.
Best wishes,
ChloeMod.
Hi chloe,
But it seems that most of the National Autism Society website is under construction and incomplete with most links you are posting come up as "error" or "page not found".
Some of the information on the website doesn't seem to be remotely helpful whats so ever and very vague at best. the online Directory need a complete overhaul because most of the organisation listed in the directory for my area alone have changed what they do as service, Some of them no longer exist, Some of them do not support all age groups anymore.
It also need to be said that employment programme that the national autism society and bloomfield trust set up to breach the gaps of autism unemployment is not accessible to the majority of the united kingdom outside of the major cities such as London, Glasgow, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dublin and Bournemouth and Newport. It is the same with any job Postings on your website too. I am speaking for myself and multiple people on the spectrum who uses the community page and National Autism Society Website are getting extremely frustrated that the moderators keeps suggesting with website links that are non existent or links to the employment section of the website that seem to excluding area such as Norfolk & Suffolk.
I am sorry to be this way but it is frustrating when the information on the website is very vague and used by many organisations and medical professionals as a central hub for everything autism related which is leading to some organisations and professions to interpret what the information on the website in a negative manor or used to dismiss individuals support needs. I would really like a non copied and pasted reply from the moderators to discuss these issues.
Please Anyone else in the Autism community who feels the same, please comment by replying to this comment to support the issues i have brought up because it feels like i am going in circles.
Hi Blue, You are correct that some of the links posted are no longer active - our apologies for that, these have now been corrected. This was a mistake as a result of the website changing. Much of what you'd mentioned is not something that the moderation team can help with, please email us at CommunityManager@nas.org.uk and we can make sure that your concerns are passed to the correct team.Many thanks,Dani Mod