Where can I go now?

Hello to everyone and thank you for all the replies. I am very grateful and I have looked at all the suggestions which have taken time.  I now hope to reply at least a little bit to every comment individually, and after all the replies this could be a long comment! 

Bananas. I was never looking at collages with the best grades. They all come and present at school and each one has a ‘the best in the area’ for grades. Clearly they can not all have this so I quickly dismissed the grades as something I would use to chose. To me grades are not important anyway. 
 Is your son still at a mainstream collage, just with a bit of support?  I am at a sixth form collage-which is not attached to a school. To me I would just call this a collage. No-one really knows exactly what a sixth form collage is and why the collage’s name includes both ‘sixth form’ and ‘collage’ maybe they will change it because it does make it a very long name.  I am thinking about moving to a sixth form which is attached to a school which would therefore have a uniform and more structure to the day but there are not many around where I live.

Ohalrightthen. That sounds like a good suggestion. I never knew the NAS could provide quite individual support like that. I thought most of their work was based on awareness and some advice. Do you know how I would get this from them?
Unfortunately I no longer work with anyone who diagnosed me. That service finishes at age 16 although I did stay on a little after that I am defiantly too old now. I think both my parents are struggling with the diagnosis still-particularly my dad who currently will not talk to me.  I can understand this a bit, for 16 years they had just a ‘normal’ child and now suddenly that child is labelled and no longer normal and I think both of them are struggling to accept this and deal with it. Mum is more accepting because she can see how it fits me and it explains some of my strange ways. I am much more accepting of it because I feel I finally have a reason why I always felt different. I recently found something I wrote when I was 12 (way before Autism was even mentioned) and it said I wanted to be accepted as I am because I am quite happy do be different and do not like being encouraged to fit in. Even at that age I knew I was different as did others who were constantly trying to force me to have friends.

I am not sure what you mean by ‘the person at the local careers and learning guidance place for your local area’ I know very little about the head of collage, we have never seen them because they are always at the other campus which is in no way connected to my campus other than sharing a website, a name and some of the staff work at both. The head does not so I have no idea who it is.
I do have a Social Worker and the one I have now is apparently one who specialises in children with disabilities or additional needs which so I was told means she has more contacts with the sort of services that could help me. Although so far she has not been helpful at all, I have only seen her twice in the 3 months she has been my Social Worker and one of those times was when she appeared and I was suddenly told by my old Social Worker that I have to have someone else now. Yes a bit of warning and to have that explained more clearly would have been nice. What I do know is because this person is from a children’s team the transition to adults was supposed to start at 14, obviously that never happened to me so I now have to transition to adults and also settle into children’s within the next year. I imagine that she will just wait until my birthday and then say ‘you are 18, bye’ not having done anything in the previous year. All I can do is see what happens and hope.

hohner.  This is basically my conclusion too. I have spent probably the last 3 years saying I do not need this ‘wonderful’ team that go to these meetings and to have separate people for each bit of my life. I need one person that I can get to know, and get to trust and therefore becomes someone I can talk to about everything. But in the way things are now that won’t happen because people can only ever deal with specific things. I always struggle with explaining things, see I know this but even having explained it to people many times they have still not listened to what I say and made it happen. Sometimes I feel so helpless because  I wish I could do it myself.
I also agree with only doing what I enjoy. Ever since I left school I have been really unhappy, to me it is more important to be enjoying what I do than to come out at the end with any good grades. Whatever I get I will just see where that takes me. That is what I did with GCSE’s and they never ended up too bad.
I think as you put it the 15 years of camouflaging work too well. I sometimes think that people do not realise I struggle as much as I do because I am so good at hiding it and just having to ‘fit in’. I have never tried to fit in and have friends but I do fit in enough to appear normal and people never realise I am different. Now I try to be open about it if I meet new people in the hope they will realize I am different from the start.

Bananas again. My Social Worker mentioned this at the last meeting they had. As I said above they have a transition scheme that runs from age 14 till 19. I have a booklet about it that explains what should happen at each age and can clearly see  I have missed the key parts at the start. Also for year 12 there is not really anything that should happen in it other than to review how the transition from school went (badly!) so I can partly understand why not much is happening but would it not be sensible to try and catch up what I missed?
The Social Worker said that they have 1 person that works on transition from children’s to adult services. But, this person also knows us outside of her job and has therefore said that she will not work on it with us. So, they need to find someone else to do it instead and I am told they are doing it. They said the person they find would have to ask the person we know for advice anyway it being their job so to me it seems silly and just another excuse to delay everything. But I can not argue with what they have said so again I just have to wait and hope.

Mum of 3. That is a good question and I do not exactly know the answer as I mentioned above. To me I would describe a 6thform as something that is attached to a school, and contains year 12 and 13. And I would describe a collage as something for people over 16 but that is not attached to the school and it is more relaxed and can also include adults, night classes and more variety of courses. I am not sure what a Further Education Collage is but I am assume it is similar to a collage.
I understand what you are saying and I am really tempted to agree, as with everything in life it revolves around things such as funding, age, paperwork, referrals and meetings. None of these things achieve anything in my opinion but that is all this amazing system ever offers-a referral somewhere else, or a further assessment you never get results from. It is just so frustrating as well that age and funding play such a major part rather than on individual circumstances and the persons need for support.  
Sorry, mini rant at the system over.

I am the Amy that goes to sea cadets-that is an amazing memory you have! I have knowingly not been on these boards for a while and yet you still remember. I have a terrible memory for people though so I envy anyone who can remember people.
I do still go and I have a few courses coming up. I am hoping that people from my local autism centre I now go to can talk to both my unit and the units I will visit so they can be aware I have autism. Hoping then that causes will be a more enjoyable experience, especially as I have 2 5 day courses in the summer, one with my unit and 1 offshore on T.S. Royalist! (So exited about Royalist, I always wanted to go sailing, but completely terrified at the same time) Not sure this great plan will happen before a course in March but I am hopeful it will be before the big courses in the summer.
Did your son decide to become staff at 18? I am still unsure if I want to –although I am reluctant to.

Mike. Is their any way of searching from that first link? That is a lot of pages to look through and no way of knowing which ones are close to where I live. Or would it be better to contact the helpline and ask for the ones in my area?  And that second link is not working for me.

MeMyselfandI, I like that username. I get that a lot, I have never had any issues with confidence-sometimes I think I have too much of it. I have always known I am different and just accepted it. I am not afraid to be judged and be hurt by so called friends, If you are going to judge or upset me then best to get it over with so I can know not to have you as a friend. I think this can make me too confident because I am not afraid of what people think of me. I am me and I will not change for anyone even after a entire childhood of bullying – no, I will stand up and fight against bullying. And continue to do so everyday.

What do I ultimately want? Wow, that is a big question. But, what I immediately think of is to be happy. I do not care how much I earn-even if it is nothing, if I live alone or always need support or whatever else. As long as I am happy with what I have and what I am doing then that is most important to me.
From those two options I would rather try and find a different collage that is more specialists in ASD-although from my knowledge so far that is not many near me. Hoping from what Mike said above will provide more answers to this though. It was at first, from watching their video. But having visited I can see things that I may not like and not knowing much about the options of education support or anything available to Adults with autism I am always open to trying new things If they will help me. If not then I just stop having it anymore, and if it helps then brilliant.

Your next paragraph is exactly my problem. I either get people assume having ASD means I do not understand what I am saying or what I want or I get people not understanding what I am trying to ask for or explain. Either way communication does not work. I think I have always had problems of being seen better than I am.
 I also find I am better at communicating with strangers, and with people online. Not sure why it is easier with strangers, it just is. Thinking about writing a letter, I have tried that in the past and the consequences were somewhat disastrous because they did not understand what I was trying to say, without going into details as it was about something completely different.

Again, I really struggle talking to everyone at the collage I am at now, and always have done. I think this would be really hard for me to mention to anyone in collage and there is no one out of collage I have that helps me.

I think now the best option is to look for other collages or mainstream collages with ASD specialism and see if I can go to one of them in September. Or, my other option is to sort out home life and getting support there then return to education when I am ready. As I have already said I am interested in being happy, and if I am not happy somewhere I want to leave. Although learning new things is something I enjoy so I think it would be hard without going to collage.

Thank you again everyone.
Amy 

Hello to everyone and thank you for all the replies. I am very grateful and I have looked at all the suggestions which have taken time.  I now hope to reply at least a little bit to every comment individually, and after all the replies this could be a long comment! 

Bananas. I was never looking at collages with the best grades. They all come and present at school and each one has a ‘the best in the area’ for grades. Clearly they can not all have this so I quickly dismissed the grades as something I would use to chose. To me grades are not important anyway. 
 Is your son still at a mainstream collage, just with a bit of support?  I am at a sixth form collage-which is not attached to a school. To me I would just call this a collage. No-one really knows exactly what a sixth form collage is and why the collage’s name includes both ‘sixth form’ and ‘collage’ maybe they will change it because it does make it a very long name.  I am thinking about moving to a sixth form which is attached to a school which would therefore have a uniform and more structure to the day but there are not many around where I live.

Ohalrightthen. That sounds like a good suggestion. I never knew the NAS could provide quite individual support like that. I thought most of their work was based on awareness and some advice. Do you know how I would get this from them?
Unfortunately I no longer work with anyone who diagnosed me. That service finishes at age 16 although I did stay on a little after that I am defiantly too old now. I think both my parents are struggling with the diagnosis still-particularly my dad who currently will not talk to me.  I can understand this a bit, for 16 years they had just a ‘normal’ child and now suddenly that child is labelled and no longer normal and I think both of them are struggling to accept this and deal with it. Mum is more accepting because she can see how it fits me and it explains some of my strange ways. I am much more accepting of it because I feel I finally have a reason why I always felt different. I recently found something I wrote when I was 12 (way before Autism was even mentioned) and it said I wanted to be accepted as I am because I am quite happy do be different and do not like being encouraged to fit in. Even at that age I knew I was different as did others who were constantly trying to force me to have friends.

I am not sure what you mean by ‘the person at the local careers and learning guidance place for your local area’ I know very little about the head of collage, we have never seen them because they are always at the other campus which is in no way connected to my campus other than sharing a website, a name and some of the staff work at both. The head does not so I have no idea who it is.
I do have a Social Worker and the one I have now is apparently one who specialises in children with disabilities or additional needs which so I was told means she has more contacts with the sort of services that could help me. Although so far she has not been helpful at all, I have only seen her twice in the 3 months she has been my Social Worker and one of those times was when she appeared and I was suddenly told by my old Social Worker that I have to have someone else now. Yes a bit of warning and to have that explained more clearly would have been nice. What I do know is because this person is from a children’s team the transition to adults was supposed to start at 14, obviously that never happened to me so I now have to transition to adults and also settle into children’s within the next year. I imagine that she will just wait until my birthday and then say ‘you are 18, bye’ not having done anything in the previous year. All I can do is see what happens and hope.

hohner.  This is basically my conclusion too. I have spent probably the last 3 years saying I do not need this ‘wonderful’ team that go to these meetings and to have separate people for each bit of my life. I need one person that I can get to know, and get to trust and therefore becomes someone I can talk to about everything. But in the way things are now that won’t happen because people can only ever deal with specific things. I always struggle with explaining things, see I know this but even having explained it to people many times they have still not listened to what I say and made it happen. Sometimes I feel so helpless because  I wish I could do it myself.
I also agree with only doing what I enjoy. Ever since I left school I have been really unhappy, to me it is more important to be enjoying what I do than to come out at the end with any good grades. Whatever I get I will just see where that takes me. That is what I did with GCSE’s and they never ended up too bad.
I think as you put it the 15 years of camouflaging work too well. I sometimes think that people do not realise I struggle as much as I do because I am so good at hiding it and just having to ‘fit in’. I have never tried to fit in and have friends but I do fit in enough to appear normal and people never realise I am different. Now I try to be open about it if I meet new people in the hope they will realize I am different from the start.

Bananas again. My Social Worker mentioned this at the last meeting they had. As I said above they have a transition scheme that runs from age 14 till 19. I have a booklet about it that explains what should happen at each age and can clearly see  I have missed the key parts at the start. Also for year 12 there is not really anything that should happen in it other than to review how the transition from school went (badly!) so I can partly understand why not much is happening but would it not be sensible to try and catch up what I missed?
The Social Worker said that they have 1 person that works on transition from children’s to adult services. But, this person also knows us outside of her job and has therefore said that she will not work on it with us. So, they need to find someone else to do it instead and I am told they are doing it. They said the person they find would have to ask the person we know for advice anyway it being their job so to me it seems silly and just another excuse to delay everything. But I can not argue with what they have said so again I just have to wait and hope.

Mum of 3. That is a good question and I do not exactly know the answer as I mentioned above. To me I would describe a 6thform as something that is attached to a school, and contains year 12 and 13. And I would describe a collage as something for people over 16 but that is not attached to the school and it is more relaxed and can also include adults, night classes and more variety of courses. I am not sure what a Further Education Collage is but I am assume it is similar to a collage.
I understand what you are saying and I am really tempted to agree, as with everything in life it revolves around things such as funding, age, paperwork, referrals and meetings. None of these things achieve anything in my opinion but that is all this amazing system ever offers-a referral somewhere else, or a further assessment you never get results from. It is just so frustrating as well that age and funding play such a major part rather than on individual circumstances and the persons need for support.  
Sorry, mini rant at the system over.

I am the Amy that goes to sea cadets-that is an amazing memory you have! I have knowingly not been on these boards for a while and yet you still remember. I have a terrible memory for people though so I envy anyone who can remember people.
I do still go and I have a few courses coming up. I am hoping that people from my local autism centre I now go to can talk to both my unit and the units I will visit so they can be aware I have autism. Hoping then that causes will be a more enjoyable experience, especially as I have 2 5 day courses in the summer, one with my unit and 1 offshore on T.S. Royalist! (So exited about Royalist, I always wanted to go sailing, but completely terrified at the same time) Not sure this great plan will happen before a course in March but I am hopeful it will be before the big courses in the summer.
Did your son decide to become staff at 18? I am still unsure if I want to –although I am reluctant to.

Mike. Is their any way of searching from that first link? That is a lot of pages to look through and no way of knowing which ones are close to where I live. Or would it be better to contact the helpline and ask for the ones in my area?  And that second link is not working for me.

MeMyselfandI, I like that username. I get that a lot, I have never had any issues with confidence-sometimes I think I have too much of it. I have always known I am different and just accepted it. I am not afraid to be judged and be hurt by so called friends, If you are going to judge or upset me then best to get it over with so I can know not to have you as a friend. I think this can make me too confident because I am not afraid of what people think of me. I am me and I will not change for anyone even after a entire childhood of bullying – no, I will stand up and fight against bullying. And continue to do so everyday.

What do I ultimately want? Wow, that is a big question. But, what I immediately think of is to be happy. I do not care how much I earn-even if it is nothing, if I live alone or always need support or whatever else. As long as I am happy with what I have and what I am doing then that is most important to me.
From those two options I would rather try and find a different collage that is more specialists in ASD-although from my knowledge so far that is not many near me. Hoping from what Mike said above will provide more answers to this though. It was at first, from watching their video. But having visited I can see things that I may not like and not knowing much about the options of education support or anything available to Adults with autism I am always open to trying new things If they will help me. If not then I just stop having it anymore, and if it helps then brilliant.

Your next paragraph is exactly my problem. I either get people assume having ASD means I do not understand what I am saying or what I want or I get people not understanding what I am trying to ask for or explain. Either way communication does not work. I think I have always had problems of being seen better than I am.
 I also find I am better at communicating with strangers, and with people online. Not sure why it is easier with strangers, it just is. Thinking about writing a letter, I have tried that in the past and the consequences were somewhat disastrous because they did not understand what I was trying to say, without going into details as it was about something completely different.

Again, I really struggle talking to everyone at the collage I am at now, and always have done. I think this would be really hard for me to mention to anyone in collage and there is no one out of collage I have that helps me.

I think now the best option is to look for other collages or mainstream collages with ASD specialism and see if I can go to one of them in September. Or, my other option is to sort out home life and getting support there then return to education when I am ready. As I have already said I am interested in being happy, and if I am not happy somewhere I want to leave. Although learning new things is something I enjoy so I think it would be hard without going to collage.

Thank you again everyone.
Amy