Newly self-diagnosed, so my new special interest is ASD

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Evening,

So, I'm forty and living in the UK. Never have functioned well socially. My mother (with the benefit of hindsight) was definitely on-spectrum. My feckless alcoholic of a father lives a long way from me and I could see similarities between us. I never wanted anything to do with him because I couldn't square the circle of knowing I had more in common with him than anyone else, when I hated who he was as a person. More recently he's had serious heart problems, so he's had to stop messing around and drinking. We've had a bit of reconciliation since my mum died a couple of years ago. Mum had a degenerative illness, so there was no time or energy for introspection. Dad astonished me by having the first BS free conversation I think we've ever had. He said that autism didn't really exist in his day (he's in his 70s) but that based on what he had seen of my facebook posts, he thought I might be affected. He said he'd never had any real friends. This hit me because I remember him as being the guy constantly propping up a bar and being sociable. He didn't fit my idea of what ASD looked like at all. Then he told me booze was the only way he could socialise, which swiftly became addictive.

I think this is going to become a bit of an autobiography but writing helps me to organise my thoughts. Thank you in advance for tagging along.

My mum was an intelligent, educated woman but possessed zero 'common sense.' As a child I had no clue whatsoever why she chose to stay with an alcoholic womaniser who got violent when he had a 'meltdown.' Now I finally know that they had ASD in common and so she found it really hard to connect with anyone else. She never had another long term relationship.

So all my memories of my parents are now being reframed, which is like losing her all over again. It breaks my heart to know that my mum never got the chance to understand why she was so deeply unhappy and devoid of motivation. Why she struggled socially and felt ostracised. Why she had meltdowns that made her convinced she was a sh***y mother, when the reality was she was doing her best.

I'm reading Aspergirls by Rudy Simone, which is proving very useful. I'm a support worker in social care so I've loads of experience with the low functioning end of the spectrum. I can't believe it took me so long to realise. Forty years of my life believing I was the pointless f**k-up of a pair of pointless fuck-ups. I've probably got ten years before I get the same illness my mother had, for which I've been genetically screened.

I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I don't even want to open my eyes in the morning, let alone do anything. I swing between that feeling and the self-loathing caused my squandering the time I do have.

This is complicated by the fact my fiancé doesn't think I'm on spectrum. He thinks I'm seeing things that aren't there because of the people I work with. He is very leery of self-diagnosis. He doesn't understand executive dysfunction, he thinks I'm lazy and make excuses, so I want an excuse for being lazy. He's very organised and constantly on-the-go.

So I'm really struggling at the moment. The house has gone to rat-shit, I'm barely achieving basic self-maintenance and I'm barely functioning at work. Something has to give, while I still have a job. I just don't know what.

Thanks for reading.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to WP.

Hopefully you can get on whatever waiting list there is for an official diagnosis as soon as possible? The way you describe your situation, it sounds like you may need it.

I am in the UK and was diagnosed almost 3 years ago, at 37. It's never too late to try and understand yourself more!

Hiya,

I'm 43 and got screened in January, now awaiting my full assessment... so I know I'm a fruitcake, I'm just waiting to see what mix of nuts and fruit I contain.

I too have worries about self-diagnosis, as cognitive biases make it potentially unreliable. I'd advise to go to your GP and ask to be referred for assessment. Trying to get an assessment through the NHS is quite difficult, due to funding shortages and some GPs hold irrational beliefs about mental health issues.

To get over this hurdle you need to prepare for your appointment. I advise reading about the "Triad of Impairments" and write down some examples from your own experiences which indicate such an impairment. This isn't self-diagnosis, it's helping the GP by giving them the information they need to justify a referral. Even then, a long wait is probable (16 months for me, so far) but you may be offered a screening assessment earlier.

You need the support of those around you, such as your partner. I found the Triad of Impairments exercise very traumatic as it forced me to revisit a lot of "failures" I'd buried in the past and it took me 6 months to finish as I kept having to walk away. It took me a long time to get my mum on-side, it helped her to see my responses to the Triad of Impairments and I took her to my screening assessment as my assessor needed information about my childhood. She found that very upsetting but also quite cathartic when she realised my ASD is not "madness" and that she didn't cause it through nurture.

I'm no expert but one of the things that helps me is knowing that I'm not alone, that other people face the same issues and it isn't "all in my head".

Andy