Tag: #neurodiversity

An incredibly rapid autism diagnosis (a mere 7 months!)

Based upon everything we’ve discussed, I believe you clearly fit within the threshold of autism’.

I couldn’t help but smile.

I feel like getting my autism diagnosis is a cause for celebration. I can now actually describe myself as Autistic. I don’t need to caveat as ‘probably autistic’ or question whether I really am or not anymore. What I had basically assumed to be the case 7 months ago turns out to actually be true.

Some people will find my reaction quite surprising. After all, isn’t getting an assessment for a neurological and development disorder actually meant to feel bad?

Connecting with our intuition on feeling safe

I never thought of myself as a particularly anxious person. Mainly because the idea of anxiety was something very visible and pronounced. It turns out that I just have become very good at managing my anxiety, rather than it not existing.
But in recent weeks I’ve been noticing how much unattended anxiety I’ve actually had. I don’t think this is something I’ve always had, but it’s certainly built up in the last few months. These haven’t been particularly noticeable (both to other people and myself) because my way of demonstrating anxiety is far less visible. Rather than having a visible panic attack, I tend to retreat inwards and disassociate from my body.

One of the benefits of actually listening to the anxiety rather than trying to manage it is that I’ve become a lot more cognisant of my intuition around social interactions.

On the search for a quietened mind

My recent weeks have been plagued with fatigue. It got to the point where popping out to the supermarket a few minutes down the road would leave me struggling, and I found myself frequently needing naps during the day.

I’m in the midst of understanding what being neurodivergent means in practice. It’s a lot to navigate – there’s certainly many things that make a lot more sense now, but I’m also cautious to jump to conclusions too quickly.

I went to my doctor this week who recommended I tried antidepressants. In an ideal world, I would have had a bit more time than a short consultation to think about it. In the end I decided to give them a try.

Learning about Neurodiversity and Autism as an Adult

This week is Neurodiversity Celebration week.

When I reflect on it, it was the heightened amount of messaging on social media that made me start researching around my own neurodivergency. This has culminated in me believing I’m Autistic.

So if you wanted an example of why these diversity weeks can be important, here’s a living, breathing example for you.