I'm autistic, ask me anything

[AyEssDee]

Hug, what role do you have in the voluntary sector and is it related to something you perhaps did professionally at one time?

DH is starting autism assessments next week. He was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and was on medication well into early adulthood. I have said for some time he shows many classic autistic traits but he has put his head in the sand until recently. I feel a diagnosis may help him better understand his actions/frustrations.

Anyway, he has been wondering, and worrying, if a diagnosis affects employment opportunities in the future. I know there are laws against this but realistically have people found that to be an issue? For example he wants to join the police and they have extensive medical exams which would require records to be released.

8DaysAWeek

I don't really know the answer to that.

I'm 45 now and have been self-employed for 15. Previously, I had bad and good experiences at work - it was good when I was working in a professional environment with my own area of responsibility, I was not in open plan and my line manager just let me get on with it because she knew I was doing good work and showed me I was valued.

Now, post-diagnosis, if I ever had to go back to a "regular" job, I'd know my limitations up front I guess and would know what jobs/environments to avoid.

I think I would disclose, yes.

I appreciate it's hard when you just really need any job or you are just starting out or otherwise don't have the luxury of choice - hopefully someone else has a more helpful answer for you.

sad I hope I didn't come across like that. One of the other reasons I don't like functioning labels (as per my big post) is that it means people underestimate those with a LD

I gives people an idea of where to start. It doesn’t mean that they don’t start.

Anyway, he has been wondering, and worrying, if a diagnosis affects employment opportunities in the future. I know there are laws against this but realistically have people found that to be an issue? For example he wants to join the police and they have extensive medical exams which would require records to be released*

I would contact the NAS and ask what’s in place nationally for those on the spectrum who are going in to employment. For eg my friends daughter has a support worker who’ll support her through Uni into employment till she’s 25.

8days there’s some good info here

www.ambitiousaboutautism.org.uk/understanding-autism/independence/employment

Also this

*www.autismforward.org.uk/

I don’t need to know how high your IQ is to start communication and given the appalling inaccurate measurement of IQ in those with communication difficulties it seems a pretty daft overview of any one individual

Was that a reply to my post?

You may be my twin!

I only thought about it after my daughter was diagnosed l, I realised I didn’t understand the professionals but had no real issue with her. I clashed a lot with the system, things like all they offer is support groups. Firstly I hate talking in groups of strangers, and secondly I’m solution focused. Just chatting irritates me as it seems to have no purpose (though after I can step back and see other parents value it). I now Home educate my three and we’re genuinely happy and thriving.

I also clash with Doctors as they offer these chatting reviews yearly ‘as a point of contact’ . I’d be happy to scrap the chat and just get things done, and nothing is done ever. Other parents seem placated by chat. I had one awful appt where the consultant became pushy with eye contact, almost pointedly leaning on her side at times. Very embarrassing and I still play over her motives in my head. Thought I was lying? Making a point? I have actually refused to attend appointments now, they were a bit threatening but did nothing.

I am happily married, we are very alike. Our house is pretty quiet

Can I ask about your family?

My middle one has LD and autism (diagnosed at 3) while the other two I suspect hfa but being home ed I haven’t gone further

My sister has LD and ASD

My cousin has apsergers, I reckon his dad is undiagnosed as is my grandfather. I query my mum too.

Everyone struggles to accept diagnosis at times as they all all tbh similar in many way. My great grandmother died of malnutrition in her 30s with access to food and my mum, me and my daughter all have food difficulties.

Well said Colditz. FieryGinger you have been really fucking rude.

I don’t need to know how high your IQ is to start communication and given the appalling inaccurate measurement of IQ in those with communication difficulties it seems a pretty daft overview of any one individual

It isn’t always about communication and it’s not something I was thinking about when I posted. Oh and I’m also on this thread under another name.

I can understand some people wouldn’t bother trying to get someone like my son to achieve very much because of their diagnosis. But in my experience his diagnosis and all the info that came with it was really useful because it made me try and try and try again many times over before I would think to myself - ok, this is something that’s not going to be possible for him to achieve.

It’s one of the reasons why I did home ed with him. I saw absolutely no point in hurrying him up in the morning to take him on a school run when I would have had to dress him etc to get him out the door. Yes he may have been 5 in years but he was in actual fact a patchwork quilt of ages and abilities. So he was kept at home and the best foundation we could come up with was put in place and if took him 2 hours to dress himself then it took 2 hours. The point was that he was doing it himself.

He actually started speaking a bit when he was 9 and over the next few months it became very obvious he’d been soaking up information like a sponge and he more or less had a nursery level education. He was also completely independent in the bathroom although even now he still likes someone standing outside.

Travel wise he’s been all over the world though it would take 3 of us to get him on his steam train holidays and it’s my biggest heartache that his health means travel is no longer possible.

He goes to the gym 4 times a week for personal training. It’s closed to the public whilst he’s there because other people’s gym noises would more than likely cause a meltdown. But there are a few members who do go in and work out with him. They go one at a time and it usually happens once a week. He’s very competitive and when he’s having his daily swim at home he’s been known to pull people back by the leg so he beats them.

Did being labelled LF hinder my son in anyway? I doubt it because he has us around him and it only ever made us try more. If we broke something down into 8 steps when working out how to approach something with him we always knew it might have to end up being broken down into 16 steps and that was ok.

Hopefully the next time people say being labelled LF means people may not try with the person they’ll remember that the opposite can in actual fact be true.

I agree with querying the current autism diagnosis, yes it’s a spectrum but it’s so so wide is it meaningless? My daughter has some LD, my sister more so, but it’s a nightmare finding services. It’s embarrassing if you rock up and want the level of input as very LF children, they NEED far far more support and time, yet also when you rock up and it’s a room of super geeks and your child can’t count to 7. I end up avoiding so much asd stuff, as it’s often situations where my daughter can’t cope- loads of very able children and she’s left by the by while their parents advocate. Another one I went to children were non-verbal and I felt I was abusing finite resources

Dyslexia for an example is a spectrum and it broadly means someone has difficulty reading. If as a teacher I see a child with a diagnosis of autism I don’t know if on the first meet they’ll need 2:1 to stop them hurting themselves or putting on the gifted register to occupy them sufficiently. I don’t know if they’ll hide form noise or join in with it happily and repeat it, I don’t know if they’ll obsessively seek friends and have issues, or be afraid of contact. It’s so so broad. Is there space for further clarifications l?

Please don’t be offended, this isn’t a go at anyone, just voicing my experience a bit

Hugs

What did you mean by ‘can’t follow a shopping list’? Is this an autistic trait?

Dp will ask me to make a list but I can’t! I need to go up and down the aisles to see what I need- I can’t ‘imagine’ a list out of my head.

If I do have a few things written down (unusual things in case I walk past and forget) I always get more, is this a trait, as I thought everyone ‘cheats’ on their shopping list?

Op what is your relationship with alcohol like? I find the anxiety reducing effects of a small dose to be very effective and this makes it so much easier for me to function. I don’t see it as any different from taking any other kind of medication for a condition.

But I have heard there’s a higher occurrence of addiction in ASD people.

I certainly don’t expect anyone else to feel bad

When it comes to my son absolutely no one has the power to make me or mine feel bad. We’re very sure of ourselves. My last post was to highlight very clearly that there can be very positive things to come out of someone being referred to or diagnosed as LF. That it doesn’t mean people don’t try to get the best out of a person just because ......

In a nutshell there are two sides to every coin and it’s always good to remember that.

I can't afford a private diagnosis, but am 99.9999999 (you get the idea) % I'm "HF" autistic. Apparently very intelligent but I'm absolutely useless with it, appalling executive function for one! I'm really struggling with it at the moment so thank you to the kind people on this thread. I also walked and talked very early, taught myself to read and also maths (I read a book to learn multiplication long before I started school). I have seriously vivid early memories (which is one of the only comforts as I had a lovely childhood). A year or so ago, I described the house my gt gt aunt lived in to my gt aunt, her niece. I last visited that house at the age of 2 (and I can remember having a sense of self at 2, and my thought processes).

Oh and my brother has it as well, as I suspect a couple of other family members on mum's side.

Killed the thread....

i shall save you from feeling like a thread killer degustibus and not just because that's one of my favourite phrases.

One of the first things I noticed about my DD when she was 2 was that she could remember the layout of her GP's house when she hadn't been there in at least 6 months. It's amazing. I can remember conversations I had years ago, verbatim.

Mind you, even my amazing long term memory has eroded due to sleep deprivation and age, it's still good but now I have to check things and sometimes make mistakes or takes longer to retrieve the info - very annoying!

You say you can't afford a private diagnosis, are you getting NHS referrals for the things you're struggling with? They'll come through eventually, I despair of how underfunded child and adult psychology/psychiatry is at the moment.

Yay, thread not killed! 😊. Given we're moving (back home in my case) to Australia next year I doubt I'd get an NHS consult before then.... I'm so looking forward to moving back to rural oz as I'll have solitude to a degree and it'll be quiet (raucous Aussie wildlife not withstanding!)

And yes, I had an understanding of life, nature etc. far beyond my years. What I really didn't have was 'social intelligence'.