Autistic Women Assemble! #2

[Nepmarthiturn]

Helloooo lovely people, a new thread for a us to continue to chat and connect with other autistic women (small talk and word mincing not required). 😊

As before, anybody newly stumbling upon this is very welcome to join us (even if still awaiting diagnosis). But we'd be grateful if others could leave us alone please, like the NT man we encountered in thread #1. 🤣

Welcome! I hope you find the answers you seek! 😊 I've found in my experience 100% of my friends who self DX'd are now formally DX'd
My therapist said to me once
"You don't find many people thinking they're autistic who aren't autistic"

I'm so sorry they're not supporting you.
I will LITERALLY remove myself from the room if possible.
Otherwise it's boundary setting and standing firm. Annoying but over time it's worked.

Google Psychiatry UK right to choose. Shorter waiting time than NHS but free.

I have ADHD meds to help focus. There are no medications specific to masking. Therapy helps (me) but I know a few people that get sleep meds/ mood stabilisers. Depends what you need help with.

thank you . i think i might go nhs route as im not in a rush to get diagnosed x

Checking in here. Mum of two autistic kids who decided self-diagnosis was no longer enough and went private earlier this year. I found the process strange and kind of dissatisfying. I “passed” the ADOS test (with hindsight, I think I went into job interview mode and shied away from being really candid with my answers/subconsciously avoided being really honest about my lack of interest in friendships etc) and the psychologist didn’t diagnose me on the day, but instead left me hanging for a few days afterwards to go over the paperwork I’d submitted and concluded that I still fit the diagnostic criteria.

So I got what I needed - confirmation of what I already knew - but I wish it could have been more conclusive and not like I’d paid a private provider to diagnose me with autism 🙄

Wish I’d never gone with someone who did the ADOS tbh. I knew it was an unsatisfactory route for women generally and should have gone elsewhere.

I also fit the criteria for inattentive ADHD so I guess I should call myself AuDHD. I’d probably have to get re-assessed by the NHS if I wanted to explore medication.

Thanks for the cat photos, I love fluffy cats and can’t beat a bit of toe floof!

@TheShellBeach - am so sorry about Emerald, she was absolutely beautiful. Hope you are doing ok and that Linney is also ok.

Re dirty clothes on holidays. If I was in a private rent then I’d likely use the washing machine. I also take a bin bag or plastic bags to put dirty clothes in to bring back, seems completely logical to me!

Hi. 28 years old, got diagnosed November 2017 with ASD, followed by inattentive ADHD in June 2019. Also got diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, although I’m not sure if this can be co-morbid with ASD or not as some places say yes others say no. All diagnosed privately.

I’ve never had a boyfriend or done anything romantic whatsoever. No dating no kissing no nothing. I’m at the age where people I know from school and university are starting to get engaged and married and I can’t help but feel like I’m being left behind. But the anxiety tells me that no bloke would want to be my boyfriend because of my conditions. I’m very messy, very disorganised, constantly down on myself and full of self-doubt. And I’ve got zero experience so I’m a little embarrassed about that, the vast majority of people my age have at least dated/had sex/etc. I’d love to have kids and maybe get married some day, but I can’t help feeling that it won’t happen. I know there’ll be people who say “oh being in a relationship isn’t everything, it’s not the be all and end all” etc and I understand. I could well be one of those women who end up single and happily so in her 40s-50s, but I feel like I should experience a relationship or two first so I can say “well, having experienced both, I prefer being single”.

It was a typo? I had no idea. I assumed a hed hog was a chief pig...no-one would take him on! 😂So, it is the hedgehog... well!

Hi @toffee1000 - I understand. I've had many years alone. I hope you meet someone. The only thing I can think of to suggest is that you do things you love - if you love concerts, go, a lot. If you love walking, join a group. Meet people 'accidentally'. Less pressure.
Down on yourself and self-doubt - therapy. I had some kick-ass cbt+ (after years of lesser things) and things fell into place. Mindfulness helps. Banking happy moments helps.
Sorry, not trying to fix you. Those were the things that came to mind when I read your post.

I would recommend the right to choose via psychiatry Uk if you're looking for an ADHD assessment. So much quicker and still free of charge, the NHS has outsourced many people to psych Uk

I did do some therapy previously, but didn’t engage much as I felt embarrassed to admit some of my issues. It was private, too; my family could afford it but in some ways it does feel like a bit of a waste. I did get some good things out of it, though, but the anxiety didn’t really change. That was down to me being unwilling to change more than anything… autistic resistance to change. I would like to change, as I can’t live like this forever, but I just can’t make myself (ADHD related inertia… wanting to do stuff but not having that “get up and go” to do it).
I’d be willing to look into therapy again but I’m not sure of the best way to go about it given previous issues.

Can I join? I'm self diagnosed at the moment but am very much to and fro on whether I'm autistic or not (and obsessing about it too much). Unlike others, getting an assessment doesn't involve a long waitlist where I am (as it's not UK and private) but I'm terrified of being told I'm being ridiculous and it's all in my head. That said I feel knowing would help me stop assessing. Did anyone else think like this?

I've suspected I'm autistic for around 10 years and I have never scored under 40 on the AQ test, even when I've experimented in answering super positively but then obviously there are extra things a psychiatrist will look at and it's all in much more detail.

46, currently in the referral stage following a letter from my psychotherapist to my gp.

Quite against the idea I am autistic as I feel this positions me as being at fault for sexual violence perpetrated against me all my years; "you are especially vulnerable to abuse." Rather than it being the fault of violent men.

But that is a whole other story.

Some say I am "too weird", while others say I am "not weird enough".

I never seem to fit in anywhere. Sooner or later, I'm an oddball who has to go. This has been my life experience.

Having said that, I met my "the one" nearly 10 years ago. Turns out we are just the right kind of weird for one another.

God, I'm struggling this morning. Summer holidays with an (awaiting assessment) autistic 8 year old, and a stroppy 13 year old.

I didn't book any formal childcare this summer because my s/e work has dried up- but now someone's actually confirmed a job- right at the beginning of the holidays and he's got kids my kids' age, which does nothing for my opinion of him as a dad- but it being really flaky about which days, so it's really difficult to organise around him.

No proper holiday booked this summer, either- we hope to go camping, but the weather forecast is changing literally every day....We haven't got many friends as a family- we're supposed to be seeing someone this afternoon, but she's bloody flaky too and hasn't got back to me...so no idea how to plan today, for this week, for 2 weeks' time...😱 And not a moment's piece from bickering or mindless jabbering! I feel that I have the emotional regulation for the whole family on my shoulders.

Even while writing this, I have DS2 wittering on at me about lego....He asked me to set up DS1's old Kindle Fire for him this evening, and the fucking passwords...2 different passwords that you have to enter a total of about 5 times....I had a meltdown.

@toffee1000 Keep trying till you hit on a therapist that works for you. I had to go through many before I reached a 'Senior Psychological Therapist' who knew what she was talking about. Some of the exercises she used came from this book :
Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think: Amazon.co.uk: Greenberger, Dennis, Padesky, Christine A.: 9781462520428: Books
But a lot of my issues were about depression etc. Have a look at it in a bookshop, see if it fits. I was over thirty years older than you when I started to accept change... You've got your whole life ahead, it might be worth looking into.

Oh god I feel you @crackofdoom. Every summer is the same for me. Husband will take a week off but otherwise it’s all me, juggling two autistic kids who fight and trigger each other, attempting the occasional minor day trip (usually regretting it) and facing a chorus of “What are we doing today?” and me replying “I have no idea” every single day. The only summer activities around here are sports based, which is a hard no for my kids.

Over the past few summers I’ve hit complete and utter burnout by week five. Either manifesting as physical illness or emotional breakdown. Last year it was the latter. I walked out of the house and got in the car, not knowing where on earth I was going to go, only that i couldn’t spend another minute at home. Ended up crying in my parent’s house. No one at home realised I was AWOL for over an hour. Fun times.

On the plus side, this year my kids’ respective screen addictions mean they’re spending a lot of time in their bedrooms, leaving me downstairs alone savouring every moment of no demands, no noise and no interruptions. Still absolutely wracked with guilt for not doing enough or being enough.

Hello 👋

Just catching up on original thread.

I was diagnosed with ADHD about 3 months ago, my adult daughter is autistic and waiting for ADHD assessment, her son is also waiting for assessment and is currently in learning centre of school ( 6)

I also have nieces, nephews and cousins on spectrum and undiagnosed siblings.

I will be 50 this year and realise after masking all this time I can no longer do it which is apparently common among women going through menopause. I’m now considering trying medication. I’m disorganised, procrastinate and my house looks like a bomb has hit it, this in turn makes me stressed and depressed.

Has anyone else had success with ADHD meds ?

Welcome to all the new people, glad you've found this safe space 😀

I need to pick everyone's brains because DH is saying my lack of people skills is skewing my view on this. Long story short during a lesson the tutor couldn't figure out why something wasn't working. During the break I DM the tutor just to say I'd looked it up and you get it to work by doing X. According to DH that was a big no-no, I shouldn't have messaged the tutor, that even though I was trying to be helpful he most likely took it badly that a student told him how to do something.

So heated discussion back and forth with DH over how can he be offended by me (privately) pointing out how to do it. I didn't publicly say it / embarrass him so what's the problem, but apparently it's one of those unspoken rules. What do you fellow auties think? Was I wrong to DM the tutor?

There is a lot more to the discussion/backstory regarding how people in my team are probably perceiving me and that's why I'm getting no response/people are not doing their part of the group project properly.

Hello! I hope nobody minds if I join in (lurk a lot)?

I'm sort of self diagnosed. My daughter (nearly 29) received her autism diagnosis last year.

I've learned a lot since since she first approached her GP a couple of years ago, both about her and myself. I sat in on one of her assessments and could relate to so much of it that it was rather a light bulb moment!

I'm convinced that I'm autistic too - my childhood experiences would make so much more sense! I'm not yet well informed about masking but I suspect I have done a lot of it. I also feel that I may not do much of it since menopause hit. I've felt more "myself" for a few years.

I can't decide whether to pursue a formal diagnosis or not, I'm not sure how beneficial it would be.

I do have a tendency to over explain things so apologies in advance if I go on a bit, it's because I like to make sure that what I'm saying is clear.

This is the first time I've actually told anyone else this (apart from my daughter) so it's a bit scary!

Hi I completely missed the other thread but would love to join. I was diagnosed a few months ago after about 7 years of suspecting I may be.

I would have done exactly the same. Surely it's just being helpful!

I have no idea whether I joined in Thread 1. Hello.

🙋🏻‍♀️ love my meds, they've changed my life. Took a while to get the right dosage but I'm flying now!

Welcome! I found diagnosis was validating. It's an entirely personal choice though.