Neurodiversity support thread: Women with suspected/self-diagnosed/diagnosed ASC & ADHD

[EauRouge]

No sign of our own forum yet, so for now here's a new support thread for women on the autistic spectrum and/or with ADHD. Newbies more than welcome!

The old thread is here.

Here are some helpful links for newbies:

List of female AS traits by Tania Marshall.

List of female traits by Everyday Aspergers

Musings of an Aspie- Cynthia Kim's blog (one of the few sources I have found about being a parent with Aspergers)

Autistic Women's Collective

Recognising ADHD in women from ADDitude Magazine

Resources for women with ADHD from ADDitude Magazine

Adult ADHD support (coming soon by the looks of things)

Books

Aspergirls by Rudy Simone

You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-help Book for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder by Kate Kelly (I haven't read this one but I have heard it recommended many times- apologies if it's no good!)

I took off Tony Attwood because it was about people with autism rather than for people with autism. Anyone else got any book recommendations?

Online tests

(Online tests are not 100% certain but can give you a very good idea and a starting point for talking to your GP if you're seeking diagnosis)

RDOS Aspergers quiz (the best one IMO)

AQ test

ADHD test

ADHD questionnaire for women

If any of those don't work, it's because I'm cooking the DDs' dinner and I'm shit at multitasking. What's that burning smell?

I was saying about following a script recently. For me its doctors - i saw the cardiologist and he asked about my wheelchair and it totally threw me, i get all flummoxed and forget the answer. Not helped by me hating anyone asking about it as i get paranoid (umm, try reading my medical notes in front of you?! He is sadly not the first non-mobility related hcp to ask either)

When they ask how you're doing, I automatically say 'fine, thank you' and could then kick myself. I'm not fine, hence why I'm seeing the doctor!

playnicely I'm sure you didn't mean to offend, but I found your previous message (yesterday 21:46) quite upsetting. You are effectively equating serious conditions like ADHD to just being a bit scatty. That's like saying a migraine is just a bit of a headache. Cancer is just a bit of a lump.

If you don't 'have the balls' to claim it's a medical condition, you probably don't have it. If it was affecting your life to the extent that it does for some of us on here, you wouldn't have any qualms about admitting you have a condition. Remember it's not just the criteria that count, it's the extent to which the criteria have an adverse effect on your everyday life.

I think it can be difficult to make the shift from feeling "normal" but crap (particularly when your upbringing has dictated that this is what you are) and admitting that there is something causing this and being open about it.
While the post comes across as hurtful, I do understand where playnicely is coming from.

I've mentioned this to a couple of family members who are being generally dismissive and of the normal but crap/lazy/weak frame of mind, which always makes me doubt myself.

And I'm also wondering if I've ever posted anything similar in the past.
Apologies if I have

(Wish there was an edit button so I didn't have so many multiple posts when I remember something I wanted to say )

LeChien, I don't think you have or if you did you phrased it a bit better, I would have mentioned it at the time anyway.

I would also like an 'edit' button. On another forum you have 2 hours to edit, but if anyone's read your original message then the post gets 'edited by Crohnically, today, 9:45' or whatever. I think 2 hours is a little long, but I'd welcome the ability to edit soon after posting. The time stamp ensures that people can't change or remove offensive comments (or if they do, they soon get called on it, if someone has responded then it's obvious the edit happened after the response).

Multiple posts within x time are automatically combined, that's handy too.

I agree with what you say about not trivialising it, but I also sympathise with not having the balls to say it's a medical condition. I feel like explaining my difficulties by saying i have Asperger's will be seen as making excuses, and I worry that people will just see it as the latest "special snowflake" trend.

It wasn't so much the 'having the balls' bit that got to me, I completely agree with you gumble that it's hard to admit out loud, I haven't disclosed publicly at work for that reason (I have just told a select few colleagues).

It was the whole sentence about having the balls to claim it's a medical condition, it read to me like those people who claim they have a dairy intolerance (but can eat milk chocolate) or claim they are 'allergic' to wheat (and make a big fuss about choosing gluten free options when you go out for a meal, but eat the biscuit provided with the after dinner coffee).

I've never claimed I have Asperger's, I have it, if that makes sense?

I'm probably overthinking it and I'm probably not making much sense here!

I guess the problem comes from a lot of people already thinking that, gumble. Especially for people women who have "successfully" (ha!) made it through life so far and are diagnosed as adults. :(

And especially, especially for those who also have similar issues but dont regard themselves as needing diagnosis

In mine and LeChien's posts, we used the word 'admitted', does that help explain things a bit more? The difference between 'claim' and 'admit'?

Well both, really. All "claimed" problems come under the "special snowflake" banner

Yy crohn, big difference imo

I know what you mean Crohn.

Other people seem to need to physically see something before they'll take anything seriously.
The family of a girl I know didn't believe that she had a serious nut allergy, thought it was all dramatic attention seeking, until they gave her a homemade biscuit and needed to call an ambulance 20 minutes later. And most people say they have flu rather than a cold, or norovirus instead of a bug, in order to be taken seriously, but then assume that anyone saying they have xyz is similarly exaggerating.
Unfortunately autism is difficult to see, and stupid people don't understand, and think you're making excuses.

At this point in my life, my gp feels it best for me to be assessed, because my mental health is suffering, and she doesn't know how to appropriately deal with it unless we know for sure if I am or not. Up until that point of actually having a formal diagnosis (if I do that is!) I will still feel like I'm being a drama queen, even though I know how limited my life has become in the last few years. I don't expect most members of my family to understand, ever, and tbh I would never tell them. It's been hard enough to get anyone to believe us with ds, even though we've had videos, hours of voice recordings and the bruises to show for it!
Some people are dicks, and it can affect how we see ourselves and our difficulties.

Ugh, x-posted and doing multiple posts again

If you're brought up believing that your difficulties are just you being lazy and crap, you then spend your adult life believing you are lazy and crap.
When you discover an explanation for this which explains so many aspects of your life, but when you're not as severely affected as other people whose accounts of autism you've read, it's easy to believe that you're being a special snowflake, especially when others around you think you are too.

I'm not explaining it well, sorry. Trying to say that inside, it feels like you're a fraud saying that you might have asperger's, when all your life you've been you.

X posts and mutliple posts all over the place

Now my turn to feel i need to clarify!!

I dont mean we think all claimed problems come under the special snowflake banner! I mean people who think others are just being "special snowflakes" are often the same people who will say "beyond claims she has autism but she seems fine to me, just being a special snowflake " or "beyond claims she needs to use a wheelchair but i've seen her walk, she's just being a special snowflake "

BUT yet another post as well as other people thinking it, i think we are extra sensitive to their opinions BECAUSE all of our lives we have just been ourselves, not "that girl with autism"

I phoned and, after a wrong number false start, was told I'm on the waiting list. I was put on hold for so long that I went a bit blank and didn't ask anything re waiting times but at least I know the referral has gone through.

Sorry, jumped back in with that, I have been reading all the other posts

I see the difference between claim and admit, thank you. I wonder if the original reference to "claiming" was used because of a worry that it would be seen by others as an unjustified claim. Interestingly I hadn't prrviously thought about this but there are at least two meanings of claim we could apply here - the meaning that implies that the person is lying (as seen in "he claims x, but he's actually y"), and an alternative meaning of choosing to actively accept and take possession of something, like claiming a prize or benefits. I want to learn to claim my ASC like that, but I don't want to be seen as unjustifiably claiming to have a medical condition as an excuse for laziness.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make any sense, u just did a complicated group session about trust and hope and got vastly overloaded with paper and words and nothing anybody said was making any sense to me so I may still me a bit confused.

Oh. Im worried now that my first sentence sounded facetious when I was actually genuinely thanking you guys for explaining. Sorry.

And I just did, not u just did. Never posy confused

Well.done on achieving the phone call boot

Oh I give up on the typos!

Sorry if I sounded as if I am sceptical about anyone else's condition but my own. I haven't a clue about Aspergers, as I know I don't have that, but I've read loads about ADHD
.. Of course it affects my life to the extent that I cannot be trusted to remember anything, and everyone who meets me thinks I'm dim. I'm always doing stupid things accidentally and being laughed at like a child when I am 33. I tick all the boxes most days..but it's really not treated in adults in the uk like it is in America. I'm absolutely not up for going to my gp and convincing him of just how useless I am by reading bullet points from my note pad. I have three children. I can't tell people I think I have a cognitive disorder that prevents me functioning like most parents.! That is something a confident and self assured person would do! My gp along with everyone else has me down as a general fool.. He is old and he'd laugh at me.
I am not questioning anyone else's suspected or diagnosed condition, but personally, for now at least, I am choosing to see it as just a unlucky personality trait in myself.. I have always been useless.. And I feel bad enough without regular psych appointments and all that goes with it... No way am I telling anyone else how they should feel, I didn't come on the thread to deny anyone's reality, I'm have no clue if ADHD is "real" or not, I'm no doctor.. But symptoms are symptoms right? I have loads of plans though.. (Never actually followed one through yet: s