Neurodiversity support thread for women with suspected, diagnosed or self-diagnosed autism, ADHD and other NDs #18

[PolterThreadStarter]

As usual, latest support thread.

Welcome

I'm doing a boring placemarking for the second post as otherwise I'll forget and wonder why for ages no one is talking on the other thread it's happened before!

^^ (as above)

Me too!

Do we put a link in the old thread to the new thread?

I'm sure people will work out there's a next thread.

Can I just tell you all I start my PhD in September...

Polter ooohhh that's exciting! Do you want to tell us anything else about your PhD?

Who handed in a thesis recently... was it austi? When will you hear something back?

I think it was rivier who did the thesis.

Can't really say on here as very outing and I may blog about it!

Today is a bit easier so far. I will get used to it in time. DH has errands that need doing. I get first refusal of doing them.

polter that's awesome. I got my degree but haven't managed past that.

Polter, how exciting!!

To whoever asked on the other thread (terrible memory - I only read it about 30 seconds ago): DS2 coped quite well with the assessment. He was anxious but the fact I was there the whole time helped. They assess several children at once so have them all playing together (or not as the case may be ) and the professionals observe all of them interacting etc.

It was very draining for me. It was great they were very in-depth and asked a lot of questions but it did very much fill my weekly peopling quota very quickly! I'm taking it easy today and sunbathing in the garden just doing a little bit of housework.

You've got time Weaver, I graduated from my undergrad degree 21 years ago, and that was as a mature student. It's been a long and windy path.

Scuse me a moment, just trying to get my breath back after hysterical laughter at the thought of me doing a PhD (currently no qualifications to my name except a handful of shit GCSEs) (assuming you meant me?)

Ugh. I'm currently having major stress waiting for my results from my Access course and worrying/ruminating over email correspondence with a woman in the exams department who I was talking to about the minor invigilation fuck-up in my last exam. She seems to have a major problem with reading comprehension 😒 which is fine but not if you're going to work in that role. Now I can't even contemplate going to the handing-out-of-unofficial-certificates-and-getting-pissed-afterwards thing - was wobbly about it before, but now, just… no.

Not you ratty, was replying to Weaver

Waiting for results is awful. And just go to the thing if you want to go. She's just one person.

I meant this bit:

Who handed in a thesis recently... was it austi?

(Can't think who else it could mean, although I'm not too good on names so it could mean someone else)

It's not just one person, this other guy who's been involved in a lot of shit that's gone on was copied in to the whole thing and… well, I can't go into it here but it's all very complicated and embarrassing and the upshot is that this person who's helped me a lot is almost certainly now thinking that I'm an ungrateful nuisance.

I would really really like to just go to sleep for the next two months please.

Am attempting to resist the urge to go into the "cut everyone off completely, isolate self and wait until I find a whole new group of people" part of the socialising cycle.

Maybe it's just me who has that. Maybe it's a part of the personality disorders that psychiatrists spent a decade and a half convinced I had, until I was diagnosed with ASD instead.

The thesis was rivier

I have spent a lifetime cutting myself out of friendships.

And I have never been diagnosed or suspected or believe myself to have a personality disorder.

I know the thesis was rivier, sorry, I was only responding to MrsN's post.

I don't believe and have never believed I have a personality disorder and have been the lone voice arguing against it. But I doubt myself.

I can't bear being sort-of-but-not-really in contact with people. I like to be either friends or not. Or seeing someone or not. When I finished therapy the therapist told me multiple times that the door was open for me to come back. This was after I decided that I didn't want to go down to monthly appointments from fortnightly appointments, because I like to be either doing something or not doing it. I told the therapist repeatedly that I would not be coming back, at least partly to make it so that I couldn't go back to therapy. I knew that if I said "I will not be coming back for more therapy", it would be too embarrassing and it would turn me into a liar. I hate being a liar. So I said that deliberately to force myself into never going back. I won't ever get those kinds of problems again and I refuse to believe I will need to see that therapist again. She knows too much about me and if I could I would make her destroy all her records.

Your records should not be kept indefinitely.

I cut off everyone I knew from my mental health drop-in that I attended quite frequently and where I thought I'd made some good friends, after the referendum. Some of them had started posting racist stuff. Additionally, I had a new life studying and wasn't going to the drop-in any more, and those phases of my life overlapping felt uncomfortable.

Some providers of indemnity insurance recommend keeping notes indefinitely. Guidance generally is at least 6 or 7 years in case a client brings a case within the allowed timeframe.

I thought it was just me who had that socialising cycle ratty

And I don't have a personality disorder either, so it may well be an ASD thing.

Searched; found this in a BPS document, in answer to a bit about what should happen if a client requests destruction of notes:

It is important to remember that there is a minimum period set down for the retention of records – eight years generally; 20 years in the case of those “mentally disordered persons within the meaning on the Mental Health Act (1983)”. Likewise, litigation may occur some time after your contact has finished. Any destruction of material must be considered carefully if is to be carried out before the minimum time period.

I probably count as mentally disordered. She's got dirt on me for many years to come 😒