AIBU to ask for your help?

[NCed4Help]

I have finally plucked up the courage after years of forgetting/hiding/talking myself down, to arrange a GP apt to discuss some things potentially related to being ND. However, I am now on the verge of cancelling the apt as I've looked at my list of 'symptoms' and they just seem dramatic or I feel like I'm exaggerating and will waste their (and my) time.

WIBU to ask for your minds, to cast a quick eye over what I'm going to present them with and get your honest views? I know no one on here could diagnose me but to see if anything resonates?

Here goes...

• Sensitive to noise. Sometimes even the sound of my DH and DD playing can make me feel overwhelmed and irritable 😔

• I like to stroke my face with slightly scratch labels. I pick the skin off my nails and toes, I am constantly picking or scratching something. I have learnt to control it in public as I am aware it is off putting

⁃

• I cannot tell the time easily, takes me a couple of minutes and if someone if watching me do it can take ages.

• I find maths concepts really difficult

• very very VERY bad sense of direction, even in my hometown after being here 30 years.

⁃ pre read films often as not knowing makes me on edge and often don't finish a film or series as I can't bear endings or for it to be done (drives DH insane)

• bad memory for events! I will not remember any book I've read. I cannot remember any holiday I have been on really bar one city break (I've been on at least 20 holidays that I should remember) but I can remember who gave me what for DD and could remember if someone presented me with her baby clothes who gave them.

• really freaked out by the sound of bees/wasps/flies. Yes I am scared of them but I feel like I can hear them a mile off, on high alert for them. It's like I hear them when no one else does, and then suddenly they're there and then people are like WTF how did you even see/hear that

⁃	sensitive to smells, can make me feel v overwhelmed. Often find myself holding my breath. 

⁃	struggle with phone calls due to social cues missing and it just makes me generally anxious. Friends know that I don’t do calls. They always text and only ring in urgent circumstances. 

⁃	Can be at work on virtual meeting and miss many cues as I’ve lost track of focus and time 

⁃	Deregulated activity - either crashed out or doing everything. 

⁃	Can crash in the day and just lose all energy

⁃	Terrible with money - only now realising how bad I am now I have less disposable income and more urgent priorities 

⁃	Feel tense all of the time always on high alert never relaxed always looking at the next thing - worries me that i never live in the moment 

⁃	Can get overwhelmed at parties and when out. Love the idea of it, but then when out with friends I realise how much I find it hard work often end up leaving halfway through a night out as I don’t get it, and get mentally tired 

⁃	So many tabs of info on my phone. Deleted 50 the other day , still have 75 

⁃	Can often walk around the house aimlessly
⁃	one that I've just realised today is that despite not really getting Maths or statistics etc, I do Collect data (still log down all of toddlers feeds and nappies even though I have no need to. If I go on the app and miss a day I have to add it in) 

• have so so so many lists, in my head/on my phone/around the house

• often feel not quite right in a situation, I have always been fairly friendly with most people but just never felt like I fit anywhere

The thing throwing me off is that I feel like no one would know me and think I am ND. Or it would come as a surprise

Welcome to the club! I identify with lots of what you have said. My GP referred me when a clinical psychologist agreed I had many traits. Someone will be along with far more evidentiary than me but I hope you get your referral soon.

Can you send the above list to them ahead of the appointment? I did a letter asking for referral, and then I self-referred as well, but it is much easier to write down.

The first time I broached it with a GP he was v dismissive. I told him my AQ score, he went weird, did the test himself and said, "37... I must be autistic too"... which is laughable really!

I can definitely relate to a lot of your list and to your anxiety/confusion around how 'legitimate' or not the GP will find what you're saying. I'm awaiting assessment via a physiatrist I was seeing for something else, and when I mentioned it to my GP and a handful of friends & family, they were all very dismissive. But the actual expert psychiatrist saw something, and my DP has looked into it and agrees a lot applies to me. Funnily enough, my ND friends agree too! So don't be put off by your doubts or by what you think other people might think. We are masters (mistresses) of camouflage and masking, so we've had a lifetime of learning to present ourselves in a certain way. If your GP is dismissive, ask to see another one, and then let the diagnostician do their bit. GPs are brilliant in many ways but in others they're just gatekeepers that you have to slip past to get to the next level. Good luck.

Thank you, yes, I think I will tidy it up and send the list ahead of the appointment.

I may also look into the AQ score or other initial assessments to provide evidence. Sometimes I have a moment of, I must be dramatic because I've got to this age and done fairly well? But sometimes I do something and realise how not usual it is.

I get told I'm very literal by DH and my family also. Just realising how often I've heard that and never thought anything of it

Definitely send a letter or email to your GP. I emailed in a list of my difficulties, plus copies of some screening questionnaires and my GP referred me without asking to see me at all!

I've just done the AQ10 and CAT-Q and scored highly.
And the ADHD screener showed some likelihood.
But how can both be showing likelihood. I feel like I know nothing about ND. Need to spend more time on this board

You can have ASD and ADHD - this is what I am getting assessed for

I suggest arranging your list in categories:
Sensory. Can see several. Do you sensory seek any thing? What are you like with light touch? labels or seems in clothes?
Social and communication (clearly deficits (as the NTs would say) there)
Routine. (Data collection)
Do you have to do anything in the correct order or in the correct way.
Executive function. (Time and money and planning difficulties

Think why having a diagnosis would help you: eg adjustments at work. They do like to ask this.

@BlackeyedSusan Thank you very much for that, that makes total sense and seems like a good way to structure the conversation

This is me Op, I score highly on all screener tests. I’ve struggled my whole life and it’s taken me this long to figure out why. I hold down a good job, finally have friends and a good life but I’m exhausted by being me.

My little brother has severe autism so the likelihood of me having it is high but at 37 no one really thought of it.

Even with all this I still can’t bring myself to go to the GP and I recently cancelled a private assessment because I feel like it can’t be that bad if I can work and live relatively okay.

@MynameisJune Yes exactly. Today and yesterday I have managed a lot of work stress to a decent standard and I think to myself am I ND at all? Do ND people have differing days

Although I will caveat this with the fact that I am in a team meeting currently and cannot focus and digest the information at all. I feel very stupid but I know I'm not if that makes sense? I am capable of digesting the info but not on teams and by staring at a wall of text and data

@AshGirl this would make sense but I am anxious as I know that if I do get put forward for assessment my family would never ever think I have ADHD/ASD or anything.

I was essentially a model student but I always felt like a background person! I never had relationships with teachers and I cannot remember any of them! I find that weird.

Some days I panic and think maybe I just have early dementia.

Yes same, I have a stressful job. But I’ve noticed recently that I’m the only one in my team that fidgets in meetings. Either playing with a hair bobble, stimming with my fingers etc. I also struggle to take information in via meetings.

I can’t remember most of my childhood, teachers, field trips etc. Those I do remember are generally traumatic events. I also have no imagination, I cannot visualise things how they would be. Noise makes me very cross, I love white noise but lots of differing noises is overwhelming. I have often sat in my office with headphones on playing white noise super loud so that I could think.

Yes!!! I often wonder whether people notice me doing these things. Im also excessively sleepy during meetings. In lectures at uni I would fall asleep during lessons despite sleeping 8 hrs on a night and not being out partying (very rarely do proper nights out as it's too much going on)

Yes! I used to think I had a great imagination but I've just realised this year how poor it is and how black and white my thinking can be. I struggle to think outside the box !!!

Despite all of these things I feel self indulgent pursuing this potential ND diagnosis