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What to do if you think you might be autistic

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  I am not really qualified to write a handbook on the weird girl to autistic woman pipeline but I can speak on my own experience in the hope that it helps someone else navigate the road to discovering their true self. a lot of people struggling with self disclosing that they are autistic but I seem to have the opposite problem. I have worked through much of my autism journey by sharing my thoughts on it with others, regardless of whether they actually asked me to. If I have info dumped autism on you against your will then I would like to formally apologise. I have often found when speaking to people about my own lived experiences I will meet others who resonate with what I am saying, sometimes because they too have questioned their own identity and felt out of place in the neuro-typical world. I will usually have an idea that I have spotted another neurodivergent in the wild especially if we are vibing a little too well together. If you feel we are on the same wave length then oh ...
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So you've been diagnosed Autistic, now what

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  Today my psychologist officially confirmed my autism diagnosis, documentation to follow. I know this should not feel like a momentous occasion given she had verbally told me last week but it was. I was pretty certain that's what I had been told last week but there was a really small part of my brain that thought maybe I had misunderstood. Perhaps she had in fact said that she would be confirming 'if' I was autistic and I heard what I wanted to hear. a lifetime of misunderstandings in communication will leave a girl doubting herself. I will be getting a letter confirming my diagnosis plus another that goes into more details plus something for my doctor, my dentist and my full report. We discussed work place accommodations but I left off that letter for now. It felt a lot of it didn't really fit for my place of work. In many ways my work place accommodates me in ways other places don't; I can bring in stim toys or chewellry and not really have to explain much, we do...
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Officially Diagnosed

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  a little over 18 months ago I went on a journey to discover if I was autistic. I did a lot of self exploration, read several books on the topic, watched a lot of content to see if I did indeed relate and even went to talk to a neuro affirming therapist to explore the possibility out loud. The therapist was not able to diagnose me in any officially capacity but she did help me to self diagnose.  In truth I have been comfortable here, I felt I had done adequate research to be certain my own experiences align with the autism criteria and have comfortably been talking to anyone who will listen about my experiences of being autistic. I feel like there is so much to unpack and to discover about myself and the more I have learned the better I have been able to articulate my own lived experiences and to accommodate myself. I have always had a deep interest in psychology and exploring autism has felt like that on a deeper level. To me it is inherently fascinating but I do need to wor...
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Autism and other adventures

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  Last year I started up my blog again to explore discovering that I am autistic in my 40's. A massive surprise to mostly just me. I wrote a number of posts exploring the different facets of my experience as a late realised autistic woman and then just promptly disappeared. This is my attempt to catch people up. The reason I have not been writing about my experiences is because I have been experiencing autistic burnout for most of this year and my ability to communicate verbally or at least to articulate myself with the same ease I normally do is one of many skills that has fallen by the wayside. I made the decision this year to step down from a position at work that came with a certain amount of responsibility because I was not coping and stayed on in a relief capacity. Similar job just with less overall commitment. It has thankfully helped a little but working in a stressful job while incredibly burnt out is no joke. It takes most of what I've got each week to show up and ass...
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Burnout: the sequel

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  I am burnt out. Hardly the most shocking declaration given I have been saying it out loud for a while now but here we are. This isn't my first run in with burn out nor will it likely be my last. Not only am I working in a stressful job, a social care worker in residential care, which is no stranger to burn out but also I am autistic so its like I know a secret short cut to getting there. I think as bragging goes this is up there with declaring how many times I have managed to catch covid. Which is 4 at my current count and they say there are no benefits to working in Health care. If you are lucky enough to not have experienced burnout then I can tell you its not an experience I would recommend to a friend. If you have friends working in social care then you probably wont need to.  Some of the things I have been experiencing are random bouts of crying. Given high sensitivity is part of my autism profile, I am no stranger to crying and the first time I experienced burnout it t...
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The existential crisis

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  I am readying myself for a return to work after just over a week off and I am feeling a quiet sense of dread. Unfortunately one of the realisations I have had along my autism journey is that the vocation I have chosen probably isn't for me. The thing I hear the most is that I am in fact really good at my job (social care worker working with adults with intellectual disabilities in a residential setting) and I don't dispute this fact. I am good at it and I am passionate about it and in many ways my autistic traits are a big part of what makes me good at what I do but at the same time these traits are also my downfall in this line work.  I am incredibly empathetic. This has been excellent in terms of relating to those I support and anticipating their needs. It allows me to put myself in another persons shoes with ease and allows me to build connections where others might struggle. In every job I have had in this field I have built really strong relationships with those I have ...
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The darker side of romance

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  For some reason I felt compelled to write about a corner of my past that hasn't been part of my blog before. a heads up to anyone who might be upset by this topic I will be delving into emotional abuse so feel free to stop reading now if you don't feel able to carry on. When I was in my late 20's I met a guy on a night out. He was a few years younger than me and honestly looking back threw up a couple of red flags early but I didn't trust my own intuition plus I was only a few months away from finishing college and planned to move to Edinburgh in a few months so it wasn't like it was going to be anything more than a brief fling. However as time went on I became more infatuated with him, there was an intensity there and he seemed sweet but damaged. Like a perfect modern fairytale I thought I would be the one to fix him. somehow plans changed and he was going to follow me over to Edinburgh, get a job there and we were going to live happily ever after. at this point ...
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