I’ve always been criticised a LOT, particularly as a child, from being hit with clogs, hairbrushes, chalk, blackboard erasers and teacher’s canes through to the negative name calling “madam, precocious, loud, chatterbox”. Even my language was corrected so much I’d go through stages of not talking at all. School reports saying A for effort but D for attainment, report cards, black spots, detentions. Followed by more derision and criticism at home because my sister didn’t have these issues. She was always top of the class, I was always middle to bottom. Grades came effortlessly to her, I worked all the hours to get a C! 😔
Then I entered the workforce and loved office work, having my own space to design, passed all my exams in the 90%s, processing dwp social security applications, then I got told off by my manager for going too fast I was making everyone else look bad. No mistakes in my processing, just going too fast. To give people much needed funds. I laughed thinking she was joking, she wasn’t. Then they changed the office to a call centre, and it clearly stated on my job application I couldn’t do this due to have Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Instead of make reasonable adjustments they demoted me to looking after the stationary cupboard and opening envelopes. In the same room as everyone I had processed claims with. I left. 😬
I eventually went self employed again and this has always suited me. Flitting between business admin and clients’ work. The adaptability, creativity and diversity of clients. I still struggled with task initiation, who couldn’t I just do the thing which HAS to be done today, finish the bookkeeping, just send those marketing postcards or e-newsletters!! 🤯
When I finally burnt out, diagnosed with moderate MEcfs, my world fell apart. No one expected anything from me but the restlessness was driving me crazy*. I lost self esteem, the void started dragging me towards it, the darkness obliterating the light from my view. *I don’t use this word lightly, I lost all focus and direction, the word fits the jumping between so many projects, opportunities and losses. The spending cycles, the hiding cycles, the rearranging furniture at 11 o’clock at night cycles. 😓
Then I bumped into a woman at a disability fair, we’d gone to look at wheelchairs, and we just clicked. I didn’t even see the stand she was stood at 🙈 She was at an ADHD awareness stand! I got home and immediately requested a referral to the ADHD assessment centre. The wait was 27 MONTHS! At 43 I was finally diagnosed with Combined ADHD! 😅
During titration I struggled a bit with the methyl-crash, my research showed this was common when autism was co-morbid. My daughter (diagnosed ASC, dyslexic, dyspraxia, self diagnosed adhd) started laughing at me! 🤣 She’s always said I had autism, she was diagnosed at 8.
IMPORTANT BIT: None of the research I’d done when she was diagnosed explained my issues. NONE! It’s only since realising my daughter is right that I started engaging with the #actuallyautistic community, and honestly I’m stunned. They talk about my difficulties and abilities as normalities in their lives, and then I discovered those with both ADHD and ASC. My mind was literally blown. We’d been told when my daughter was diagnosed you couldn’t have both, but here the community was saying you could, and in fact the numbers weren’t even small.
So this is a snippet of my journey from hopeless, lazy, incompetent to realising it’s actually cPTSD, ADHD and ASC. And I couldn’t be more proud of my adaptability, resilience and creativity that has got me this far. 🥰
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