World Autism Acceptance Month

Six years ago my son got late diagnosed as Autistic at the age of 23 yrs. He was an exceptional 'masker' and has high intellect, but the stress of masking for so long put so much pressure on his brain, his body simply said no more and the repercussions of that have, and still are huge.

He's doing well at the moment, but the journey has been/and is hard for him and as a Mum that's been incredibly difficult to watch.

I've always questioned myself (and beat myself up about it too) WHY did I not see the signs that were so clearly visible in his younger years? I put it down to being a crap parent and have beat myself with that stick for sometime too.

At the start of the pandemic I experienced awful bullying from a boss and this was the start of a difficult few years for me personally.

I pushed through the feelings and emotions and continued with building my sole practitioner accounting biz, building & serving an online meditation group (did you know I teach meditation ) and building my other biz - Alchemy whilst doing a shed load of self development to try to get to the bottom of what was wrong with me

Around this time I'd researched enough about Autism and ADHD to realise that I probably had ADHD.

I dutifully took my 4 A4 pages of reasons why to the GP who stunningly gaslit me and said I was menopausal. This didn't make sense to me as I was thrust into a medically enduced menopause at 26yrs after an hysterectomy, but he's the expert right? So I took the HRT. I've been back to the GP a further 3 times and had the HRT increased each visit, I did see an improvement but not enough to suggest that the menopause was the problem.

I've spent years and £000's in therapy and counselling and have spent even longer doing self development work but nothing was working. Finally, I decided to go private as I was pretty convinced that ADHD was the issue.

I've had my diagnosis now and it turns out I'm Autistic and ADHD with a huge presentation of PDA thrown in too. A full house pretty much. It's a LOT to process. My library of books is getting bigger by the day

SO much, now makes sense, particularly about not noticing some of the red flags my son was waving when he was younger because to me he is exactly the same as me. To me he's perfect.

I am riding a huge roller coaster of emotions right now and the journey of discovering who I really am is a daily thing! Some of my 'quirks' (I have many) which I believed were trauma responses are actually techniques I use to fit into a world that (it feels like all of a sudden) has gotten really bloody loud

I'm still learning what Autism means to me, EACH Autistic person has their own UNIQUE presentation, mine is further complicated with the PDA profile. Let's just say that I have NO idea HOW I've achieved all that I've achieved in life. There is part of me that is grieving for my younger self, especially those teen years and twenties which I found so bloody hard and difficult to navigate

Why am I sharing this? It's not for sympathy, I don't care for that.

I'm sharing for awareness because although the profile of neurodivergence is raised its nowhere near where it needs to be.

I'm raising awareness because there is a LOT of preconceived ideas and misconceptions on what neurodivergence is and looks like.

I'm raising awareness because its not 'hip' and 'glamorous' to be neurodivergent in a world that really isn't built for us.

I'm raising awareness because I know I've unintentionally hurt people. I'm not great at relationships whatever form they take.

I'm raising awareness because everyone is NOT a little bit Autistic

I'm raising awareness because there are a lot of people ESPECIALLY women who are not diagnosed and are struggling trying to fit in.

I'm raising awareness because and this is hard to admit, I still have a lot of bias around Autism and mental health and that needs to change.

I have to say a massive thank you to my hubby Neil and son Jack. You both truly are my whole world and you make my a nicer place to be in.

I want to say thank you for the women around me who I am privileged to call friends, 'my tribe'. You know who you are, I love you, thank you for the love and support

If you've gotten this far, thank you. In a world where you can be anything, just be kind, you've no idea what some folk struggle with despite the outward appearance