It’s been just over a week where it was confirmed I am indeed autistic with many cross over types into ADHD.
Without the internet and reading other peoples stories maybe I’d not have gone after my son diagnosis. I am different to Z in lots of ways but very similar in so many ways to. His love of languages means nothing to me! Yet I can understand why.
With others talking it opened up way more than you’d have thought, things I thought were just normal – such as having the voices in your head ( internal monologue) that so many don’t have. Not sure if that’s specific to autism I don’t think it is, but it’s interesting!
When I’ve told old friends they’ve replied with ‘ yes it makes sense now we know more about autism’, or ‘ah so that’s why you would do x y or z!’, to some saying ‘ well, some of us already knew!’. So I’ve always been me, I’ve always been the person you either love or hate! Either way it’s never bothered me.
When I try and make some sort of sense, I try and piece things together I remember my uncle throwing me about and me loving it! Climbing up his body over his shoulders and through his legs giggling away – again, again not having the cut off point. Was this just fun or was this me meeting my sensory needs that I didn’t know I needed?!
Me jumping down the stairs over and over, we’ll jumping off anything, I loved to jump. I’d love it when my cousin would come up, being a bit older he was ( at the time!) way more adventurous and would jump off things with me. Into adult hood he told me he would be terrified and wondered why I wasn’t scared of anything. I’d find the biggest tree to climb and the highest walls to jump off ! Now was this sensory – autism or was this hyperactivity – ADHD ?! Who knows I’ll never know but I do know I had a brilliant fun sensory childhood!
That then takes me back to if I was born now I’d not be able to meet those sensory needs if they were sensory. Children are not as free range as I was in the 90’s, sledging in the winter and sliding down grass in the summer on some cardboard boxes! The tree I used to spend my summers climbing you can’t even get near to it as it’s so over grown. The grass we spent hours sliding down is no longer grass but just brambles. I’d be possibly stuck inside like so many children are. We all know when needs are not met what happens, I’m super lucky I was free range!
Still now I like to be out and about, the thought of being stuck inside for days is yucky! Not sure why, maybe the freedom of out and about is what I’m used too?
Before my diagnosis I’d say I’m seeking my own I’m on the waiting list, I’d get no, you can’t be, you talk, you have a job, you’re at uni, you are fine.
Define fine? Or is fine years of masking?
I’m kind of lucky I’ve always been me, I’ve never cared what others think! I’m fortunate I don’t suffer with depression or anxiety like so many others. Children now are different, they may not have the ways to meet their needs like I did. They are mainly alway with parents because it’s a different world now, I know if I were always within mine I’d never have done half of it as it would have been no that’s too high! No don’t jump you’ll hurt yourself, I learnt in my own way natural consequences, natural cause and effect, and had fun doing so!
My answer to would you have wanted to know as a child would be most probably not. Because I’d have been stopped doing so many things I think. At college it would have been more beneficial I think just for a little support, yet I still finished! Just about.
If I was born now would I want to know. Yes. Yes because so much is different and in todays world I’d never have been able to meet the needs I needed to back in the 90’s!
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