The Next Stage

I deliberately left off a key achievement in my previous post because I wanted to make sure that I started and ended this post on a positive note. After distributing my post to many friends and family, they all said the same thing, you missed off that you passed your probation period and you haven’t given yourself enough credit for the hard work that you put in to pass it. Right, I haven’t and all of this is why I have started a course on a ‘building self-confidence’ with my local Community College – I will come back to that later on.

First, I want to talk about the reason why I am doing this post – a possible Autism Spectrum Diagnosis and the journey of it. Bear with me if I repeat myself from my last post. I enquired with a local Diagnostic Centre regarding their free pre-assessments, they sent out the questionnaire, I think that was the repeat. So, the questionnaire has two parts, one part for me – that was the slightly longer part and another part for a family member, who has known me from childhood. The whole thing including the family member section probably took no longer than 40 minutes, this was a welcome relief as I had already prepared myself for a lengthy document considering the time the assessments take as standard when going through the formal assessment.

I told myself, I will fill it out with a gut answer as the questions were all either yes-no or strongly agree-strongly disagree. At this stage I won’t bias anyone going through the same process by giving examples, but I hope in the same breath, it alleviates any anxiety that could be felt in the process of waiting for the pre-assessment to arrive. As my mum doesn’t live nearby I decided to call her and ask her the questions from the family member assessment. This was also nice, because I got to hear more about myself as a child and discuss the difference between what I felt as a child and what my mum saw as my parent. I didn’t comment or bias any of her answers, but I did mark down the very first response that she gave me, same as mine – gut responses. I sealed it up and sent it back again, preparing myself for a lengthy wait while they tally up my responses.

Surprisingly, within two days I received a phone call. I had been nervous nonetheless, as all that I had in my mind was that I wouldn’t qualify for the formal assessment and then all of the help that I was receiving at work, would go away. The lady who phoned me was really nice, clear and patient. She first explained that my pre-assessment was a little boarder line in terms of qualifying for the formal assessment and that they always speak to the client before deciding whether or not it is worth exploring a diagnosis. She asked me a series of questions, which actually, really helped realise how much I truly understand myself as a person, which in itself is such an amazing thing. Anyway, I digress, after having a 30 minute conversation with her, she says to me, I have enough information now and thank you for providing it, I do think that it is worth exploring a formal diagnosis. Then she goes on to say that they don’t take NHS referrals, I was crushed, I had convinced myself that it would be smooth sailing, I would do the pre-assessment, take it to my GP and ask to be referred to them.

Luckily the lady at the assessment centre was extremely helpful, she even told me that she would send my pre-assessment back to me and an email with all of my options, i.e. going private, funding, NHS centres and what benefits there are having a private and NHS diagnosis (private ones are apparently a lot more thorough). So, I am relieved that I can explore a diagnosis, even if it means potentially going private, the next steps on this one though, is to make an appointment with my GP and request a referral, following the assessment centre’s email.

Back to the Building-Self Confidence workshop that I am doing. HR recommended a bunch of workshops at my local Community College, the one that jumped out at me was the aforementioned. This is because, despite the feedback I get regarding me as a person, I really am lacking in confidence at work. The first session was earlier this week and well, it was very intense to say the least. Whilst the actual content of the workshop was easy to follow and quite informative for me, the people who attend are there for very different reasons to me, which is all fine, just different. So, we started with round the room introductions after the tutor done her own intro and brief on the course. We had to say our name, something about ourselves, why we are at the workshop and something that we are grateful for. Well, I knew what I would say, I am here because I started my job in January 2019, it wasn’t smooth sailing and it seems as though I lack some confidence. I didn’t say that, instead, I shared my name, and then couldn’t say much more. The reasons why other people were there, just overwhelmed me, I clammed up and didn’t want to say much more because I couldn’t get past the sadness from what other people had shared.

There are people there because they attempted to take their own lives, self-harmed, don’t speak with their own family, have memory problems and even have been told they are not worthy. I felt sad for them but also took something from them that I don’t think they will ever realise they gave me – some confidence!!!! Despite my different reasons for being there to them, we all felt the same. They were extremely supportive of me not sharing because of my sadness, they were so encouraging toward helping me through the class, despite the fact that they are experiencing their own battles – it’s nice to see and be around people like them. This is where I think I will end, seeing as it’s on a positive note. Stay tuned for my next post on my work-based support….