Greetings Everyone
I was searching for more info on autism and neurodivergence and came across the following video.
Autism, Trauma and PTSD -
Many of you wrote about your experiences with having autism and being diagnosed with FND as welI. After watching the video, I can now understand the overlapping symptoms.
Here is another link for latest information on autism in women specifically.
I hope this helps in expanding your horizons. It certainly did for me.
Hi thereI just watched the video and it is very interesting indeed. For a long time now i believe I'm autistic as well as having trauma. I've always felt different to other people from a young child. I have never been diagnosed. I took an online test and it said i had moderate Asperger's. I'm in my fifties now and would feel silly saying it to my GP is there any other way to get diagnosed?
Hi Whirlygirl16
I'm glad you found your truth.
I have linked another video which highlights autism in women.
7 Signs of autism in women.
You might identify more then.
Oh thank you Catz that's very thoughtful of you x
Hi whirlygirl16,
I'm 43 and ended up going down the private route for my autism diagnosis as I had just come out the other side of a 3 and 2 year waiting process for my boys autism diagnosis on the NHS and I just could not cope with more waiting.
It was not cheap and I thought for a long time that self diagnosis was enough but as I had noticed a huge link between my FND flare ups and sensory or social overload I decided I really needed to know for sure.
The great thing for me is that after I was diagnosed I had a neuropsychology referral as part of my FND care and the neuropsychologist was really autism aware, this meant that for the first time (I've had plenty of therapy over the years) I received therapy that looked at my experiences through the lense of autism and it made a huge difference to understanding myself and reframing my life. The neuropsychologist also mentioned that a really high proportion of women she sees with FND are either diaganosed or suspect they are autistic, she said she thinks it is because women tend to use such a lot of energy masking and this extends to times when they are distressed or overwhelmed and therefore the nervous system becomes silently burntout. Having a diagnosis has not changed much in some ways but in others it has changed everything for me. If you are interested in understanding female experiences of autism I would highly recommend this podcast squarepeg.community/podcast/
Hi Willothewisp Àfter reading your message to me, which I'm very grateful for and thank you for the link as well. I think i may also look at going the private route. I don't want a two to three year wait like you had with your boys that's shocking! I can imagine that knowing you are autistic now is such a relief to understand why you behave differently to others? You feel like an alien and that you don't quite belong that's how i feel anyway. Do you feel the same? x
yes I think I always felt different and like I was running to keep up but it wasn't until I developed FND and had to stop, that I realised that all my goals and all the things I have carried shame about for not completing or not being able to do, were based on neurotypical expectations and I had spent most of my life stuck in the threat response of 'fawning' and had been using all my energy people pleasing to stay under the radar and feel safe.
I really get where you are coming. I've been exactly the same for most of my life and it's been exhausting. Hopefully with more research and steps forward they will find more help and more ways for us to cope better in life because i find it so hard🤞 x
I got diagnosed with ASD when I was 48yrs old and there was someone in my autistic group who had just been diagnosed at 73yrs recently. Don't think that you are silly about going to your GP about getting a diagnosis of autism because people are elderly and getting a diagnosis at in their late 60s and 70s and even much older and getting a diagnosis of autism it makes much more sense and understand why you are different to others and why you do things more differently to non autistic people and why you may not fit in or have a belonging and why when changes happen it's why you get very overloaded and can't make sense of the world and why sensory imput is very difficult to deal with. So don't think you are silly or feel embarrassed because there are lots more older people who now relized that they are different and struggled and still struggling with their autistic traits because they relized now that they think maybe they have autism and they are going to their gp to get the diagnosis of autism and don't matter how old you are.
It makes you understand who you are and why you do the things a certain different way and there a lot more to learn about who you are as well
You have made my mind up that I will get checked out now to see if I am autistic. After reading you message about others in your group around the same age as me and older getting diagnosed, makes me feel brave enough to see my GP about it, and ask to be referred. Thank you Tracy x
So glad I shared it with you be brave and strong and the Gp will reflect to the appropriate person to be assessed for autism and I did wait about a year but it was worth it. They were great with me and they knew that I was autistic even though they said that they would send me the results of the assessment of autism. It made sense who I am and why I do the things differently and how my brain thinks differently and why it answers my struggles with sensory imput and and not understanding others about communication and relationships were really never good and why I had so many breakups with family and friends and relationships and I always believed that I was the problem but I wasn't the problem it was my autism that made it really difficult and I was always alone and I didn't know how to connect with others and I didn't talk to anyone in school or work and I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought I was to blame for my older sister not accepting me and I never knew what I did wrong to her because I was a baby after her and she couldn't accept me as she was the older one and I thought it was my fault for being her sister she wanted me to be like her and because I couldn't be her she really bullied me and hated me and I thought it was my thought for being her sister because everything I had she hated and said it was hers and she said that it was hers she wanted me to have long her like her she wanted me to wear makeup and she wanted me to wear fashion clothes and she said that I was stupid or thick when I couldn't ride a bike at 13 or when I couldn't do my laces or I kept falling over all the time in my childhood and she wanted everything I had as well as what she already had and even as a adult as well bullied me right until I was 51 until I ended the contacts as she enjoyed making me feel awful and sad and upset and telling lies about me to my mum so my mum would believe her and she would ring me and be not nice to me as well and it was just awful because my sister knew that my mum would believe her over me but my mum was autistic as well that is why she believed my sister over me my sister caused total havoc within all my family members she shouldn't been believed and got away with it really but she was taking control over me and my siblings and she hurt me physically and mentally and emotionally and financially and online and she thought because she got a mouth she could do it. That's partly where the trauma come from in my childhood and she would say horrible things towards me and was horrible to me and she hasn't changed. She is now 56 . My mum couldn't control her behaviour towards me she was always attacking me physically.
I have ptsd as well I wasn't diagnosed until I was 30yr with ptsd I was sexually abused by my first husband at 20yr old
Hi Tacey
Thank you for your support 🫂
My gosh that's so awful what you went through, and I can totally understand everything you have said. I have suffered sexual abused too, when I was about 12 years old, and also similar relationships with family and friends. Being the youngest they take control of everything, and I agree they blame you for their bad behavior when you attack back after you've had enough. They then say oh she's kicking off again, it makes me so mad Grrr! They never realise it's them that cause the problem in the first place, because of how they act x
Yes exactly that and we have to be strong and brave to not have them in our lives anymore so they can't do this to us anymore because there is a limit to having them in part of our lives as while they are part of our lives they cause us so much pain on us and cause us so much trouble and suffering and they only happy to be in our lives to do pull us down to the ground and they love and enjoy upsetting us torment and torturing us makes them more happy and enjoy when we are feeling down and they just put us more down they hate us when things are going really well for us and they don't like it when things are going well for us and they don't when good things are happening for us and that's when they try their hardest and best to take control of us and steal what we have got to take it from us if they are able to. That's why we can't let them beat us and allow them in our lives again because they will not change their behaviour towards us though I do believe that a person can change because they have a choice to be kind and loving etc or to be evil and unkind and not nice people they can just like that in a moment but they are choosing to stay like this evil behaviour and its a nice and kind person is choosing to be loving and caring and kind etc so we all have a choice. As we have freewill in how we live our lives to do our best or not. I am not saying that our struggles and illnesses and battles we can get out from it just like that because we will have trials and tribulations in this life but as long as we do our best we can even if its a small its better than doing nothing. There are people who don't even want to change their life around or improve their lives and make even a tiny change to make a bit of a difference in their lives that such a sad life staying the same person and not improving their life one little bit to make a little difference to change their situation and circumstances and its such a waste of life when people don't believe that they can do something to make their life a bit more better and more improve themselves and just do their best for today.
You're so right but it's so hard to break tie's when they are family and you love them. I try to spread out getting together with them as much as possible, because I know it makes my fnd worst. I've tried to tell them that they are upsetting me but my one sister uses it against me then, so I close off from her. I wish more people were kind and would not use words and actions against us. It's so sad.
Yes very sad but some family they don't want to improve themselves and be a better person they just enjoy upsetting us and putting us down we don't have to take this behaviour from them we reject it. We don't have to believe what they say about us to use words against us so they can put us down and upset us. They are not getting this to be against us l. 😔
Thanks so much for posting this - it's so clear and informative. Prof Edwards at St George's in London has been doing studies on the link between autism and FND. He told me many of his FND patients have autism. Autism wasn't even suggested to me until I was 60! (This was by a psychologist). My neuropsychiatrist just kept insisting that my FND had to be a result of psychological trauma, even though the trauma couldn't be identified. Over the course of 2 years, this had the effect of gaslighting and resulted in medical PTSD. I used to be the happy, fulfilled type of autistic person; now I'm anxious and depressed. I'm so glad people like the guy in the video, my psychologist and Prof Edwards are out there trying to make sense of all this.
Hi Van604
Thanks so much for sharing your story. I'm glad you did not give up on finding out the right diagnosis, in spite of your bad experience. I firmly believe that if we arm ourselves with knowledge, we have solved part of our illness/conditions.
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