I received the report on 25 February. I asked my carer to go through it with m because I knew that I would struggle, mainly because it was 18 pages long, and my eyes would object to reading that much all at once, and I wanted to understand it fully. I won’t bore you with every detail, but I want to clarify a few things, and some are very interesting and helpful for others to know. I think the first thing is quite stupid… The report suggested that I deliberately banged my hand

On 20 February, I received an email from Questa stating that they had reached an outcome and wanted to call me to discuss the assessment results. When I received that email, lots of emotions ran through my head; initially I was just really excited to finally get an answer, but then I felt incredibly anxious and a bit sick because I had been dealing with this situation of uncertainty for so long and I thought that if they said that I'm not Autistic, I would look like a fool an

I didn't see this myself, but my mum said that I react differently to different people. Of course, everyone acts differently depending on whether they're with a friend, family member, someone you know in passing or a mixture of these relationships. I had to really think about how I react to different people before I wrote this because I wasn't sure, but I tend to be less chatty with people I don't know very well because I don't know what to say, and I don't want to say anythi

I know this is a fine line between an autistic trait and a characteristic of the startle reflex caused by my CP, but I don’t like sudden loud noises. If you put my CP aside for a few minutes, and I know this may sound ridiculous, but my autistic side says loud noises hurt my ears. If noises are really loud, I can cry because they’re too loud and my sensitive ears can’t handle them. This is one of the reasons why I don’t like thunder or fireworks. The build-up to loud bangs of

On 11 February, I had the phone call assessment. I haven't really got much to say about this, but I will tell you what was spoken about… On the phone, my mum and I spoke about my childhood. Although I knew how many friends I had at primary school, it sounded quite sad because I didn't have many. We also spoke about bullies. I was bullied at primary school and senior school, and we spoke about why it might have happened, and then a thought-provoking comment came up: what if I

In the assessment, I was presented with a box full of various toys, and I was invited to “play” with the toys. I thought this was quite weird because I don’t really play with toys anymore, but I went along with it. There was one particular thing with lots of pins in a rectangle, where you could push the pins through to make a pattern or picture. I said that I could possibly do this with my feet. I poked a few pins with my toes. We turned it over, and I said that it sounded li

It wasn’t long after we submitted the last form before I got the appointments for the assessments. There were two assessments. Before the two assessments, I asked two of my friends about what I should expect because I was anxious about them. The first one was face-to-face in Havant, and the second one was over the phone. The day before the face-to-face assessment came, and I was absolutely bricking it. I was aware that the assessment may have changed days, because, after all,

I am generally healthy and don’t need to see my GP often, so I didn’t involve my GP to get on the waiting list for an assessment because I have regular appointments with my consultant. Once I had that initial conversation with my mum, it was relatively straightforward to get on the waiting list. I had been wanting to get on the waiting list for ages before I actually did, but I was worried about what my mum would say because I remember having a bad experience when I brought i

Knowing who you are plays a massive part in accepting yourself, and ever since I started college, I’ve struggled to know who I am. I feel that not many people really know me, and not many people actually want to make the effort to get to know who I am on the inside, and that hurts me deeply. I may not know how to explain them, but I do have feelings. I do want to have conversations and relationships with some people, but I just don’t know where to start. For as long as I can

April is Autism Awareness Month, so it's the perfect time to talk about the ASD assessment process... For the past year or so, I have been on the NHS waiting list to have assessments to see if I am on the Autistic Spectrum. I have always known that I was different from most of my peers at school, but I just assumed that it was all because of my physical disability. As I grew up, I began to realise that something else was going on. At school, I was a happy child most of the ti

I haven’t always known, but I experience burnouts and shutdowns. When I was at college, me having a burnout looked like I was isolating myself. I wouldn’t want to talk to anyone, not even the staff. I would just sit there doing my work without talking. When it came to break time and lunch time, I would talk to people, but only on and off. I sat in the cafeteria because my friend liked to sit there to eat, but I really didn’t like it because it got so loud and crowded, it felt

April is Autism Acceptance/Awareness Month. Autistic Spectrum Disorder is a developmental disability, which affects a person’s understanding and communication, as well as how they view the world. Yes, I have CP and you can see my CP. Yes, I am Autistic, but you cannot see my Autism. People are so quick to judge a person on their behaviours and not accept people for who they are, but in fact, if they bothered to get to know the person inside, they would see a whole different p

I have always known that it shouldn’t matter what other people think about me, but I always have these thoughts in the back of my mind saying that something is wrong with me and I’m not good enough. As Pink (P!nk) says in her song, “You can push me out the window, I’ll just get back up. You can run over me with your 18 wheeler truck and I won’t give a fuck”. I don’t know about you, but this says to me that you shouldn’t let anything or anyone tell you to change or stop being

When we queried the effects of the medication with the doctor, they told us to stop the medicine immediately, just as the pharmacist said. They said that other medicines of this type are likely to have the same kind of effect. When it was explained to me, it made a lot of sense… Anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs work to correct the chemical imbalance in the brain and as my brain is damaged, the medicine had a negative effect on my brain, making my involuntary movements w

In the early stages of taking the medication, I tried using my walking frame because the side effects were meant to go away, and I needed to get on with my life even if my body wasn’t playing ball at the time. That didn’t end well at all! I had separate splints that go inside the full leg splints. I always sit on the sofa to put my splints on, and I had one splint on but I needed to push myself back, so I put my feet down, but my left foot wouldn’t go flat, so I had to push w

In May I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. As I said in the beginning, I knew that I had mental health issues from the age of 16 or 17, but I thought that it was temporary. I thought and hoped that it was just because of teething problems relating to major changes in my life, like transitioning from school to college, but I couldn’t have been further from the truth… In the last few months, my mental health has become a lot worse. Probably a combination of things happ

I don’t have many friends; I only have three or four really good friends, and they mean the world; I honestly don’t know what I’d do without them. Two of them have seen me at my best and worst times, and I know they will be there for me through thick and thin, even when the world feels like it’s crashing down on top of me and I can’t begin to explain what’s going on. Neither of these people realise how amazing they are, nor do they realise how much they mean to me! I’ve alway

At college, I made one friend in the class, but even though this may sound horrible, I didn’t feel like she was a true friend, more of an acquaintance. I had this person around for a few hours at my parent’s house once, and to be honest, I didn’t feel one hundred per cent comfortable with her, and I realised that I only made friends with her because I thought it was the “right” thing to do at that age and my college encouraged me to make friends. Soon after my second year of

Written between 27 May and 12 December 2024 I only remember having three friends throughout primary school, and we soon drifted apart once we moved to senior school. Looking back on my life at senior school, I now realise that I only had about three or four friends throughout the five years I was there. I didn’t realise this then, but I didn’t have conversations with other pupils apart from my immediate friends. I have struggled with my mental health for many years, more sp