Diagnosis

Today I was diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. While my first reaction is to be extremely relieved (I spent the car journey to the appointment imagining the worst possible outcomes) I don’t really know how to feel/react now. I am happy that the diagnosis finally happened after waiting about six months for it, but there’s also a feeling of ‘what now?’ My mum wants the family to go out for a meal to celebrate, which is nice but slightly weird. It’s a bit strange because one wouldn’t usually celebrate a diagnosis, however my parents have had me pestering them about it for half a year so they’re probably glad it’s finally over!

What happens now is I have to send stuff to my current school and my prospective university so they can sort support and accommodations, which I will need if I am going to survive more than a week living in a city. Thankfully, there is a really good student support team at my current school who are all amazing but the person who looks after sixth formers is going to be even more amazing. Even though she is on maternity leave she is still going to sort some of my uni stuff and I can’t thank her enough! If everything works out I should get there in September with a support system in place.

I think I was expecting something more substantial than just the verbal confirmation that I’m autistic (they are also going to send me a letter). I don’t know what I expected, but I don’t think the news will sink in until I get that letter. Maybe I thought I would get a badge! Actually that’s not a bad idea…

Anyway I have to get on with making a badge ‘revising’. Have a good week!

 

The Body, the Brain and the Mind

I’m back! I’ve been wanting to write a new post since Wednesday but I’ve had too many ideas (for a change). I decided to write about this topic because there doesn’t seem to be much info online about it.

My body doesn’t communicate accurately with my brain and vice versa. Obviously it communicates enough to keep me alive as a (semi) functioning human being. But it seems if anything changes in my body my brain’s first reaction is to pump me full of adrenaline. For example I rarely know when I’m ill. I just get really anxious and I can’t calm down, which leads to the internal monologue of ‘Why am I panicking? Have I forgotten something bad?’, but I can’t think of a reason that I am anxious which is actually worse than having a reason in some respects. A lot of the time I don’t know that I am ill until I throw up. This causes problems as I can end up going to school (the last time this happened I ended up half collapsing in class from exhaustion, illness and a panic attack – such fun).

Another example of ineffective communication is when I am stressed. Funnily enough, most of the time that I am stressed I think I’m ill. This is due to my brain and body not telling my conscious mind that I am stressed out. So I start getting headaches, rashes and start feeling really tired. After a few days of completely different symptoms I usually work out that I am stressed, but sometimes it’s not until the second bout of the mystery ‘illness’ that I think it might be something else.

I know that physical symptoms of stress are very common, but getting anxious instead of nauseous seems a bit weird. I’ve googled it so many times and I always come up with nothing. So am I just strange or have any of you come across this before? I appreciate all your comments