Hello Everyone!
I hope you are all doing well in spite of the fact we are all disabled and thus not deserving of doing well - unless your definition of "well" is being tied down to a chair and licked by the flames of despair in an agonising hell filled with a thousand tv screens all showing a gently smiling Ian Duncan Smith.
With that greeting out the way, I'd like to introduce myself.
I'm a 31 year old weirdo - sorry "Aspie" as I still call it.
Of course it's now known as the more progressive sounding "Autism Spectrum Disorder". I still call it Aspergers due to the specificity of higher function that term denotes as compared to the vagary of the former. Irrespective of the terminology I'm ultimately a freakish weirdo staring into the blurry horizon of unmet expectations; a distorted and fragmented reality permeates the crack in my rose tinted glasses, threatening my Idealism and reinforcing my sympathy for normies.
I still haven't introduced myself, have I?
Ok so ummm....
I'm a 31yr old Scottish guy who has ASD and probably ADHD (currently in assessment)
I was removed by SS from a dysfunctional birth family dynamic and grew up in secure care institutions, partly because I was a psychotic and incredibly violent child, physically and sexually violent towards other child and even adults, even myself through slashing my wrists with pieces of glass and attempts to strangle myself - I was under the constant assessment of the NHS Camhs service.
I've struggled massively since leaving care at 16. I've been unable to hold down any job for any amount of time; issues with conduct, issues with meltdowns, issues with poor performance, issues with workplace social dynamics, issues with executive function; inability to manage time effectively or plan and organise.
Sleep has also been an area of lifetime dysfunction for me in various ways.
Sometimes I forget to eat, I struggle to start and finish tasks, I struggle to remember directions despite driving somewhere 20+ times, I struggle to remember which lane I should be in, I struggle with complex logic and or too much instruction at once, I forget things a lot - many appointments get missed!
I also have a rather odd way of communicating; socially I'm generally an outcasted alien left to my own devices. I struggle massively to make friends, keep friends and develop and maintain a connection/bond with other human beings. I come across as a bit flat and aloof. I live alone - no woman seems to want to date me! Pamela and her five sisters is Indeed all I have in that respect.
So... yeah that's me! Sorry for banging on a bit there but I just wanted to provide a bit scope and lay ground to the reason I find myself here in this forum.
I'm currently involved with Social Work and my GP in trying to secure an ADHD assessment. I provided my GP with a huge folder I have of all my old childhood NHS Camhs records (two large volumes) as well as folders of old social work reports, care home reports, occupational and play therapy reports, incident reports etc and the GP said she'd be amazed if I didn't meet the criteria - currently awaiting an assessment.
I had a DWP UC50 Health Assessment a week ago, I passed this no problem and the assessor on the phone said she could see from my records that I was given an aspergers diagnosis back in 2005 - I wasn't aware of any formal diagnosis, I thought it was just strong clinical opinion but my GP said she also could see a "diagnosis" there. How would I find out for sure?
So I passed the UC50 and I'm now in the LCWRA group, citizens advice have recommended and encouraged me to apply for PIP or as is now known in Scotland "ADP", what would be my chances of being accepted for this based on this novel that I've written here? I'm going to apply for this anyway, Citizens Advice wrote out my UC50 for me and said they would write my ADP application for me as a next step.
So yeah, any thoughts would be appreciated on how I should go forward, any advice on the ADP process would be appreciated! Any thoughts on the ADHD assessment process would also be helpful perhaps and just generally any advice you think is relevant
Thanks for reading all this and I look forward to my time in this community!
