Autism referral

Hi there Scope friends,

Im not fully sure what the purpose of my message is on here…Ive never done anything like this before. Ive never wrote my feelings down in a public forum and am not sure what to expect. Im also scared. Scared of sounding stupid because I cant write things simply or in order or not getting straight to the point…They say there is a first time for everything so here goes! And if this all goes wrong I suppose I can always delete the post

I have just received a letter from the autism team in my local area that my GP had referred me to. The form does not look like a difficult form to fill in and most people would probably find it very easy to fill in. But as soon as I started reading the questions I burst out crying because I couldnt get the answers/words out of my head to write in the small boxes. Some of the questions are easy enough to read and understand so why can I not answer them? Why am I struggling to write things down on this form? Why am I feeling very overwhelmed?

The only question that I can just about answer at the moment is question 1 which asks "What is the reason for your referral?" My answer would be, "the reason for my referral is because im starting to face all the things ive pushed down for years. For the past few years Ive been talking about suicide and not wanting to be here anymore and have begged my GP to help me" This is the reason for my referral….im not sure if thats a wrong or right answer but its the only answer I can write down

There is so much more to write in regards to what ive been going through but this is all I could muster up the strength to write …This was all I could write in this small box…

My GP seems to think there is a high chance I may have autism too, which I actually agree with hence her referral. To be honest, ive struggled with the death thoughts for many years but kept them to myself and just tried to crack on" so to speak up until a few years ago, when I started to go through the menopause and couldnt hide my true feelings anymore so everything I was feeling just started to come out verbally. I couldnt hold the thoughts in anymore. It was too difficult. I also have a condition called Tourretes syndrome, which causes me to suffer in ways that could have "masked" the autism, and could possibly have been one of the main reasons autism was never picked up on . I was diagnosed 27 years ago age 24 and interestingly Ive just found out that its actually quite common for people with Tourettes to have autism/ADHD yet it was never picked up with me. Ive been recently asking myself why wasnt it picked up…I suppose the only answer that comes to mind is it probably never got discussed on my part because every time I went to the Tourettes clinic we always just concentrated on my depression and the tics and how they were affecting me and by the time I finished explaining it was the end of the appointment…