My AuDHD Diagnosis How Did THAT happen? Late Diagnosis Journey

My AuDHD Diagnosis How Did THAT happen? Late Diagnosis Journey

The Actualising Woman 🌺 is an unfiltered diary of life after a mental breakdown and a late-diagnosis of ASD and ADHD (AuDHD) at age 57 🌼 As a therapist, empty nester, and entrepreneur, I share the raw reality of recovery: grief, regret, overwhelm and confusion, alongside professional insights, research, and coping tools🌸
This channel is about living unmasked 🌷 rebuilding identity 🌻 and finding strength after years of moving through the world undiagnosed. From mental health struggles to self-actualisation 🌸 (inspired by Carl Rogers and Natalie Rogers), I talk honestly about how I experience my own neurodivergence, and how I am motivated to create a life that finally fits ME🌸

If you’re navigating late-diagnosed ADHD, autism, or AuDHD 🌼, or rebuilding after a breakdown, you’ll find community, understanding and hope here 🌺. 

☕Girl needs COFFEE! Please donate ANY amount, so that I can do this full time?! Thank you! https://buymeacoffee.com/theactualisingwoman

Contact: clare@theactualisingwoman.co.uk for requests, stories for the show or questions.

🎧Check Out!!... STUDY SLEEP SOOTHE - Our Sound Podcast for ASD, ADHD & AuDHD-ers.  Available on Apple & Amazon Music

Clare Llewellyn-Bailey: Counselling psychotherapist, podcaster, empty-nester, and AuDHD-er!!

Transcript

Clare: 0:00

Hi everyone, again. Welcome to episode two of the Blooming Boss Podcast - renamed, The Actualising Woman). I'm Clare. Uh thanks for a fantastic response to the first episode. There'll be thousands more, I'm hoping. So today I wanted to give you a little brief history of what's happened so far for me, and and without giving out too much inf personal information, I want to explain why or how this breakdown stroke diagnosis happened, and then we can move forward from there. That's what I'd like to do. So brace yourself. I have decided to edit how much I say because I'm maybe it's because of the 'TISM' (autism) that I just everything, you know, there's no secrets, no secrets here. Um so I'm going, I'm trying to learn as part of it all, trying to learn how to um not give too much information, you know, but enough uh to be useful and try and decipher what the important bits are gonna be. So I'm also gonna try to be as natural as possible on this uh podcast because that's the whole damn point, you know. This is about being me and who I am, and if I make mistakes, then I make mistakes, so get over it. Like I say, I've got arsy! Um, so okay, so I'm not gonna go right back to the beginning because there's horrible stuff right back at the beginning, and uh I want you to kind of know that, but I don't really want to go into it all. Um but there's childhood trauma there. Okay, so over the decades, um I've I've always thought that I just needed more counselling to get over the trauma from the abuse, but actually it's apparent now that it was because uh the feelings of not feeling right or not fitting in or being different or being odd or all of that actually for me it seems that that was probably the autism uh or ADHD, who knows? Which. So I'm getting some kind of some clarity on what's was going on back there. Anyway, anyway. So fast forward to um I was about 49, I think, and my daughter, no, she hadn't been diagnosed yet, but she thought she had ADHD. I think she was diagnosed about four or five years ago, so it might be five, six years ago, so early when I was in my early 50s and she was in her late 20s. Um, she started to talk about this thing called ADHD, and I have to be honest, I kind of ignored it. I well, I didn't ignore it, I didn't absorb what she was saying at all. I just thought, oh, kind of almost, oh that's nice, dear. That kind of attitude I had because I was all wrapped up in my own thing and my own businesses and my own, you know, I was just dreadful. And um it came to a point where I'd um really got sick of the jobs that I'd had and the businesses I'd had. I'd sold one business and was kind of looking for a change of direction in about 2016, so I decided to write a book, and the book was about my childhood, and of course I've sold about eight copies, you know, so not a millionaire from that one, but um but that was really therapeutic for me to do, and that took about six months to just spew it all, and I put it in kind of diary format, so I didn't really have to make proper paragraphs out of it. I just spewed what I remembered of that time uh through the years, so that was kind of a simple way of doing it, but very therapeutic and glad I did it at that time as well. I thought, well, actually, this is a new era for me, this is kind of a healing time for me, and so this is 2016-17. I will um look at some further education for myself. So I took a life coaching course, did that, past that, and then I did a hypnotherapy course, did that, started to work as a hypnotherapist for a while, and I thought, God, I can't do this without counselling skills. I really need to know how to counsel before doing the hypnotherapy, really. I did it the wrong way around. So my daughter, in all her wisdom, because she's bright, she said, Mum, why don't you go to uni again? And I went, Where do I find the money for that? And she said, No, no, there's all sorts of ways, da da da da da. Next thing I know, I'd enrolled on this damn course at uni and I was to start in the September. I'd had a because this might be relevant. The interview for that uni was on Valentine's Day, and when I was having a cup of coffee in the cafe afterwards, after the whole day kind of interview, I had a TIA. I didn't know it was a TIA at the time. I couldn't speak. I went blind on my right hand side, and it lasted for about the blindness lasted about a minute. Um the not speaking lasted about a minute two. And then I finished the coffee and went to the car and didn't feel right. I knew I was gonna go and find the Krispy Kreme that I knew was in town. So I walked to the because that was my treat for the end of the day, um, having got through the interview. And I knew I went into this precinct where I knew there was a Krispy Kreme and I knew where it was vaguely, but I remember walking around very confused, thinking, I'm going to Krispy Kreme. I'm going to Krispy Kreme. Da la da la I'm going to Krispy Kreme. It was a bit weird. It was as surreal as that, really. And I got there and I bought this donut and it didn't feel right, and I thought, well, I have to drive home. I need to get home. I've got a dog at home waiting for me, I need to get home. And um so I drove home. A bit later in the evening, about half past eleven at night, I thought, oh god, that that was that weird thing today that happened. What was that? And I Googled, which is probably always a mistake with medical things. However, I'm glad I did Google because I might not be here now if I didn't. And I put in the symptoms and everything, and it says basically, call the emergency services. I thought, oh gosh, gosh, this happened at four o'clock this afternoon and now it's you know nearly midnight. Um, so I did. I called the Welsh um 7476 or something number, and they said, Yeah, uh, you shouldn't have driven. Yeah, that's not good, yeah, Claire. Stupid. Um, get yourself to the doctor ASAP. So in the morning, that that was going to be fine because it obviously had already happened. I'd regained myself. I was a little bit anyway, for the rest of the day, anyway, but that was probably because of the the stress of the interview and being tired and having to leave the dog all day and all of that stuff. So anyway, went to the doctor and they said, Yeah, you need to go and see a consultant. And long story short, went to the consultant who said, Yeah, we're gonna put that down as a T I A. Here's your medication, take it, Clare.

Clare's Inner Voice!: 7:44

Shit, shit.

Clare: 7:46

Now I'm getting old. Anyway, so that happened. But then that was so that was February 14th, and the following September I started at uni. Qualified, three-year course, degree in counselling, and the ADHD thing at home, uh, the kids were starting to talk about it more. It was becoming a thing, you know, a real thing. And I thought I better listen to this. And then we studied a bit of it, and we studied autism and how to counsel people with. Uh, and then it came to my final in year three, it came to the final kind of essay project I had to do. It wasn't a thesis, but it was almost as let's say it's half as scary as a thesis, because I know a thesis is huge. Um, so I did this thing about um and I wrote about how doctors, GPs, primary care need to recognize ADHD ADHD symptoms in older people. I mean, girl, am I psychic? ADHD uh symptoms in older people, um, you know, and the GPs, what about you know, talking about the training and and what the information is that they're getting and are they getting the updated information and how do they recognise it, you know, in their offices at the GP surgery, da-da-da. Anyway, past that, got a 2-1 and um started to work for uh two companies that shall remain nameless because they were bloody awful. Um, in fact, so toxic, and these are counseling counseling organizations, these are EAP providers. Um, Google it if you don't know, and it was the worst mistake I ever made. It paid the bills for a couple of years, but um really quite traumatizing for somebody with with or suspected with autism. So I say suspected with autism. What had happened was um what kind of time was that? So in 2023, I had waited about a year and a half and I'd got an appointment through to see if I had ADHD, because my daughter said, It's come from somewhere, mum, it's probably you. And I thanks. Great. So I booked through the GP to go through the NHS and get an ADHD diagnosis, and I waited a while, of course, because we do, it's actually three times longer now by the seam of it. Um, the waiting times. So I had um, so this appointment came up. Um, I had an appointment, I think January time, an initial appointment in 2023, and then by the May, I had this a formal assessment with these who I called the two lovely ladies. And so I met up with them on Zoom, had a Zoom appointment, and is this long-winded? Yeah, it is. But uh, I just I just I want to set the scene really regarding ADHD neurodiversity for me. Um, I'm not gonna spew on about all this every single episode because it only needs to be said once. So I met these two lovely ladies. It was on Zoom and I was really anxious, but I was also very excited because I'd whoops a daisy accidentally borrowed one of my daughter's ADHD pills to see whether it would work, and it was what I call the best day of my life, other than the days I had my children. The third best day of my life, um, and it was unforgettable. And this this pill, sorry, I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about pills, but this particular medication made my brain, instead of it my brain or my thoughts being a plate of spaghetti, you know, all cooked and on all just all higgledy piggledy, it was like somebody had straightened them all out and I could just get on with my day. Awesome. So I was really excited, saw these ladies, started talking about all sorts of stuff, and I'd taken a list of all the reasons why I thought I was ADHD, and they looked at one another after five minutes of me for my verbal diarrhea, looked at one another, grinned at one another, and both shook their heads at the same time. And I said, What, what, what, what, you know, put the brakes on. Put the brakes on. And they said, Clare, no. And I said, What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? And she's they said, We think, like they'd had some psychic conversation already. Um, we don't think it's ADHD. We think it's more likely to be ASD. And I went, oh my life. Well, that's obviously wrong. Lies, lies, it's all lies. And I thought, how can it not be? Oh, I'm not gonna get my pills, I need my pills. I was gutted, I was gutted, but also intrigued about the ASD, and I thought, okay, well, I never googled that. Uh, not enough, anyway, regarding me. I had just looked at the ADHD iceberg and all the things that you look at when you have a suspicion that you have a neuro uh ADHD. So I came away and I hardly listened to what they said. They just said basically, we think you should you should go back to the NHS, go back to UGP and start to proceed with an ASD diagnosis instead. So that's gonna take another three years. And I thought that's not happening. That's not happening because at that time I'd planned to move to France anyway the following year. So that wasn't gonna happen. So I didn't move to France. I just um absorbed this idea that I have ASD and felt that that indeed they were correct. I seemed to tick all those boxes as well as the ADHD ones. So I have kind of claimed that I am ASD, in that the two lovely ladies said so. It feels right, it fits, and I've done enough training professionally to know that actually I can see that that's a point. So I've self-diagnosed. So I didn't move to France, didn't move to France, um, worked in these awful jobs for another two years, and as well as having my own businesses as well, always got another business, a business on the side too. And then in about June this year, my daughter said, Mom, you never went through with that ASD assessment. I said, Oh God, that was years ago. You know, I you know, I've already taken on board and already learnt all the things about AST. Why do I need it written on paper? And she said, Come on now, you know, that would that would actually, it would be great, wouldn't it, to have it written down. Then you would really know. And I thought, actually, yeah, it won't hurt. So I emailed the autism service in our area and had them send through a form. And I filled in the form, and that was so beginning of July this year. And knowing that I've probably got three years to wait, and I thought, you know, two years have gone really quickly. France is seems to be further away than ever, so to speak, not geographically. Um, so I might as well, who knows, you know. And that I think fill in that assessment and asking my daughter to write something about me as well. Um, my school reports I've since found, which would have been really useful at the time, because I can see in there that I'm probably autistic. Um, just and and remembering back to school days, it just fits as well as ADHD. But um so I did that assessment and I knew that I was starting to feel pretty damn miserable and really uncomfortable about everything. It felt like there was this kind of cloud, this thing. The ye this year has been this 12 months, I should say, has been awful. One of the jobs that I had that was keeping me afloat financially, I lost. And I will talk to you about that another time when it seems appropriate, but it was traumatizing. I couldn't sue them because they took seven months to get me the the subject access request information through. They needed their back size sued, like you wouldn't believe. I'm very, very angry, but that was that was the first thing that happened, and that was on the 16th of August last year. And I'm breathed it out, traumatizing, traumatizing. I had asked for support as a self-diagnosed autistic person, and I never got it, and I never got it, and you know, it was a job in counselling as well. Awful, just awful, and I did everything I could to find a way of suing them. However, um, because I lost that job, I also lost most of my income, so immediately I couldn't pay my rent and I couldn't have my dog mended, so I the dog was starting to get really ill, and I couldn't think of a way of I mean, I was shaken right back there. I was in a really weird place, so I had to have the dog put down. So I'd lost my job, I'd lost my dog, I'd lost my support, my comfort. Um then January of this year, a family member got a close family member got cancer, um, is now in recovery and is in remission, so that's good. But at the time, then it turns out that one of my parents has potentially got dementia. Um, I haven't spoken to my family for decades because of the trauma. So I was trying to support and deal with that from afar without actually speaking to them and getting involved. So there was that all the time trying to build a business, so I didn't have to go back into EAP work or any any job. I just wanted to be self-employed. So there was a string of really distressing situations that has happened. Then on top of that, I had that I had a double ear infection, so I was on medication that made me really weird, and that was in June. And then I had the ASD assessment, then I had to apply for something else that needed every single bloody bit of every single bloody information you've ever had and ever done. Anything you'd ever done, I needed to write that down on this in the same week that I had the ASD assessment, and by the end of well, by the middle of July, I was in a bit of a pickle. I was losing the plot. I had had a client, uh, a counselling client for entrepreneurship, and I knew I wasn't right, and I just had to get through it. It was awful. Uh well the session wasn't, but it was awful that I as soon as I make a cup of tea, I'd start crying. As soon as I watched the telly, I'd start crying. Um, so therefore, it all came down, and then by the about the 29th of July, I'd had a meltdown in the doctor's office. It was about something else. Was it about the ears? It might have been about the years. And she made this poor doctor, she made the mistake of asking me how I am. I told her that was a big mistake, and just as I was leaving, you know, you're just going out the door and and I had to kind of come back in because I started to well up and I sat there and I I didn't scream, but I knew I was angry talking and very snotty and very, I mean, snotty and tearful, and the tissues came out, and she seemed to have time to listen. Um I said, I think, um, how do I say this? I'm having thoughts, let's just say it like that. I would never act on them, but I was having thoughts that were scaring me and I didn't feel safe. And so she booked me into the mental health nurse for the Monday, went there. Um, and from that minute onwards, I think that following week onwards, I did not leave the house for about 14-15 days. I didn't I hardly left the sofa. There was this absolute crash. I had not the energy to lift my arm, I didn't have hardly the energy to hold my phone. It was shut down, complete shut down. I could not stop crying, and I've only just in the last few days, I mean this is 29th of July, it's now the last almost the last week of September. I'm only now starting to stop crying. Um sorry, this is going on, but I am only gonna say all this once. So I'm I've just applied for the ASD assessment. They've told me it's 48 months to wait, and I'm thinking that's okay because I'm gonna be 48 months sitting on the sofa crying. So whatever. Um I will tell you I will talk more about the feelings I've had and the thoughts I had and the experiences I had actually while I was in that not non-working time in that phase, because it was really quite spiritual things, thoughts going on as well. And I only just shared this with my daughter yesterday, and it's not for today, um, it's for another time. But um what happened was that I have a neighbour who's a psychiatrist. How lucky is that you landed on your feet, Claire. I actually have landed on my feet. And he it was a Saturday night, it was I think then the 9th of August. The 9th of August this year, and I was in a mess, but I decided to cook for myself that Saturday night, and I put a pizza in, and I was ever so excited about this pizza. And I'd cooked this pizza and I was sitting down and I thought, mmm, you need to get your charger before you get comfy and put the telly on and all that, just just you know, get everything done. And this text came through from this neighbour, and I thought, oh god, not now, I want my pizza, go away, go away, go away. I and I threw a bit of a strop and I thought, God, you can't even can't even have a pizza. And he messaged me and said, Um, hi, how are you doing? Da da da. So I I he he said, Um, oh, I can hear there's a party. Am I missing a party? And I thought, I just want my pizza. And I responded, but what I accidentally did, because I hadn't picked up my glasses to, you know, to answer this text and see who it was, I accidentally dialed him. Oh, and it rang. Oh, now I'm stuck on a phone call with somebody and my pizza's getting cold. What am I gonna do? And I said, Oh, I'm ever so sorry, I didn't mean to ring you. I actually my fingers it actually wasn't even a butt dial, it was a my finger slipped. I that's the last thing I'd want to do because I'm phonophobic. I do not like phoning people, do not like using my phone at all. Um, and he said, I said, no, no, no, absolutely don't worry. He said, Well, why don't you just pop round? Should we do you want to pop around for a drink? You know, because obviously there's people having parties and I'm not invited. So, do you want to pop pot over for a drink? And I thought, I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a spoon, to be honest, right now. I said, actually, to be honest, I'm in a really weird place at the moment. I've spent the last week plus crying and I'm not leaving the house. Um, he said, Oh God, he said, Oh, what's happening? And then, you know, like 20 questions, he asked me all the questions about when and why and how and how's it start and what meds am I taking and what doctor knows and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And he said, Look, come round, he said, we'll have a quick chat and then I'll let you go. And I thought, oh, this is free psychiatry, I'm gonna have to do it. Right, bra back on, pizza, mmm. So I ran round there in my slippers and you know, you know, no makeup, no hair pff, just just a bloody mess. And I thought, well, I don't care because I don't care how I look really. Went in there and he said, um I said that I, you know, I've just applied he said, What's caused it? And I said, well I've just applied for an ASD assessment and I've you know I was told by two lovely ladies a couple of years ago that I didn't have AS ADHD but it was probably ASD and he said, Okay, he said, um He said, I'm gonna give you an assessment. Whoa! Really? Well I can't afford your fees. So we did a deal. We did a deal and I managed to and it was fine. And he said, come around next Saturday, which is the 16th of August, which is a year to the day that I got I lost my job at the other at the EAP place. It's how weird how these things happen. And he said, Um, I'll do your full assessment next week. Fill in these forms, here you go, off you go, I'll tell my secretary, X, Y, and Z, da da da da da. Um, and we'll sort out some meds for you, and da da da. And I came away and I thought, I have no idea what's just happened. So I came back to a now stone-cold pizza. You know, it's not cheese anymore, it's just we're like rubber and almost see-through. So it went in the microwave and I ate the pizza thinking this was all because my finger slipped. It was all because my finger slipped, because if my finger slip hadn't slipped, I wouldn't have called him. If I hadn't have called him, he wouldn't have called me back immediately because I'd stopped it. He wouldn't have called me back, wouldn't have had the opportunities to talk about how the fact I'm absolutely gone into Fruit Loop land. And then therefore I wouldn't have gone round there, and then I wouldn't have had the chance to talk to him about my ASD assessment. And next thing I know, I've got a full whack assessment coming in a week's time. So fast forward to the 16th of August, full WAC assessment, and the results were definitely ASD and scoring very high for childhood and uh later childhood, so adolescent and adult ADHD. Um and now I'm on meds for ADHD, which are the best things ever. So that's what's happened, and that's all only five weeks ago. But it's happened right in the middle of a weird emotional breakdown. I haven't even begun to take on board that I've got an official diagnosis. I will frame the letter that he's giving me. I will frame it and go, told you so, ladies. So I suppose my point here is um is not only to tell you what's happened with me and how I've got to how I am, where I am now rather, but also to say that if you can find the money, find the money and sit in the psychiatrist's chair for goodness sake, because that was over with in eight days instead of the four years it would wait for an ASD assessment, plus the one and a half, two years I already waited for my first ADHD appointment. So instead of six years of waiting, it was eight days just because I my finger slipped. It was the weird weird thing. I'll I'll say that a lot actually. This it was the weirdest thing. The whole last ten weeks, eight weeks have been the weirdest thing. A weird string of events. So that's what happened for me. How lucky I've never been that lucky. But nope, nope, I'll tell you a lie. I did win a bottle of pomane when I was 12 years old at a fair. But no, I realize now how much of a lucky person I am. But that was extraordinary what happened then. Uh, so what I'm saying is pay the money. If you've if you can find the money, pay the money and get your diagnosis because I can now move on and get on with my life once I'm through this breakdown, anyway. So the whole the channel really is about talking about a breakdown, but it's also talking about getting a diagnosis and how the hell you move on from here. For me, on this channel, there's two things going on right now in my life, and I don't really know where one ends and one begins. The ASD assessment kind of kicked off, or was the last the straw that broke the camel's back regarding my mental health and having to go through everything, all the things, all the thoughts, all the all the history, all the childhood stuff again that tipped me over the edge, and then the diagnosis of Aud right in the middle of it, actually, it's great that it's all happened, but I haven't really I it's not the only thing I can focus on right now because the breakdown and the the changes in my neuro yeah neurology actually has changed. So I don't know what is the the effect of a diagnosis or what is breakdown or what is um I don't know. So this is why I've started a channel so I can just spew it out to everybody. You can give me your your thoughts on it. Um okay, so that's that. That's what's happened, that's how I am where I am right now, and hence the beginning of this channel, uh, and talking to people about this topic. It's been huge. It's been huge, it really has. And I very much understand that us older people, it's it's a bit different from when other people are saying, you know, I was late diagnosed at twenty eight. I think nah, that's not late diagnosed. It it's it's later than you would like. Absolutely right. I'm not gonna diss that. I'm just thinking it's a bit different. When you're 58, and it's a bit different when you're 68, because there's all of that, all of that past to reflect on. Yeah. Anyway, more about the real nitty-gritty juicy stuff a bit later on. Um, thank you for listening to this second episode. I've got a huge job editing this now because this is like 40 minutes long, but I just felt that I needed to uh kind of set the scene of what's happened with me to lead me to this point. Okay, all right, thanks so much for listening. Please, and I have to practice doing this, everyone does this on YouTube. Can you like subscribe? Like, subscribe and share. All of that, please. And um, if you want to throw us some bucks as well through buy me a coffee, is it buy me a coffee? I don't even know what it is. I so crap at this. Um, yeah, buy me a coffee. It is buy me a coffee. It just seems weird talking to someone about it because I usually just do it in silence. Anyway, like, share, comment, subscribe, and throw me a quid, please, for a cup of coffee. I'm parched. See, it's gone. There's no coffee. Come on now. Take care, guys.