A new look…

…As soon as I can afford to pay for it…

Hi there! I’m attempting to make the blog look new and different… because a) I got bored with the old look and b) I’m officially going for a diagnosis for myself.

I knew ages ago that I was Autistic, and the self-diagnosis was enough for a while, but with my youngest son going into primary school full time in September, and my younger daughter being backed by the school in my request to get DLA, as well as my attempt to get back into the workforce part-time, I felt it was time to have something to back myself up with for future employers etc.

So I asked the doctor for a referral to get assessed for Autism / ADHD.

And everyone reading this is going to join me on my official journey. I’ll start with the phonecall…

It takes Guts…

It takes me ages to get the guts up to actually phone the doctors. I grew up with the feeling that I was a hyperchondriac, because every time I felt something different and it made me feel unhappy, I’d tell my mum and she’d make a Doctor’s appt for me. She didn’t come with me to appts after I turned 16 though.
The Family Doctor, one day told me that I was a hyperchondriac and to stop coming to the surgery for everything and wasting his time with nothing. So I did.

I didn’t go to the doctor again until I was at Uni and had to register with a local surgery. The next time after that was when I had a positive pregnancy test…

Anyhow, it’s left me with a lifelong anxiety about wasting the doctor’s time. And that extended to bothering anyone with how I was feeling. Didn’t matter if I was sick or unhappy, I didn’t talk to anyone.
Making any phone call is hard because I get really shaky and anxious that I’m going to press the wrong button or say the wrong thing and when I get a human, I blurt everything out before I have done the security function – all I need is a button that says “press this to talk to a human being”…
I have to phone as close as possible to 8am. I hate the damn autocue machine. I’m lucky that my doctor’s has a “press 1 to set up callback and keep your place in the queue” function, but I have about 5 button presses to get through before I can use that one – one for language, one for why I want to talk to someone…. you get the idea.

Then I have to talk to the receptionist and explain why I want a doctor’s appointment, endure the silent judgement of the receptionist (not all of them have that tone of silence, but there are at least two that do) and then remember to say thank you.

*sigh*

So I got through that bit, waited for the doctor to call me and then answer him. Or Her. Or Them. I never know who I am going to get, it’s a multi-doctor practice and you get a different doctor every time. You have five to ten minutes to explain the problem and see what they say.
On this occasion, I got a young male doctor, which was a relief – the older ones have a tendency to patronise me – and I explained about my need for a allergy referral and a Autism / ADHD referral. Gave him the back story – kids being autistic, partner autistic, how it’s affecting my depression etc. He listened impatiently – apparently he was behind on his calls and I was taking too long – and said he would do both referrals and that he needed me to write this all down and bring it in.
I explained that I couldn’t get in and could I do it by email instead? He says yes and rings off.

Now I have to think of what to put on the email.

It’s now been just over 3 weeks since that phone call… shit….

Excuse me… I have an email to write…..

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