AuDHD is a combination of ADHD and autism.
It appears that until I was widowed, I wasn’t really being me. I always knew I was different, but growing up I learned how to mask the traits that later led to my diagnosis. Not on purpose or anything. It wasn’t a conscious decision. People were just more accepting of behaviour that they considered normal; and being accepted seemed so much nicer than not being.
I was widowed very suddenly, at home, during lockdown. I performed CPR until the paramedics burst in and turned everything upside down so that they could do their jobs. They were amazing. They tried so hard. We all did.
After that my life changed completely. I spent several months just getting through the days, until I decided I should probably look for something to do. My brother suggested that I might want to be a Content Designer because I’m okay with computers and writing and stuff. I think eloquence runs in the family.
After a little bit of research and a few bumps in the road, I managed to get my first full-time, permanent job in 20 years; which I was very proud of at the time. The 4 part-time jobs that I had before that, as well as running a household, were nothing really.
That first “proper” job was 100% working from home. To help the team get to know each other our manager arranged for us to have Myers-Briggs personality testing, facilitated by an HR coach. I’d done these tests online before so I thought I knew what I was doing, but apparently I did not.
The test asks how you do a whole range of tasks, to work out various things about your personality. Except that it’s not precisely how you do things, but how you would prefer to do them; which I didn’t realise was different. When the facilitator asked me what my preferences were, what I wanted to do rather than what I had always done, it hit me. I didn’t know. No-one had asked me what I wanted for a very long time, so I’d stopped thinking about it. When you have a family to look after you very often do what you have to, rather than what you want to.
Something I learned on the journey to diagnosis is that you’ll be asked a lot of questions about how you do things now and how you did them in the past. Part of being autistic is that you take things literally. If someone asks “Can you do a thing?” I will say “Yes, of course I can do that thing.” When really the answer is, “Actually I can only do that thing if I have several very specific support mechanisms in place. So, no not really, I cannot do that thing.”
Doing the Myers-Briggs test showed me that I had some thinking to do about how I perceive myself and how I am perceived by others. Getting into that mindset really helped when it came to identifying the neurodivergent traits that I’d always had.
A short while after that I was lucky enough to have some career coaching. An hour a week dedicated to figuring out what I wanted was an absolute gift that I didn’t know I needed. I would definitely recommend it, with the caveat that finding the right coach makes all the difference. Mine was awesome, empowering, encouraging. She got me to see rejection as part of the journey. To see a future where I’m recognised, accepted and celebrated for being me; but to find it I have to keep putting myself out there. Keep trying, have faith in myself. I will be rejected by places that are wrong for me, especially if I’m not actually being me.
Masking is a hard habit to break and in all honesty I haven’t totally stopped. It’s a survival instinct, but life is short. I don’t just want to survive. I want to enjoy as much of it as I can.
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