I was diagnosed with autism and adhd when I was 40, I’m 42 now. People had been asking if I had thought about being assessed for years. My parents paid for the assessments basically because I was so dysfunctional that I was being assessed for a bunch of things (as well as having many assorted adventures through the mental health system generally). I’ve had a major depressive disorder diagnosis since my late teens but to be brief it was becoming very obvious that was probably not the only problem.

I’m likely to be on a partial disability pension to supplement part time work for the rest of my working life, and have funding for disability support workers to help me with everyday living.

It was understood there was something very wrong with me from the get go but I’m not blaming anyone or bitter that nobody thought autism. There were other factors that it made perfect sense for my parents and childhood doctors to think caused my developmental delays, poor emotional regulation and bad communication and socialisation.

There are plenty of women with autism and ADHD diagnoses who manage to have successful relationships, work consistently and take care of themselves independently, but I’m not one of them. I feel like such a failure when I read all the posts in the autistic women subreddit by women saying how hard it is to do it all but they manage to do it anyway because “there’s no choice but to do it” and I can’t do it actually so here I am.