EchoBlog

Last week, I posted ‘The List’. The big, scary, terrifying list. It was a catalogue of pretty common postnatal mental health symptoms. It was to help people who can’t quite say the bad thing out loud yet. Print it out. Highlight what’s relevant to you. Show a doctor. A nurse. A health visitor. My aim was to cut out 18 months of needless heartache and self-flagellation for those coming after me. Simple.

But then I panicked. Well, my brain panicked and tried to drag my body along for the ride. I thought I was resisting but I was sneakily doing sneaky compulsions, like endlessly re-reading it over and over to see what could put me in prison or have me sectioned. Each read lessened my anxiety for a micro second then ramped right back up. Better read it ONE more time to be SURE it’s ok.

I didn’t sleep that night. I thought ‘someone’ out there would report me and there’d be a knock on the door at 3am with a Thought Warrant and they would take away my baby and then take away my freedom. Best not to sleep. You don’t want to be groggy when the police arrive.

Ironically, the next day I had a pre-planned appointment with my GP (booked 8 weeks previously - thanks NHS!) and I decided to go for it. The appointment was primarily to sort out these evil migraines I keep getting but my OCD came up and I finally asked the question I had wanted to ask a medical professional for what seemed like my whole life…

“Is there any point in me pursuing an autism assessment?”.

I’m not sure what I expected the reaction to be. A laugh. A dismissive wave of the hand. A ‘Well, if you want to wait 2 years, knock yourself out’. What I got was an “Absolutely. Let me get you the assessment form”.

Huh.

Ok. Maybe I wasn’t crazy or misguided or trying to be trendy (more on that later). I also did the assessment for ADHD and hit quite a few markers. My niece is autistic, diagnosed at 2 years old and the reason I became an ambassador for The National Autistic Society. Maybe charity starts a little closer to home than I’d previously thought. I’ve seen the fight by brother and sister-in-law have had (she’s now 14). Every phase, every milestone, every basic right that “normal” kids get, had to be ‘put in place’ for her. It’s a tale I hear again and again. My heart breaks for the millions of autistic people and their families who have to go into battle everyday just to be seen.

The other stigma is that it’s all very fashionable to have mental health issues nowadays. Never mind the fact that these conditions have always existed, we just didn’t call them this or treat them appropriately. A hundred years ago after having my baby, I would have been seen as hysterical or mad. Two hundred years ago, I would have been committed by my husband or father or whoever owned me at the time. It’s a bit like how we don’t think that smallpox is a demonic presence anymore. We learn, we adapt. But I often hear that it’s all very convenient for people to have “something wrong with them”. I once said I feel like I’m collecting letters…IVF, OCD, ERP, CBT, ADHD, ASD, TIT (ok, that last one isn’t real) but whilst these acronyms are a useful shorthand, it’s made it easier for people to dismiss them rather than as something a real person has to live with. This isn’t just alphabet soup. They are life sentences, if you don’t get the right help. And it’s hard to get the right help when you’re disregarded as an attention-seeker or just following a trend.

My need for a diagnosis isn’t about medication or benefits - I don’t think I need that - although I fear the local authority will worry that’s the case and prolong the process as they just can’t afford to have one more person with Autism Spectrum Disorder on their books. For me, it’s a validation that there are things I do and ways I am, that no matter how hard I try, I cannot change. I guess I’m looking for someone to tell me it’s ok to be me.

Pretty pathetic really.

My brain agrees.

And so after the wobble of ‘The List’ and the possible fallout, I chose to think differently. I’m now actively CHOOSING to see what I have long held as weaknesses or barriers as strength and specialities. I’ve never really felt like I fitted in well in this industry. On the one hand, I don’t. I’m from and still live in a Welsh Valleys town. I have no familial links to the business and I don’t come from money. I didn’t go to the right schools and I don’t have the right accent. But more than that, I feel like, every job I’ve ever had was a fluke. Full imposter syndrome at work, even 17 years on. It’s like I’ve spent my whole career trying to be a square peg in a round hole. But what if my magic lies in my squareness? What if not being round like everybody else makes you extraordinary? What if being different isn’t scary and lonely but freeing and, dare I say it, empowering?

Does it always work? No. Am I keeping on with it? Yes. Because for the first time in a very long time, I’m leaning into everything I’ve been taught to think is a flaw. For my recovery from severe postnatal OCD, where for so long I cared too much about too much, I had to brutally learn to shrug things off. My brain sends me an alarm that a possible horrendous scenario might happen? Instead of devoting ALL of my time trying to prevent The Bad Thing and then punishing myself for the possibility of the possibility even existing, I had to learn to shrug my shoulders and say “ok, maybe…”

So I’m applying the Shrug Method here. Instead of presenting a version of myself that I’ve second-guessed someone wants, what if I’m entirely, authentically me and I fly?

What if you fall? replies OCD.

“But what if I don’t? Anyways, can’t stay to chat, Brain, I’ve got to get bread and milk and my little boy from school. Thanks, though”.

Huh.

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