Damian’s Autism Discovery (Part 1)

Can you tell me a bit about your autism journey? Um, Well, up until 2023, I had no idea that I was autistic, um, it was through counselling with talking therapies that I, I, I sort of discovered a little bit through them, however, my daughter had had an ADHD, um. An ADHD, um, diagnosis diagnosis, well, an assessment and diagnosis, and she told me, um. Probably a year about before, probably 2022 that she was having this assessment and. I first of all thought, no, she's not got ADHD, it's not a chance she's got ADHD, um, and she'd read into it a little bit too much on Facebook on on uh on Google and online, um, but she presented me with this list, she's very thorough, Beth, um, and she presented me with this list of all the reasons that she thought she'd got ADHD.

And I completely relate to every single point. Almost exactly, which made me think, well, It's not necessarily ADHD. I could explain a lot of bits and pieces, so anyway.

That was back in maybe like I say 2023, um. I then, while I was. Um, in the middle of some therapy with with talking therapies and it was just counselling, um, I was having relationship issues with Beth, and there was all sorts of other bits and pieces, so it wasn't CBT counselling, it was actually, it was questions and answers.

And I explained about Beth's autism, uh Beth's ADHD, and halfway through the actual therapy, she actually got a diagnosis of ADHD which I then wondered, well, Maybe I've got ADHD, I presented it literally like that to the therapist, and towards the end of therapy, uh, which was, I believe, uh, 20 weeks of therapy, he said to me, um, We've come to the end of therapy, um, I believe you're showing traits of autism and. Um, he highlighted two or three of them, and he actually, all he said was, would you like some support in finding out more? Um, and of course I thought, well, if that explains a lot about me and my tiredness, lots of other bits and pieces. I didn't know anything about autism at the time, but I thought if that could potentially explain more about me and my troubles.

I seem to be in and out of therapy when I have certain relationship issues or certain problems doing things and um I, I decided to take up on, on his, um, on his invite to actually have some professional support, and he wrote a letter to my doctor, my doctor I got essentially then got fast tracked to have my Autism diagnosis, whereas if I'd have gone through the normal routes, it would have been obviously taken years. Um, by the time I'd actually got my diagnosis. Um, I had to fill in a huge form.

It must have been about, I don't know, 10 pages, and it took an awful lot of time, it took an awful lot of energy. I had, I had to have my dad. It wasn't necessarily my dad, it was somebody close that had known me since I was a young lad.

My mom passed in 2020, so it was essentially my dad's. Duty, I suppose, he was the best person to help with the assessment and filling his half of the of the form, um, and, while this was going on, I was actually having further CBT therapy, um, and, strangely enough, this girl also picked up on autistic traits. The therapy was not aimed at autism, but halfway through the therapy, I got the positive for my autism, and that then changed the way that she was counselling me and giving me therapy because she recognised that a lot of what I was talking about was.

Completely connected with autism, so she was able to actually help me. Her brother, who she'd literally brought up, apparently she had not had the best life, and she'd essentially brought up her brother who was autistic, so she was actually very, very familiar with autism. Um, and so the therapy changed, um.

It, it was very difficult when I got the assessment, uh the the the the actual diagnosis. I'd actually already booked a week away at the caravan, uh because I wanted time on my own to sort of absorb. What that actually meant because even though I didn't want autism.

I knew that When I got autism, I, if it was a positive diagnosis, that would have explained a lot of things about my past and would have helped me out. If I'd have been diagnosed as not having autism, I would have then had an awful lot of questions about my past still to answer. So I'd already booked this this week at the caravan, and of course the diagnosis was positive, so it gave me some chance to sort of look into autism.

Before the actual autism, um, I decided before the diagnosis, I went into it blind. I didn't want to find out about autism. I didn't want to bias the situation, the decision.

I wanted to write on paper. Answers to the questions based on what happened to me without any idea about what autism really was, and I'm still learning about autism, so I really didn't know. So for it to come back positive was um.

An eye opener and it it's, I'm still, it's uh I actually got the diagnosis in April 2025 this year, uh so it's relatively new, um, I've got further support. Since finishing my last bit of counselling, that was, ended up being more autism led, but that therapist also helped me, um, with a group called Respect for All, uh who deal with neurodivergent, Patients, um, but the beauty of it all is, is that all the counsellors, all the therapists are all neurodivergent as well, so they, they understand, um. Hopefully understand me a little bit to do with, with the therapy that I'm now getting, um, that's another 21, 22 weeks, which I'm week 5 into, but alongside that, I've also been a part of a, um, an online community, uh, we meet up on a Thursday night, um, we're all, we're all autistic, the person that's leading it is autistic.

Um, and it's pretty much a slideshow with gaps in between to talk and discuss what we've learned from the slides, but it's essentially what is autism. Bold. It's really deep and it's it's we, we, we, we find out and talk about the latest um scientific, um, Views on autism, the findings of autism, and it's, that is really eye opening, it's nice to be part of a group where you feel that you are talking to autistic people.

But finding out, for example, that everybody on the autistic spectrum is just as unique as, um, people who are neurotypical, um, It's very easy for somebody on the outside, even for myself who is autistic, before I knew more, to think of autism as Somebody a little bit chubby with headphones on, uh, stemming, walking on the street stemming, um, and potentially having learning difficulties on one level but being extremely intelligent on another, um. We're all unique. Um And I'm still on that journey at the minute, I'm still, I'm still finding out more, uh, one of the biggest hurdles was, um,.