Eleanorrr

Hey everyone hope this ok to post, I just wondered if anyone had any experience or advice in regards to getting seen either by NHS or private and having an ADHD and autism assessment as an adult and if anyone with these can relate. I am in my late twenties and i am certain I have ADHD and possibly autism. My whole life I have struggled with sleeping, eating, concentration, anxiety, depression, speaking to people and making friends (for the first 6 years of my life I was a selective mute and no friends at school), always felt like the odd one out of my friend groups, I have had many friends in my teenage years but I feel like no one ever really knew the real me as I was always a people pleaser and just wanted to be liked and to have a friendship group and used to pretend to be like them. I used to be such a party girl. It’s only in recent years since covid really that I’ve noticed how much I struggle compared to everyone else to just cope with life in general. I feel like since covid I have regressed and lost any social ability or skills in general that I did gain throughout my teenage years and I can’t even imagine going on nights out now and using up all that energy talking to people all night long, or even for an hour or two. This has even filtered into my work life, I look back at when I was a teenager/early twenties and I would work full time with a very busy socially demanding job (waitressing) and I look back now and it’s like honestly how on earth did I do that. How did I not get burnt out? I worked way more hours, even a second job at one point working double shifts, had more friends, just more demanding and busier life in general. My job now is still social (more one on one) but it’s not as demanding and also a lot more creative which I love, but it’s only now that I’ve got a more serious job that I notice how much I struggle with actually coping with work life, I don’t know how to describe what I mean but it’s like I’ve gotten a better job that I love and have worked hard to get but my god I struggle more than ever before because it’s a more serious role and there’s more that I could mess up and way more responsibilities to keep on top of weekly. I crumble a lot of the time, have full on meltdowns in the morning and end up having to make something totally crazy up so that I don’t have to go in and I will then spend all day under my duvet in bed crying and not being able to decide what to eat and not being able to function. Like there’s absolutely no way when I feel like that that I would be able to just put it to one side and cope at work for the rest of the day. I struggle with eating everyday and over the last couple years I have lost so much weight. I don’t have an eating disorder it’s the deciding what to eat. It’s become harder over the last few years as I realise now that when I was younger and working in hospitality I used to get a free meal at work everyday for years on my breaks and there was also a constant flow of spare food to pick from all day and so I wouldn’t have to decide as much which meant I didn’t get worked up over it. I absolutely love food, it sucks and reduces me to tears most days. It makes me feel incapable of just adult life and like a complete failure. Studying at college for what I do now a couple years ago was absolute hell, that’s when I really noticed how much harder I was finding it all that other students, but I stuck at it as I had never stuck at any career or interests my whole life and I was desperate to feel worthy of something and be good at at least something. I honestly don’t know how I even completed the course it was again just meltdown after meltdown and I didn’t enjoy college at all and it gave me so much anxiety and I made no friends from it whatsoever. Everyone seemed to gel together except me. There was only one girl that had time for me and that was because she also struggled to intergrate herself into the class as she didn’t speak as much English and couldn’t communicate as well. Over the last couple years of my life seeming to get increasingly harder to cope with, it’s meant that I have lost what I thought were my two longest friends, one of them lost her patience with me last year calling me embarrassing and an awful friend on top of so much hurtful stuff for me not wanting to and also not having the money to go on nights out as much anymore, and the other friend just followed in her footsteps when I tried to reach out to them both multiple times and she ghosted me after I poured my heart out to her. I would always try and make other plans other than going on nights out with them like a nice meal or something or I offer for them to come over and I cook for them but they weren’t interested. I just mentally and physically haven’t got it in me to go on nights out anymore I always get overstimulated and don’t have fun and I couldn’t keep up with them anymore. On top of that i have been the poorest I’ve ever been in my adult life the past couple or years with going back to college and starting out in a new career, so I wasn’t able to meet up as many times as what the other two did. We would go on nights out in cities we aren’t from and they would run away and ditch me for boys they had met, and then gaslight me the next day into it never happening and that I was being dramatic. We were best friends of 15 years and it hurts so much. I miss them but I know they aren’t good for me as I never did anything to them for them to turn on me except from just go through a hard time. It’s like they paired up against me and just decided they hated me one day. I would never make them feel uncomfortable or put any of my life stresses on them, one reason being because I don’t like to burden anyone and secondly because as I never felt I could talk to them about it as they were never ‘emotional’ friends that I could open up to or cry to like that. But they knew I was having a hard time as I did communicate this to them and tried to explain why I didn’t want to do nights out and drinking anymore. We became friends in our teenage years when we loved to go out and party together and I think we just got older and I was still trying to cling onto the friendships as I loved them both and valued all our years of laughs and trips away and parties and stuff and I thought it meant more to them and me than just going out and getting wasted. I could also tell towards the end of our friendship that they would laugh behind my back and the more weakness I displayed was more fuel for them to have a good laugh. This was confirmed after seeing on one of their phones when they were looking for something scrolling that they had been sending pictures of me to one another over WhatsApp and laughing at my latest posts etc. It absolutely broke my heart as it was like I had struggled my whole life to make lasting friendships and I had finally got two mates who I thought cared about me as we were friends for so long and they just ditched me out of nowhere when I didn’t fit in with their lives anymore and I wasn’t fun to them anymore. I would go above and beyond for them and anyone in our group, I was never once toxic to them, made them feel awkward about my personal struggles, never put anything on them, if anything looking back now I would pretend that I was more ok than what I was all the time because I just wanted to be like them and to be their friend. Since losing the them it’s meant that I have now lost my whole friendship group that used to come out with us, I have had to leave group chats etc which has meant that the mutual friends we did have I never see anymore as I would only ever see them if they invited me out to something, I never really used to hang out with the others one on one like I did with those and so it doesn’t feel natural to try and force friendships when no one has bothered with me since we fell out. I am lonely and never see people anymore. I am at a point now where everything should be good, I have a career for the first time in my life, I have a loving and caring boyfriend who wants a future with me (god knows why or what he sees). But I still feel so behind everyone I know in the sense that I feel much younger than I am due to feeling behind my whole life, I feel like the child of the group in all situations, I doubt my abilities in everything I do, can’t make decisions with even minor things like deciding what to wear or eat to the point I just give up and have a meltdown, no true confidence (it’s all faked) and I feel like so much has become so much harder in recent years the older I get. My feelings are amplified at like 10000% and always been super emotional, overly empathetic about everything and everyone. I’ve always been ‘scatty’ as people call me and ‘all over the place’ but the recent years it has really started to affect my life dramatically to the point where I can’t ignore it anymore. I forget to take my contraceptive pill, I forgot to make notes of anything I need to do or appointments I need to go to, I put things off that would take me two seconds to sort out until it piles up and then unable to keep on top of everything, my timekeeping has always been horrific I don’t know how I’ve ever kept my previous jobs. I am the most unrelaiable employee as I always get my days mixed up and turn up for wrong shifts, my whole life is a constant struggle and to everyone else it just makes me look stupid and ditzy. When I meet new people I ramble on and on and I can even tell in the moment I’m talking to much but I can’t seem to shut up and then I spend the rest of my day cringing out so hard at myself and all the stupid things I said. I just try to make people laugh and want to be liked and don’t want anyone to be annoyed at me. I make myself look so stupid compared to how smart I truly am. I have a lot of intelligence up there but no way of portraying that as who I am. I come across like I’m a totally unorganised idiotic mess and I feel it’s just easier to just carry on letting everyone think I’m ditzy and stupid as that’s what they’ve always known me as. I have so much wasted potential. I am still living at home with parents, got no savings whatsoever or anyway to manage my money. I am so behind. I constantly end up in situations that could of been avoided. These are basic things that should be easy but they are not for me and make me feel so dumb. I cry everyday I can’t remember the last time I didn’t. I feel like my whole life has changed, I thought I knew who I was years ago but I really don’t, I feel like I’m slowly stripping layers of my life back and eveything is making more sense but getting way harder to cope with. I wish I didn’t think so much constantly. I think i am struggling with a mixture of neurodivergencies and also depression/anxiety as a result of everything. I also have some trauma from childhood from ages 7-14 of severe emotional abuse. I’m sorry if this doesn’t make much sense as I feel like my mind is jumping from one thing to the other and sorry to anyone that has read all of this i know it must seem like a lot I just can’t articulate myself very well, this has taken me almost 5 hours to write 😭 I just want to know if anyone else is having similar struggles and what you have done in regards to getting assessed as I know there is such a long wait lit’s for things like this. Or even if there is any counselling anyone can point me in the direction of. I desperately need to talk to someone about this. Thank you 🫶🏼

Thank you my love, it’s still appreciated. I always leave eventually, just takes me a while. I wish I was stronger. Whenever I am out of a relationship that I’ve been trying to leave for a long time I look back like *** was I worrying about. And then I forget it all when I get into a new relationship further down the line. It’s like I get brainwashed

But thank you again for your advice sorry I confused you it was a hard post to write as it’s so long winded

Sorry if I came across confusing, I did say in the original post that he had stopped the toxic behaviours. My issue is not knowing whether to leave or not now as I’m still dwelling on these behaviours he displayed as they went on for months at the start and I’ve had a hard time getting over why he would do that over and over. Just because it’s in the past doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. It’s like it all just got swept under the carpet because he said sorry and stopped. He begged me because it had finally got to breaking point after me crying to him numerous times and letting him know his behaviours were hurting me. That’s what hurts, why it had to get to that point. Why couldn’t he just stop when he knew it was hurting me? Why does it always take the other person so get so emotionally confused and completely burnt out and ready to leave until they stop. I’m writing on here for advice as to what I should do and how other people would feel in my shoes is all. no I haven’t had therapy or counselling I can’t afford it, I’ve had multiple appointments for my mental health but there are such long wait lists for things and I never feel like it helps

I think the reason I am still here is because he doesn’t engage in the picture liking anymore and he unfollowed his ex on social media, all of the bad behaviours stopped after the first 3/4 months of our relationship. I think the question I ask myself I why didn’t I leave back then. I think it’s because it got to breaking point where he finally realised I was walking away if he didn’t listen and respect me or our relationship and then he stopped. And it’s like I had finally got what I wanted. I think it’s because it was such a battle to get him to stop that i still think about it now even though he’s not engaging in those behaviours anymore as far as I’m aware. He only stopped because I begged him to and that’s what hurts. And now that he’s not doing it I feel in this weird state of confusion because I should be happy now but I’m not. I still feel totally let down. He has cried and cried to me about how guilty he feels for hurting me I dread to think how he would react if I left

Thank you so much for your advice. There’s never a right time is there. It’s such a hard one because in the past when I have left ex boyfriends it’s not always been because of something like this, sometimes it’s just because I’ve fallen out of love, or long distance reasons etc. Except the most recent ex. The most recent ex I had to get my dad to get me from his house because he kept holding me hostage basically after lying to me about not telling me he had herpes. As soon as I found out I made an escape plan that took me a few months to execute because everytime I tried to leave he would grab a massive knife and stand by the front door. After leaving the relationship I luckily found out I didn’t catch it from him. Thank god. So when that one ended it was all such a blur because I was desperate to leave, whereas this one feels more complex 😞

I agree with all of what you said but I know that in the 8 months in between his ex and myself I know that he had plenty of girls that were speaking to him and interested in him. He’s an attractive guy so he gets lots of attention from girls on social media and I know that he has had gothic girls that are more his type interested in him as i have mutual friends with some of them and know they have been on dates and hung out with him etc. So I ask myself why would someone who has had attention from girls that he would find far more attractive than me put someone like me who is not his type through all this if he didn’t genuinely like me? It’s all such a head *** x

Thanks everyone, what I don’t understand is why someone so insecure would treat someone like this? When I have been insecure in the past in relationships I have done everything I could to make sure the person stays. Surely you want to prevent anything bad happening to the relationship if you’re insecure as they clearly don’t want to be alone? But all he was doing was pushing me away time and time again and was fully aware of it. Some people may say he isn’t insecure and is all a tactic to manipulate me etc but I’m not sure. I think it’s a mixture of a lot of things. He was always very jealous of me at the start of the relationship and not to sound big headed but would always tell me that he’s never been with anyone that everyone fancies before like myself apparently and gone for more gothic type of girls that not everyone is into. He would say he’s not used to it. But apparently everyone fancies me and he used to really lay into me about that. Saying I get too much attention when we are out for drinks and stuff and would craze me to tell him if anyone came and approached me on a night where he wasn’t there asking me what they would say etc. I can’t help if people come up to me for goodness sake lol. That’s not my problem I haven’t done anything to ever make him worry about trusting me I am 100% loyal and would never engage in anything like that I consider it cheating. Like was he so jealous of me that he was trying to like even it out to make me upset like him and jealous? I don’t understand. It just hurts

@Batya33 You’re right, it was silly to jump in so soon how we did. It’s so unlike me as I’m absolutely fine with being single and have a great time lol. And you’re absolutely right it is right that he should be allowed to follow who he wants etc, but because of how rubbish he made me feel out of respect I just asked him to stop liking the photos. As he knew I was seeing this stuff and how much it hurt. The only reason I cared about him following his ex is because she didnt follow him back, so it just looked like he wasn’t over her and clinging onto someone who no longer cared about him. It just embarrassed me a bit I guess. On top of all the picture liking. It’s such a petty situation that could have been avoided if he just took my accountability and stopped from when I first mentioned it was upsetting me. thanks for getting back to me and understanding. I’m absolutely not one of these crazy girls that goes stalking for no reason lol I have only been upset about reasonable things I think I’ve answered my own question as I thought to myself earlier if I was told I was going to be put back to the start of this relationship would you go through all that again to get to where we are now. And the answer is no I don’t think I would do it all again even though we are fine now. I couldn’t put self through it again which tells me it’s not worth it. I just want to feel 100% confident that the person I’m with doesn’t want anyone else but me it sucks

Hi everyone, I really need some advice from other people if I (f27) should leave my bf (m30) of a year and a half or carry on, as I don’t know if the issues that are lingering are fixable. I don’t talk to anyone about this as I feel stupid and just want to get over it. When we first starting hanging out and texting it was like an explosion where we both just clicked instantly and both couldn’t believe how in love we both felt. We were obsessed with each other within weeks and it was both a 100% mutual thing that we wanted to be with each other non stop and we didn’t care that we were with each other all the time and said that neither of us had felt like that with anyone in the past. Within a week or two he started get quite emotional and tell me how grateful he was for me coming into his life but how he thinks I’m too good for him etc and that he worried I would loose inetrest after a few weeks/months (I think he has some serious abandonment issues due to his dad leaving the family suddenly a few years ago, he’s never felt emotionally supported by his mum or got on with her, and also his ex of 5 years left him 8 months before we started getting together). And then it started to get more intense. We would be with each other chilling and he would all of a sudden start spiralling down this rabbit hole of his own thoughts and anxiety worrying if I find him attractive enough, asking about my past with previous men, really quite invasive questions and he displayed a lot of insecurities. He would ask over and over again for me not to leave and said that he was so worried I was going to leave him because he thought I was going to find someone better than him and he would tell me he’s never been with anyone as beautiful as me or fancied anyone as much as me. I have had my own insecurities in the past and I know how much your mind can take over completely and anxiety can create things in your head that aren’t there and so I would always sympathise a hell of a lot and bend over backwards to make him feel better and to talk through his emotions. I gave him so much time and care with all the stuff he was worrying about. Another conversation we had when we first got together was how he doesn’t normally go for girls that look like me (petite, blonde, no tattoos) and that I’m not his typical type (he likes petite brunette/black hair with lots of tattoos) that didn’t really come as a shock that he likes that as his ex was exactly that. But it kind of hurt and upset me a little bit that he needed to tell me that as now I was feeling crap about something I didn’t even know before and probably didn’t need to be said. A few weeks into the relationship I start to do a little stalking on his Instagram (you know how it is when you first get into a new relationship) and I came across numerous accounts of girls that are more his type that he follows and I see that he has been continuously liking their pictures since we first got together (by this point we are a month in) and they’re not random influencers they’re people he’s been on dates with previously before me, and people that he knows and sees in real life. I tried to brush it off as nothing but it hurt me that he was doing this right under my nose after i gave so much energy to make him feel better about all of his insecurities, as the stuff he was bringing up about whether I was going to leave him and find someone better was CONTINUOUS. It felt like a kick in the teeth. And I’m not normally one to kick off so much about that sort of thing ( if it’s just a nice picture and he doesn’t just like selfies but also ones of girls with their bfs or just other stuff other than selfies or bikini pics then IDGAF) it’s just the fact they were like half naked in some of them and they’re all selfies. A few weeks later I notice that he’s still following his ex on social media but she doesn’t follow him. I bring this up with him and also the picture liking he’s been doing and he is so defensive about it. It gets explosive real quick like I’m not allowed to ask about any of this stuff or allowed to hold him accountable. He didn’t care that he was liking peoples pictures or how it was upsetting me. The argument would always end and there would never be a resolution. I would leave the argument feeling defeated and like he wouldn’t listen or understand where I was coming from at all. He didn’t want to understand how it was making me feel. I cried to him all the time about it and couldn’t help but get upset. It started to consume my thoughts as he wouldn’t stop doing it. This lasted for 3-4 months. I know - how embarrassing of me to stay. But this was so alien from the person he seemed to be when he was with me in person. It’s like he would do this stuff when he was at work or somewhere where I was not there. It was bizarre. By this point of the months going on and nothing changes, I’ve completely lost myself. I wasn’t 100% myself mentally when we first got together due to a very abusive and toxic relationship I had left a year prior, plus a very emotionally abusive childhood. But before I got with him I was coping perfectly fine, was in a clear head space mentally and was back to my usual happy go lucky self. I wasn’t worrying about anything. But now months into this relationship and still a year and a half later and I didn’t even recognise myself anymore. And I know some people would say ‘it’s just some pictures get over it’ but it was the pictures, combined with the fact he ignored me everytime I brought up or asked why he still followed his ex on socials even though she doesn’t follow him, it was the fact he was constantly paying attention to other girls that are more his type on social media, he never wanted to post anything of us on social media, it was just a constant period of me suffering when I should of left him but I honestly look back now and think what the *** was I doing. I resent him so much for making me feel like that for such a prolonged period of time. And I’m angry at myself for allowing him in to hurt me like that. He only stopped treating me badly because I had a massive breakdown about it at his and said I was leaving for good and started packing my things that I had at his. From that day on he hasn’t done it anymore and unfollowed his ex. Stuff did get better. But since then I’ve been left with this intense gut feeling of not being good enough, going over and over and over in my head as to why he would treat me like that after he was so so into me in person EVERYDAY (not just sexually but emotionally displayed how much he was falling in love with me and how he had never felt like this before) and after I was so kind to him and never did anything to deserve it. And I’ve literally had to beg him to post me on social media. It was a whole year after we started dating that he finally posts something. And he only did that because I told him that because of all the stuff he did at the start of the relationship and how the trust was completely broken that if he didn’t post something of me for our anniversary then I was leaving for good because I couldn’t take the constant paranoia of something going on behind my back and the betrayal. I was worrying that he was secretly replying to girls Insta stories that I wouldn’t be able to see, or talking to other girls. I was hurting so much by this point I felt like I had wasted a year of my life trying to make his guy see how much and understand how much this all made me feel. AND LET ME TELL YOU- I AM NOT THE TYPE OF GIRL TO CARE ABOUT MY BF POSTING ME ON SOCIALS!! This relationship has completely changed me for the worst and I don’t know how to get back to my carefree self. He posted stuff with his mates whenever they would hang out, so it was like well why the *** not me? You want to spend every day with me, loving me behind closed doors but you don’t want me on your socials? Why? I knew all of his mates knew about me and I had met some of them so it’s not like I was a secret in any way at all as we live somewhere where everyone knows everyone so it just didn’t make any sense. The reason I hold on is because I do feel a genuine connection between us, and I always have done from day one. Hes never stopped loving me any less than he said he did at the start and we still have the same connection. We are so so close and care for each other so deeply. He opens up to me very deeply also and has cried to me many times. It’s not fake it’s genuine, you can tell. I’m a good judge of character and I haven’t doubted once that he feels the same in that aspect. It’s obvious we love each other and that he loves me. That’s why this is all such a head***. He has apologised countless times as I haven’t held back on telling him exactly how he made me feel at that time. It was a horrible period for me and I still can’t get over it or make sense of it in my head without the answer being something that I don’t want to face - stuff like this - -Maybe I’m just a ‘she’ll do for now’ -Maybe I’m just a replacement for his ex -Maybe he’s still not over his ex and that’s why he didn’t care about how he was making me feel and was continuing to ‘play the field’ -Maybe he doesn’t even fancy me that much and that I’m just someone he feels an emotional connection to -Maybe he was holding out for someone more his type than me -maybe he just didn’t give a ***. A bit more context also, after doing some digging I can see that he was also liking girls selfies continuously through his previous relationship, so at least it wasn’t just me he was doing it to. And I know that some girls don’t look to see what they’re bf is doing on social media so maybe she wasn’t aware, and I know that some girls don’t care or get upset about it. Maybe she held back on saying something for so long and knew he was doing it the whole time until she just had enough and left one day. I’m not sure of the exact reason they broke up other than the fact she left him after going on a night out and then got with a guy from the night out she was on a few weeks later and is still with him to this day. I’m sure it was a mixture of things combined. And you might think ‘oh well he didn’t physically cheat’ I know this. It’s about the fact he was happy to watch me suffer and be so hurt by his actions over and over again for such a prolonged amount of time even though he was saying I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and the connection we both felt. It is the most confusing feeling because I still don’t really understand any of it and the trust is broken because of how happy he was to carry on doing something that was hurting me so so much. I really fell for him as a person and saw all the good in him. I still do. But this just shrouds me 24/7. I don’t know if I’ve developed some sort of other mental issue from this now or maybe it’s combined from my previous ex. My ex betrayed me in such an awful way (not cheating) but it ***ed me up. The relationship was only 6 months long and I got out before it got worse, but maybe that’s also why I’m suffering so badly from this current relationship situation and have paranoia still. It’s on my mind from the second I wake up until I go to bed. It’s like my brain has created some sort of loop I am stuck on mentally and can’t escape even though some days I feel like I am over it. It’s like I HAVE to check his socials all the time secretly most days still even though he hasn’t done it for over a year. I obsess over the girls he was liking. I wish I could stop 😞 I’m desperate for this to go away without us having to break up ) I just want to trust him. It’s like it was broken from the start. I wish I left as soon as he showed he wasn’t going to stop his behaviour as it was so harmful and detrimental to my mental health. And then I wish we could have started again when he we ready to grow up and stop all the nonsense. As I feel I can’t enjoy what he had at the beginning of our relationship as it was such a *** show and it just hurts. And I know you might say well why don’t you do that now. But after investing so much time and energy into this for the past 18 months I feel as though I can’t. It doesn’t feel right. We are happy as a couple now and love spending every day together still (of course we have our own lives and work etc) but that’s how we’ve always been. I do forgive him for how he made me feel and how this continues to make me feel, but I can’t forget it. It’s just so hard. We love each other so much and he treats me with so much respect now as far as I’m aware but it’s my own issues that can’t let me go from these thoughts. I bottle it up most days as I don’t want to keep bringing stuff up that’s done with. But then I just explode randomly. I wish I could afford therapy 😞 i just want old me back. I was so much fun and had not a care in the world with so much confidence and loved how I looked. I feel a shell of who I was before my current bf and previous ex.