I am Autistic / Neurodivergent

good morning good afternoon good evening as I film this video it is the 2nd of July 2023. hi when we were children in the naughties we called these videos at times updates I'm back again I thought it's about time I updated you that was cringy but yes this is me updating you in some way it's not a life update it is my life and what it has been and what it will continue to be but for the sake of things yes this is an update the summary is I have been struggling my entire life uh the Journey's been exceptionally complicated I've been in the nhs's Healthcare System specifically for mental health for about 18 years on and off I've done everything imaginable to get better I am trying to be better I'm still trying so I was trying and I was fighting but and I'm trying so hard just keep trying and that's that and I'm trying various things to the extent of what I can achieve within the life I'm living I've gone through things I don't even want to reference it's too distressing everything I could have done I have done and it's only gotten worse so after everything I've been through in May of 2023 I was assessed for being autistic in June of 2023 I was given the outcome thank you bye oh [Laughter] and yes I am autistic I haven't just suddenly become autistic I have always been autistic and I will continue to be autistic it is possible I may also be alongside being autistic struggling with ADHD and this is where the second explosion may go off inside your brains the ADHD portion of this journey is entirely related but frustratingly autism and ADHD are segregated within the NHS and so as I sit here today I am probably about two maybe three years away from being assessed for ADHD but I can say I'm autistic which also means I can say I'm neurodivergent that's like the umbrella term to try to explain to those of you who are triches so we have trichotillomania dermatillomania and then you have bfrb as an overarching term so neurodivergence is the overarching term for anybody that deals with or is many of the things that come under that umbrella so I can say that I'm neurodivergent actually say it it's hard to explain how we've gone from depression and anxiety to ADHD and being autistic it's not a case of suddenly self-diagnosing both the autism and the ADHD bipolar ADHD add dep depression um there is a journey but as a younger person even as a minor some of my issues were being explained by other difficulties so it's important to say that regardless of the titles of what I deal with the issues have always been there I have previously been misdiagnosed and as I've said I've been diagnosed so many times it just gets to a point when you're like I don't know whether I'm coming or going that person thinks I might have bipolar but that person thinks I have autism but that person says I have two personality disorders and then I've had depression anxiety social phobia it was explained by other things that I was diagnosed with or told that I was potentially dealing with so for example when I was 18 years old doctor was saying on Wednesday that he thinks I have hypomania which is a symptom of bipolar the fact that my my thoughts race really really fast and I can't concentrate now the healthcare service has changed during my lifetime so the way in which I experience things years ago may not be how it is today but it's still valid because it was what it was like when I was growing up and even now I'm not necessarily getting support I'm getting mixed signals from various medical professionals well oh my goodness oh being diagnosed for the most part doesn't really explain anything new to me let's talk about my brain I just want to express what's in here that's all I wish you guys were inside my head so you could see and you could understand exactly how I feel because I honestly when I was little it was quite evident I was always darker thinking a bit more maturely than I think I should have been it's evident that there's more than just depression now I mean life is a roller coaster it's continuously going up and down but for me there's elements of my life that are continuously on the low I see the world in a very different way I sort of feel and think on a level that lots of people don't process at there's so much going on in here this is on in my in my head it's just the way my brain is wired it's just how my brain works or doesn't work it's just different to yours I am very unhappy I'm very tired and I'm very stressed stressed on a daily basis I'm unwell to the point where I am not functioning and I am exhausted my brain hurts every day I feel like I'm in pain I have been suffocating on a scale which I don't believe anyone will appreciate I'm struggling at I feel I'm holding in so much I know that my brain works differently there's a reason that I'm like this it's been about a decade since my mum realized that I had autism we used to say had until I was about 26 I was still saying had my mum was already like Yep this is it this is it but my mum was shut down as well not just me I've had her silenced while sitting beside me in my Healthcare record there's loads of notes about my mum my mum has done so much for me behind the scenes in my life more than people realize she has been my voice it's worth saying that this diagnosis is not just important for me but it's important for the people around me too my mum especially moving on I had to self-diagnose years before the NHS would even listen to me for a referral there's a few other things that have been going on inside my mind I've had a few revelations in terms of my own body and the way it works which has completely changed my perspective on myself and the world around me for example I keep pushing my doctor for bipolar and autism some people already have said to me well it can't be that bad if you diagnosed with that age which is to be expected I am a 30 year old woman when things are not diagnosed in childhood or before the age of 18. time just melts in adulthood you lose so many years with all the waiting lists and assessments and reassessments waiting lists are horrendous once you've been diagnosed with something you're sort of patted on the head and shuffled under the carpet I haven't been supported I felt fobbed off in my brain it was like I was literally fighting for my life and being told bye-bye I've got to keep asking for help while simultaneously battling my disorders and problems on my own I'm on a very long Pathway to finding out what I have and it's just frustrating how time consuming it is hopefully we will get there it's going to take time so I have always been neurodivergent I have never been neurotypical even though I may have tried to mimic neurotypicalness it's even harder to explain because neurodiversion people do this thing where we mask some people refer to it as acting so sometimes I do manage to do things and then I break down afterwards it doesn't come across like we're struggling at all but we are inside I learned as a child to perform to the cameras would you say performing or masking I was mimicking neurotypical Behavior mimicking what was expected maybe in a vlogging format I'm not able to understand myself yet to know when I am masking and when I'm not what is me what is masking I have an idea there's very different types of Rebecca you always see me smiling blabbing sure she's got other things to do okay well all you want to do is go oh hi YouTube my name is Rebecca Brown I have blonde hair I have blue eyes look at my teddy bear isn't it fabulous that's all we can do maybe that is all I do well at least I have friends I talk to my assessment about how YouTube enabled me to learn how to be neurotypical and of course it didn't work in offline environments getting ready for YouTube is not the same as getting ready to leave the house in the moment when I create and post and Vlog like this I am on my own and that isolation enables me to have a voice because I just love vlogging and creating videos and things I have to admit I can't Vlog all the time I have to be in a certain mindset it does take a certain level of confidence that I don't always have I don't have the energy to video today it's not necessarily that I'm faking this but sometimes I can come across as though I am bursting with energy and bursting with confidence see this is where Rebecca Falls the entire world it doesn't help that a lot of the time I use jump Cuts so it cuts between the frustration the I don't put in the clips of me crying and getting frustrated this is so difficult um no this is gonna be oh yeah right come on Becky and breathe out okay hey everybody today is for me editing is like putting a puzzle together I have to fiddle around with these words until I get an outcome that conveys what I want to say I can open up on the internet but I can't open up two people I just find interacting with people hard when I'm thrown into social situations I'm sort of replaced by this shy anxious person who can barely keep eye contact I look at their forehead or look at their eyebrows so it looks like I'm making eye contact but I'm not or I'm asked so severely that I think I'm presenting as neurotypical but actually I'm freaking people out it's uncomfortable this is me in an extreme masked State most of 2016 is me like that but even when I'm masking lightly it's not okay it's not maintainable it's not a solution I can't mask for the rest of my life three decades is already too much then there's the questions is it okay to mask is my mask self acceptable understanding myself from this perspective is so new for me people have fallen in love with my masked self both via the Internet and in person so there's this pressure to revert to what I think is my mask to self and that's sad I get so angry at how I feel I can't be me I pretend to be tough I pretend to be strong I pretend to have my life together when in fact I don't there are times where I don't think I am masking or I'm just so relaxed with the situation I'm in when I'm happy loved or accepted it's hard to sit here and talk about this even more so because I don't fully understand myself at the moment how can I even present a form of myself to you today I just don't know it's really cliche when you say you don't know yourself I feel like I understand myself and I'm lost Within Myself simultaneously and it's a unsettling place to be Master unmasked it's me hi I'm the problem it's me yeah yeah whatever receiving a diagnosis at any age is powerful this is a late diagnosis for something that's always been there life-changing and life-affirming at the same time like the years I've spent talking about this and not been listened to I've been through a lot so to receive this diagnosis after everything I have been through and also after the fight to be taken seriously for this the validation that I feel on the back of this is intense this is heavy I'm angry all the time I feel alone I feel so alone alone every single day of my life it's not that I think that I'm the only one dealing with what I'm dealing with no not at all but in my own sphere I feel alone I've been like this my whole life my emotions are all over the place I keep laughing and then crying there's this form of acceptance it makes what I've been through valid it's like someone just saying I did my best it's just affirmation of everything I have been through and why everything has happened in the way that it has for example I've been on antidepressants designed for a neurotypical dealing with depression and anxiety when in fact I'm a neurodivergent person who may deal with depression and anxiety but my issues stem from my neurodivergence not from being depressed and anxious a lot of what I have been through on the back of reaching out for support has actually made me worse I have a whole list of medications in my history that have just made my life worse if we go right back to the beginning I started Citalopram back in 2010 and that didn't work medication made me really ill I'm not finding them helpful recently I went back for help to say I was very unhappy and they've just raised my medication again to a very high dosage they haven't worked I've started new medication I have now come off kratipine I've been given some more medication I have been up to the highest dosage you can have on this and it's still not helped but I'm gonna try it again finished with sertraline so here we go my task Pine marzipan for short I've been told to stop taking Mirtazapine immediately he's also recommending that I change medication my GP now believes the only thing that we're standing on now is the autism assessment whenever that will be so I'm on my own got to keep planning forwards and get to that at 28 they wanted me to go on fluoxetine and again at 29 because I don't have a diagnosis nobody in the healthcare system is talking to me as a neurodiversion person who is even struggling in that sphere and I am still being medicated and seen as a neurotypical dealing with depression and anxiety and I have kept saying no I've had enough I shouldn't feel scared of saying that things aren't going very well or my medication isn't working because that is the truth this is my experience we need to try this medication you need to see this therapy you need to do this you need to do this and nothing works and so the more I try the worse it gets and then you're sort of made to be a bad human being when this would explain why because there's been so many occasions where I've had even GPS nurses just say to me you're not trying hard enough you're not even trying to be happy just put the effort in if I'm hurting it's because I am not because I want to hurt autism isn't something you have it's not something that can be cured it's not something you eradicate with enough hard work or medications or therapy depression anxiety you deal with autism is something you are you don't have autism you are autistic just to stress you can be neurodivergence and also deal with mental health conditions the point is that we have a disability that has been for our entire lives diagnosed as this sometimes things are mental health and other times it's just Who You Are those of us receiving a late diagnosis like myself we have Decades of trauma because of that it's like I've gone into battle having begged for help and been told I've been given a shield when in fact actually I've had that arm type behind my back and now I'm dealing with all the wounds of said battle and I just it hurts it hurts so much and so there's a lot of self-acceptance but also mourning for the life that I could have had had I known that I was and am what I am and have been I'm also fully aware that I am 30 and I've been dealing with this brain for 30 years and I know my experiences inside out I have a super good autobiographical memory the film that has been my life inside my brain is now receiving a commentary of me now understanding my neurodivergence in all these different experiences and it's like the hard drive is too small for the amount of information that it's processing my brain is exploding and imploding at the same time I'm fried I'm absolutely fried the amount of footage I have of me talking about my difficulties across my lifetime is scary me talking about my life with a child's perspective or correct at the time understanding but it's now not correct it never was correct but it was correct with the understanding I had at that time at the end of the day it feels like it doesn't matter what labels I'm given there's still something wrong just got to be normal normal I don't know to try and control my depressive mindsets the depression periods that sort of stuff I just know that something isn't right the depression the social anxiety the introvertedness and the trichotillomania I am actually severely introverted the low self-esteem I need to work on it my past self is not necessarily irrelevance but what she's going through is now completely shifted it's all an absolute mush so this is really difficult there's also those understanding and acceptance years so I would say between 2018 and 2021 but I still couldn't talk in concrete because I didn't have the diagnosis until that diagnosis I hadn't the permission I can't really talk about things I can't sit here and say that I am autistic I don't want my present self to go around saying things and find in five years time it's not correct either I don't know what terms to use I don't know what's appropriate I don't want to offend a lot of people don't accept that you are what you are until you have a diagnosis you can't just self-diagnose which I understand it's like I'm living my life whilst waiting for a diagnosis it can give me that assurance that I am what I am thinking I am and what other people think I am it's taken me three decades to get to the point I'm at within my own understanding I can absolutely 100 understand how other people out there will not understand I get it I absolutely do because I have been there right up until my early twenties I didn't understand autism at all I can see how other people looking in would get angry and they have I've been subjected to so much scrutiny and anger about this dating back into the 2010s I'm frightened of the response I'm frightened of the anger that will come my way regardless of how well I try and if anything it's not that I want everybody to believe me because I know my own brain and I know the difficulties I've been through and I don't need the internet to affirm back to me something of which I am Concrete in at the end of the day it's not your brain it's my brain it's not your life it's mine you're not my doctors you're not my nurses you're not my therapists the internet is not my doctor but then it's not just a case of oh I don't care what people think because what people think will impact my life so for example work when you're in the education system when you are a child there's a safety net there were no massive repercussions for being open whereas as an adult as a professional working adults um there are when you're going through difficulties with your brain and trying to get jobs and trying to just move forwards in the adult world it's not good I hate it I know I need to be true to myself and all that jazz ah don't worry about the stigma you know just open up Etc it'll be fine no it's not that easy opening up about various things within my life and being honest just makes things worse I'm not ashamed but it's tough when you share you share to the world nowadays everything can sort of impact your future and employment and that can then impact your earnings and therefore everything right unemployment unemployment let's talk about the workplace I've always had social problems but this year it's reached a point where it has stopped me working I can't do job interviews job interviews are a nightmare yes I am an autistic person who works but that's not because everything's been okay I've had no choice but to keep pushing to keep fighting whereas when I was 16 I still had a roof over my head now if I don't push through it then I can't pay my bills I'm having to just deal with things on my own when you're not diagnosed there is no choice nobody cares without a diagnosis being at the job center and I'm going through that whole process it's just complicated and upsetting and stressful I see I'm just [Music] like in shorts things are bad anyway I'm home I'm home I'm home we are still in a situation in society where autism and ADHD but specifically the autism is still so stigmatized some people genuinely don't understand and that's fine but oh it's frustrating right now I need to pay my bills and then you're probably thinking well why are you posting this video today because I've been suffering for years in silence and I need to breathe gosh stop um for those of you asking if I'm high functioning or low functioning I have been told by the Diagnostics team that that is an outdated way of talking about being autistic they have refused to diagnose me as well or the other the Diagnostics team have sent me a big report along with my diagnosis you're not just sent a letter that says you are autistic there's a letter to the GP and then there's a letter that outlines your disability it is classed as a disability it's a protected characteristic something you can send to employers I need to inform the dvla that sort of stuff but I also get a big report um which I'm not going to share because it's an intricate portrait of my life some would say this is me disclosing today in My outcome appointment they spoke to me about disclosing they gave me a document the pros and cons of disclosing for me I looked at that and didn't know how to process that because also I didn't feel like I had a choice obviously I did but it didn't feel like I did Millions upon millions of people have viewed my content across my lifetime I've had millions of people watching me suffer just deteriorate the level of harassment I've had for opening up has really taken its toll I've been torn to shreds where my mental and physical health are obliterated it's soul-crushing and I have this overwhelming feeling to scream to the rooftops this is why I have struggled so much this is why things have been bad and have been as bad as they have been it's not that I am a bad person it's not that I'm a toxic person it's not that I'm a negative person my brain works differently and it always has done I can never speak to all the people that have seen me so other people in my life that I want to talk to about this have died this is too complicated to talk about I just didn't have a choice if you understand neurodivergence then maybe it puts my difficulties in the different light and this is the weird thing in me opening up about my diagnosis many of you have written in and said that's why you connected with me over the years because you too are neurodivergent that's overwhelming moving forwards though so that was my update for me this has been a super summarized video there are thousands of words inside my brain it's like I'm screaming on all these different cylinders and only Whispers come out there's things I'm thinking and feeling in the present and also in the past as well that I just it's complicated I can't go down all of the tangents I'm happy to talk about it but it just is so exhausting because you could say thousands of words for each element of what I'm trying to say my brain does hurt about this and also I'm sharing this with the world so that is kind of even harder to the potential of me struggling with ADHD as a battle is still going on but this is one success being assessed and diagnosed as being autistic that took long enough you know this has been what feels like three decades of my life building to this point this is the latest ginormous chapter in this journey this is why things have been as bad as they have been this is why the struggles may get worse for a period I don't know everyone's telling me that everyone sort of dips post-diagnosis and then comes back up I don't know I'm I don't know but this is why struggles will continue I need to find a way to move forwards I don't even feel like I can put an end stamp on this video say goodbye cover the camera because this is my life it just continues how can I close a video with this back in 2015 I said this maybe I will be completely better when my hair is down to my chest who knows not that everything is okay but we're at the point we're at and my hair is the length it is so with that I'm gonna say goodbye and we take a deep breath out there's always a moment right near the end of editing where I think to myself that's it and I love that moment I treasure that moment so when that moment happens I just sit in my chair and go I already like go go go go go and deep breath in done we are done [Laughter] we're done

Channel: Rebecca Jane Brown

Views: 25,512

Keywords: beckie0, beckie, vlogger, teenager, english, etsy, life, art, growing, up, accent, rebecca, brown, girl, asmr, woman, british, uk, england, products, beckiejbrown, beckiejaybrown, beckiejbrowne, becky, beckki, beckii, becki, becca, blonde, bald, blue, jay, jane, beckyjbrown

Id: m0QL6z4g5ME

Length: 26min 48sec (1608 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 23 2023