Welcome to the journey

To anyone reading this I would like to say thank you for taking the time and welcome to the start of the journey.

At 39 I am married, have a job with a company that I have been with for over 18.5 years now and have a life that is happy overall but when I was young the plan had always been to remain in education however like others out there things changed and life happened so I decided to explain a little of the journey to date.

When I was a teen and working hard in school I was often diagnosed with depression and found myself getting frustrated at being so far ahead in subjects but people holding me back which resulted in me feeling like people just didn't get me.  When I would be required to revise for exams I would do revision listening to music but not overdo it and so my dad would complain about the fact I would do poorly in my exams and that I never tried hard or put in the effort.  Fast forward to results day and I get results that are excellent and instead of being congratulated my dad doesn't believe the results and says he will check with the exam board to make sure it is correct.  After he has the results confirmed you would expect him to come back and say well done but no, he came back and told me that had I put in the effort I should have than the grade 2's could be grade 1's.  

Having had this attitude towards any academic achievements throughout my life from my dad but praise from my mum I decided it was worthless to stay in academia as there would only be criticism from my dad to put a downer on everything and so after having agreed to stay on at school I completed my last exam and had my leavers form completed.  Within one week I was at the Navy recruitment office and had completed my entry tests which allowed me to enter at a higher level than standard entry thanks to the results I achieved.  As time came around for my training to begin I started my journey to the location and during my travel managed to tear the muscles in my lower back which meant that I had no way of passing the required training and so had to head back home and consider my next steps.  In the end I entered into doing administration work and gained experience and became known for seeing how inefficient things were and so putting forward changes to improve this for companies before eventually ending up where I am now.

So, after a bit of a challenge over the years I continued to find mental health struggles and eventually cut my dad out of my life completely but continued to work with my doctor to get multiple different diagnosis including generalised anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder but still not feeling like everything clicked and in the end asking about if I may fall under the autism spectrum which was confirmed by the doctor as being pretty much certain and so I have my referral process started but am warned that it is around 2 years for an adult autism assessment and report to be completed but in the meantime do I just continue as if nothing has changed when it has because the doctor has confirmed that I am certain to be on the spectrum and that the assessment is to enable confirmation of all of the different conditions that form my specific diagnosis?  For me I know that getting the official diagnosis could cause feelings that are simply not able to be planned for as anger over not being diagnosed, frustration with people not seeing the issues, upset at how much I have potentially missed out on due to the condition and lack of support, etc are all things that could come to the fore but there is also the positive aspect that I am going to be able to understand myself more fully and hopefully be understood more by others.

Rather than sitting around awaiting something that is likely to take 2 years simply makes no sense and so I have decided to try to prove something to myself by taking on an honours degree in social sciences with a specialisation in statistical analysis.  Why take on this specific course?  I am someone who has always felt like I am on the outside looking in and so looking at something which is fact and statistics based means that it makes sense for my thought process which is extremely logic based.

The course has yet to begin yet but as I get ready for the start of my journey I felt it would be something that could be shared with others and hopefully give them some confidence in their taking on a challenge they have been avoiding for years.

Thanks for reading and I will share more as we journey along together.

That Male Mature Student.