Sharing Is Caring

I attended a “Late Diagnosed Neurodivergence in Women” event on LinkedIn today with other courageous and fantastic neurodivergent women. Every woman attending had wonderful insights to contribute and one lady remarked on how my story reflects how I care and how I've always cared and this is something I decide to embrace as a major strength going forward and will continue to be true to myself in this regard. Thank you for that lovely feedback.

This article is a collation of input I contributed for anyone out there who might find this helpful in their neurodivergent journey. Sending you love and strength as you work through this. The information here is predominately useful to persons living in Ireland.

Phone ASIAM Information Line (0818234234) and tell them your story and they can advise where they can help. There are support groups and even an option around free legal aid where it comes to that point, where you hit a block with public services. Expect waiting lists as there is high demand for these services.

Also there is a good bit of information on Inclusion Ireland around people's rights in Ireland and it's useful in that it points out where we are in reality versus where we all would actually like to be https://inclusionireland.ie/

For people who have no chance to pursue a private assessment and feel in their heart they are Neurodivergent the best way seems to be going through your GP or contacting your primary care center for your area and enquire with them how you pursue an adult assessment for autism/adhd/dyslexia/dyspraxia/tourettes and tics - https://www2.hse.ie/services/primary-care-centres/

Where going down the public service route expect it to be time consuming and frustrating. Don't give up because there is much improvement needed and it will never happen if we don't voice what supports we need in the first place. This is why I'm engaging with my neurodivergent strong sense of justice and desire for the process and system to improve for everyone. I'm providing honest feedback, which I hope will be taken on board and used constructively. Yesterday I spoke to a lovely AON (Assessment of Need) Officer who acknowledged the disparate and frustrating nature for ND families. She told me there is huge demand and they are trying to improve processes for example by hiring external persons to help with the assessments to expedite things but obviously as we all know it will be a continuous improvement situation and in the meantime, people shouldn't give up on asking for help. My personal opinion is to be on a waiting list is better than to not even be on the radar for support at all because support will definitely be needed at some stage(s).

The assessment of need process is how you seek public service support for children who you suspect to be neurodivergent, more info on that available here - https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/disability/disability-assessment/

You need to outline your worst days when you fill out any of these paper forms and expect to be ignored or for your valid requests for help to be disallowed in the first instance but do continue with strength to ask for these supports you should receive according to United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

This is a neuroaffirmative website I just found today - https://neurodiversityireland.com/what-is-neurodiversity/

I've started attending a monthly autism support group with Thriving autistic and am finding it really helpful. https://www.thrivingautistic.org/about/. This is facilitated by https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/killentara/.

Also https://adhdireland.ie/ was mentioned today. Personally, I'm trying to wrap my head around autism firstly, it's good to be aware there can be overlaps across autism and adhd. All part of the continuous learning journey....

Here is the link to the book I wrote about how I discovered my Neurodivergent self :-) https://shorturl.at/mN145

Best of luck to all of us and I'm so looking forward to the next "Late Diagnosed Neurodivergence in Women" meetup which we all agreed has to happen again.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/events/latediagnosedneurodivergenceinw7150101926737502208/comments/