"The struggles and diagnosis of my 19 year old daughter."

my daughter has always struggled - at school which she had to leave at 14 because the school was not able to meet her needs. then at College. She has been physically ill for a long time, but when symptoms of this began to ease, she did not feel better in herself and her anxiety got worse, with panic attacks, meltdowns, tics. This was all made worse by the pandemic situation.

Our GP referred her for counselling which helped a bit and stopped her self harming - but then her dad heard a radio programme about ADHD in women and girls and thought it sounded like our daughter. The GP referred her to the Neurodevelopmental Specialist Service/Adult ADHD Service - and apart from the waiting times -they were brilliant. The initial assessment made us think about Autism as well and when we researched this - it really rang a lot of bells.

Our daughter is getting ready to go to university and we needed an assessment urgently for DSA and student support reasons, so we paid for a private Autism assessment and she has been diagnosed with Autism. The follow up ADHD assessment also led to a diagnosis of ADHD and there was another appointment a month later with lots of recommendations for further support. This has been a life changing experience for all of us and my daughter will now hopefully get more of the support she needs at University and in the future. She can start to understand and manage herself and her symptoms better.

The service is brilliant and the staff caring, supportive and they really listen. The official letters could be better and it would be brilliant if there was a way of contacting the service between appointments and if waiting times were not as long. But the service is excellent and much needed.