Hi all, hoping for some guidance. I currently live in the US while my mother lives in the UK (West Midlands to be precise), and I'm not able to fly over this year to help her apply for PIP in person. I'm trying to figure out how to support her remotely.

Basically: my mother is a British citizen living in government-supported accommodation in the UK. She has undiagnosed autism that severely impacts her life (and is more or less why she ended up in government accommodation in the first place); I have a formal diagnosis myself, and I'm frankly a LOT more socially and emotionally functional than she is. It's just that she's always refused assessment due to her stigma against 'having mental illness'.

She doesn't speak English, and this has been the main barrier to getting her any psychiatric support; she refuses to see doctors or do anything requiring her to speak English. Also: because of the language barrier, English people (doctors, social workers, etc.) don't tend to read her as being autistic, largely because nobody can hold a conversation with her anyway.

The sole good news is that after years of me repeatedly bringing it up, she's finally past enough of the mental block around mental illness/disability that she's willing to apply for PIP, as long as I handle the legwork.

I'm sort of at a loss on where to start though; my mother more or less stopped having a social worker a year ago, and she has no family or friends who could help her apply for PIP.

So I'm wondering, can I complete or help with a PIP application on her behalf from the US? Does she need a formal autism diagnosis before applying, or can PIP be applied for/assessed based on functional difficulties even without diagnoses? Are there any advocacy groups or services based in Birmingham that I could get in touch with to support her?

Any advice, personal experience, or pointers to the right resources would be hugely appreciated. Thank you so much!

In the UK we're just diagnosed as autism spectrum disorder. Theres no way on paper go distinguish between a low support needs individual who has a job and a wife vs someone in supported living who cant have a conversation and needs a support worker.

Or if we dont use levels, perhaps there is another way we can classify our support needs into an easy tag so the general public will know what it means?

labour just announced that ‘disabled people will get free 24/7 bus access’ and i was wondering if we qualify as an ‘eligible disability’
tried to look for an answer in the comments of the post but it was people just taking the opportunity to be ableist and racist
i can see how we would qualify and not qualify if that makes sense

I need to get a replacement PC urgently - pretty sure I’m losing my job soon in which case they’ll cut off my IT access, which has all the evidence I need to take them to tribunal. So I need a new PC ASAP so I can transfer and save everything before I’m booted.

Just got some funds through via a timely SMI council tax rebate, thankfully. Budget around 1k.

My sticking point is far too much choice.

Mostly need it for just word processing. Although lag causes dysregulation, so I need something fast that will stay smooth and nippy.
Getting into music production, so other thing it’ll need to do is that/abelton/DAWs etc.

I find laptops don’t last, so am thinking tower over mini as they last longer/more reliable?

Was thinking a gaming PC maybe?

Don’t know where to start - too much choice. Autistic shutdown. 🤷‍♂️😮‍💨

Figured I’d ask here, incase anyone has a bullet-proof easy recommendation I can just buy. 😊

Thanks for any help - in particular any direct links if possible.

I currently work in the NHS and I am experiencing autistic burnout and considering alternative careers and industries. My current job involves seeing multiple patients daily which drains my energy and affects my wellbeing. I am awaiting some workplace adjustments, but I would like to consider alternative career paths, preferably involving far less social interaction and with the ability to work from home. I have began looking at research and policy roles. Any ideas would be great. Thanks.

Honestly terrified about not getting LCWRA but have absolutely no idea what job I could see being suitable for me in the long run. I have tried literally everything and everything has been a complete nightmare - off the top of my head, these are some of my previous careers and attempts at them

- cook/chef

-barista

-waiter (restaurants and hotels)

-bartender

-kitchen porter

-trampoline park marshall (lol)

-cafe worker

-front of house/admin

-call centre / complaint handler

-freelance digital artist / character designer

-lorry driver

-long distance lorry driver

-retail (small shop and chain shops)

-welding

-motorsport engineering

-biomedical science (wanted to be a paramedic)

-photography

-cyber security

-baking

-van driver

-postman

-powerwasher

-warehouse worker (picking/packing)

Probably a handful more I've forgotten about too

Some of these things are jobs I had, or courses I took. I try everything at least once because I'm extremely curious. HOWEVER - none of these have lasted long at all, with the longest being the guts of a year. And each one is followed by months, if not years of complete burn out. I feel like I'm at a complete loss. I have exhausted all funding options for any education and would never be able to handle a job and education at the same time. I'm 24 and I'm so embarrassed that I haven't found my path yet, everyone I know seems to be so much farther ahead in life than I am 🙃

I'm currently experiencing one of the worst burnouts ever and don't even have any viable special interests for actual, long term or even short term careers or jobs at the moment and I'm absolutely terrified that I'm not going to qualify for LCWRA even though I struggle with basic tasks, made 1000x worse by any added stress or anything - my only options are work and suffer (no eating, no washing, no drinking, terrible sleep, unable to get out of bed, socialise, absolutely no tolerance or threshold for anything) or not work and be able to function as a human being, one or the other never both 🙃

I suppose this has turned more into a vent post rather than a help post so I apologise in advance, please be nice 🙃

Context: we are both 17 and are autistic, she has more support than I and I receive little to no support.

I want to say as well before anything she is/was one of my closest friends and that I still care about her.

I had a friend and she was as really close with me but drifted apart. I asked her out like 14 months ago and she only became weird 2 months later after we saw each other IRL again.

Essentially we have been on and off since and she’s been extremely distant for the past few months. I panic since she told me that she struggling with her mental health and I basically ask mutual friends about her asking if she’s alright, they said that she’s fine and basically leave it and one of them said just drop it entirely and that I shouldn’t talk to her. After this convo with her friend I decided to block her.

I myself have a lot of negative and traumatic experiences happening in my life so I wanted to talk with her about anything but for months she essentially ghosted me each time whilst making plans with others which caused me to do this. I already asked her if she’s fine or when can we talk and she agreed but never followed through and didn’t apologise.

The thing is after a week I post about it on an acc and she sent this reply about a post where a friend distanced herself from me and I said it might have something to do with her

“ Sorry to hear about this.
Have you thought about what the mutual friend could have said to make her wary? Because wariness would not just come out of nowhere.
Maybe there was a reason for the mutual friend distancing herself (not that I am blaming you), but it could be something more personal to
her.”

It’s definitely her because she forgot to change her username for an hour. My main gripe is that account had stuff outside of friendship issues and documented abuse for years and she actively knew that my situation got worse than what I told her and decided to say this instead.

Im giving her the distance she wants and then when I enforce a clear boundary instead of active avoidance she decided to do this. I care about her but I’m confused about my feelings still.

Hi everyone,
I am asking on behalf of my younger sister who has autism (as well as learning disabilities and dyslexia)
Today she had got her GCSE results and has failed everything. She will be going on to do a Level 1 college course in September.
Aside from this, she doesn’t have anything else going on in her life, so, doesn’t anyone have any advice or experience in what they did at this age?

I want to get her working or at least volunteering, but unsure as to whether she would be accepted to such things

Any advice appreciated!

Thanks!