Published on 12, July, 2020
Is that sometimes facts can be interspersed with a negative picture of you that reflects a deep rooted antipathy/resentment towards you.
A picture that is removed from how things actually were. It can be as much about passing negative comment as it can be about providing
supporting details to help with your assessment. That's the situation with the letter my sister wrote.
I'm sorry to hear that your sister's report was negative. As bad as that is though, the clinicians carrying out the assessment will have a lot of experience dealing with this type of thing and will be more than able to filter what they are reading and pick out the bits that are relevant to ASD and leave the bits that are just your sister making a nasty comment. They may still ask you about it in your next assessment, but you could use it to provide further evidence of ASD, such as not being able to see things from your sister's perspective or understand what made her write such things.
Yes- I guess they must get their fare share of negative comments from other family members. There's still quite a lot of stigma when it comes to ASD.
qwerty said: I like Kisun's example, being 'stubborn and argumentative' would be read as 'being fixated and have trouble seeing things from another's perspective'.
Yes I could be stubborn. My sister always used to throw out the jibe that I had to be right. It was a favourite line of attack when we disagreed on something.. Of course that meant she thought she was right and not me. Ie she had to be right. It's like her looking in a mirror and seeing me and not herself.
It wasn't all bad , I agree, just that some parts weren't as good or supportive as others.
I know. I'm just trying to look on the bright side and keep positive. I'm also judging based on my own standards. If a relative was giving me their 'opinion' of a patient, I would apply a filter to decide what was fact and what was purely their opinion, if that makes sense? I'd like to think that most clinicians could do this, probably a lot better than I am able to.
Yeah, I agree with Kitsun. A good clinician should be able to view the descriptions neurally, regardless of the tone it was presented in. I like Kisun's example, being 'stubborn and argumentative' would be read as 'being fixated and have trouble seeing things from another's perspective'. And based on the excerpt you posted previously from your sister's letter, it didn't seem at all negative to me, it sounded quite neutral. E.g., I think traits like "shy" is quite neutral. Anyway, I think she took the effort of writing a letter, and maybe you could try to appreciate this as well. You can also try to explain your perspective more when you have your meeting with the clinician.
But opinions of opinions are doomed to be misinterpreted. All feels a bit risky.
The clinicians should still be able to pick out bits that point to ASD. For example if you were described by a family member as being stubborn and argumentative (I'm not saying that you were, this is merely an example to illustrate a point) then the clinicians would read it as you're quite fixed and unable to see things from other people's perspective. I know it must be a worry but honestly, they know what they're doing and will have had a lot of experience doing it. I was diagnosed without any supporting evidence form family members what-so-ever so it's not the be all and end all.
Yes-that is certainly the case with my father. I told him and he said he could see no signs that I might be on the spectrum. Much of that could be because he's going on a historical depiction of autism,when it was restricted to more severe cases, rather than a contemporary one. I didn't press him to provide evidence as that and his patchy recall of my early childhood would have been counterproductive .
This where I find the process difficult - your family are suddenly needed to fill in forms for something they may deny or don't understand and their accidental answers could scupper your application.