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Do I do it?

Kippen

Okay, so I'm at this point, do I or don't I go for an autism diagnosis?

I'm 20, female, and starting uni in September, I've always 'functioned' in society but was always different and for the last few years really have just kind of accepted that I am autistic and the few people I've spoken to about have agreed, I shan't bore you all with the details but 'fits like a glove' is pretty close to what I mean. However, I've never bothered with looking to get a diagnosis since everything I've read just says about how long and draining it can be with the nhs, and I can't afford to go private.

Now my issue is that the older I get, the more problems I am experiencing with my ability to adapt to adulthood, and my differences from others are become more and more obvious. So would a diagnosis be worth it at this point in my life? What are the pros and cons? Would it affect what support I can get in uni? Especially with how long it would take. How would I go about getting it started? 

I'm just really stuck as to where I go from here, and the fact that I'm worried about people disbelieving me because of how good I've gotten at acting 'normal' for the small amounts of time that I have to. Anybody have experiences like mine or any advice? Would be much appreciated :) x

Parents

  • Hi

    Getting a diagnosis is a very personal decision and you need to weigh up why you want it and what you think you will get from it because, as you say, it's a long process - which means you'll have finished uni before you get your diagnosis.

    As far as I know, if you talk to the uni support team, they will do everything possible to try to help you - they really don't want you to fail as it dents their stats so I'd have a chat to them and tell them you're looking at diagnosis.

    I'm 53 and was only diagnosed at 42 - I thought I was coping but I'd reached the limits of my ability to mask and cover up my deficiencies so cracks were beginning to show.

    Internally, I still feel that I'm only 16 so I'm aware that all those around me seem to be so much more complex in their social interactions - I feel like a child - but others say my attitude to life is refreshingly simple and straight-forward - and my peers all appear to be soooo old in comparison.

    Girls are generally much better at playing the social games so are much harder to diagnose - I'd have a read of the topics that come up on here and see if you feel it chimes with you.  You wiil see a lot of common themes.

    In my analysis of myself, I have measured that is all boils down to the inability to deal with stress - and the stress is caused by chaos - unpredictable people, situations, out-of-control events - in fact anything where I am not 100% sure of the outcome.  The more unpredicatable the situation, the more stress I feel.  It impacts upon everything - like wanting to be alone (away from chaos) to hating social situations (too much unpredictability) to stress at work (unclear management decisions and poor instructions) etc.

    The rest is over-stimulation - too noisy, too bright, too many people, sensory overload caused by clothing, smells etc

    And then fatigue - needing down-time to decompress and process - this is exhausting.

    A lot of people go on about various on-line tests but the results can be hugely variable depending on your state of mind when doing them.

    If you're thinking about diagnosis, go and see your GP with some of your basic evidence - and they should refer you along to the professionals.  I'm told the whole process can take up to 2 years - so time is of the essence - the sooner you see the GP, the sooner it all gets moving.

    Good luck.

  • in reply to Plastic

    Plastic pretty much nails it...

    I recently got diagnosed at 47 - seeing a clinical psychologist privately as the wait for an NHS assessment was 20 months.

    Now, there's a key question (that I was asked) - Why do you want a diagnosis? For me (like Plastic) I'd pretty much always been able to cope/mask, but the strain was getting to be too much so I needed to understand...

    a) why and

    b) what to do about it

    ... of which (b) was more important. So now I'm into talking with my psychologist about 'functional utility' i.e. how I can function 'better' now that I have the knowledge that I definitely am on the spectrum.

    If I wanted support from DWP or my employer to make 'reasonable adjustments' then a private diagnosis might not 'cut it', but I don't so that's why I went down that route.

    In terms of cost, not huge - certainly not the £2-3,000 that NAS/Lorna Wing centres quote. Less than the cost of a week skiing.

    It's helped knowing 'for sure' that I'm autistic (low support, high functioning) even though I was always pretty sure I was...

Reply
  • in reply to Plastic

    Plastic pretty much nails it...

    I recently got diagnosed at 47 - seeing a clinical psychologist privately as the wait for an NHS assessment was 20 months.

    Now, there's a key question (that I was asked) - Why do you want a diagnosis? For me (like Plastic) I'd pretty much always been able to cope/mask, but the strain was getting to be too much so I needed to understand...

    a) why and

    b) what to do about it

    ... of which (b) was more important. So now I'm into talking with my psychologist about 'functional utility' i.e. how I can function 'better' now that I have the knowledge that I definitely am on the spectrum.

    If I wanted support from DWP or my employer to make 'reasonable adjustments' then a private diagnosis might not 'cut it', but I don't so that's why I went down that route.

    In terms of cost, not huge - certainly not the £2-3,000 that NAS/Lorna Wing centres quote. Less than the cost of a week skiing.

    It's helped knowing 'for sure' that I'm autistic (low support, high functioning) even though I was always pretty sure I was...

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