Hi all, sorry I only really seem to post when there is something worrying me. I do read the forums most days but I rarely post as most of the time I have no useful experience to contribute to people, and where I am still waiting for assessment I still massively fear that I may be wrong about ASD, even though it seems like an amazingly good fit for my life experiences.
I have been on ESA for a long time now in the work focused activity group, and the last two times I have come up for re-assessment I have had to go all the way through to tribunal to be awarded ESA for the next period. It is true that the previous times I was not particularly aware of the specifics of my difficulties and just being diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety, I purely thought that my issues were fear based and that most of what I experienced was part of being a regular human being - I just somehow sucked big time at coping for some reason that must be my fault. I didn't then recognise my tendency to give answers that I thought people wanted to hear etc. I came up for reassessment at the end of November last year and filled out the ESA 50 to the best of my ability with I think about 9 pages in Ms-Word answering the questions. I am scared though as I have no medical evidence for any of it, and they finally got back in touch recently with a letter saying I needed to attend a face-to-face this coming Wednesday. I am still on the waiting list for assessment and I did send them a copy of the NHS letter confirming that, but until someone qualified sees me and says yes or no and writes a report I feel ridiculously vulnerable.
I should probably say that I did not try to diagnose myself on the form, but did mention briefly at the beginning how after being pointed in this direction I had researched and found myself to closely fit a lot of things and so asked my GP who agreed and referred. I then just focused on the difficulties. In the past a lot of the time despite being seen as intelligent in an academic sense I couldn't but my finger on what exactly I found hard about situations - it's not until I came across something that described a similar situation that I had lightbulb moments and realised the whys and whats of situations I had encountered.
I am scared that on Wednesday I am going to either shut down to one word replies or even worse go all meek and answer purely to speed things up towards getting out again. I am very honest and despite the advice people give to "always make it your worst day" I am terrified of being twisted into compromises (its happened before, but I didn't realise it until much much later) Eg: if asked can I go to the shops alone an honest answer would be yes, but not reliably, and there is a fair chance that I would forget something I went in for due to getting stressed etc. In the past even though that additional stuff is relevant to their legal descriptors they chipped away at me, suggesting that if x y or z was not a factor could I then go to the shop etc.
Does anyone have any tips for how I can maybe fortify myself against that sort of thing for a short time? I will be driven to the appointment by my parents, and they will accompany me into the waiting room, but for various reasons (Mum suffers a lot from anxiety and is currently in the process of switching medications, Dad is bipolar and tends to dominate and talk over without meaning to, plus I recognise some of my difficulties in them and so they think they are normal things) I won't take one of them into the interview with me. I am also more likely to not say things that I think would worry them if one of them was there, they are getting on in age now and I'd rather they worried about themselves.
