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Importance of being totally honest during Autism assessment

Elizabeth

This morning I wrote the paragraphs below in a separate discussion thread on this site. Do you have thoughts on it, based on your/your loved one’s experiences being assessed?



“For what it’s worth, some advice I would share regarding going through the assessment process is to be extremely honest in answering all questions, regardless of how “bad“ or “cold“ or “messed up“ you might think it makes you appear.

I found that I answered the test questions and replied to the interview questions in ways I would not have done even one month prior, because I had realized ahead of time that I would need to be extraordinarily honest with myself and with my clinician about my true feelings and my true preferred behaviours, when I wasn’t masking and camouflaging.

My impression in talking to my psychologist is that, especially for women, it’s common to go into the assessment process and minimize or even omit mentioning their true feelings and behaviours. By not doing that, I was able to emerge from the assessment process with the feeling that the result reflected who I am – not who I have worked over two decades to appear to be.”

  • in reply to Deleted User

    "Disorientating" - that's exactly the word. I was caught off balance several times (the psychologist making friendly chit-chat about things I was interested in during the assessment completely threw me. I didn't know how to cope!)

  • The experience was so disorientating for me, I couldn't have been myself more if I had tried. I was concerned that cos I had read so much about AS that would skew how it all.  Howevever in the ADOS they were looking at behaviours as much as gathering information.  I don't think there's a way you could intentionally fake anything because it's such a strange hour of your life. It put me back where I was before I had learned coping mechanisms.

    It was explained that there's no right or wrong answers to stuff either.  This helped remove any expectation.

  • in reply to Strawberry 97

    The frog book! That threw me. I had a fairly good crack at it but there were cogs whirring away in the back of my head screaming "WTF am I being asked to do this for?".

    Strawberry 97 said:
    im also at the stage where sometimes I don’t think I’m autistic and then some times I’m like yes that’s what I have it makes sense

    Even with a diagnosis 5 months in I'm still going through that. Then I'll read something in a book I'll connect with and there's the "oh, so that's what that is" moment, or there'll be a bit of a wobble which most people navigate reasonably well but tips my world over.

  • in reply to Strawberry 97

    the frog book completely stumped me !

  • in reply to The Riddler

    I agree with you here. I’m on the last bit of my assessment on Monday and I found so much about the process on here like the tasks and the frog book and I feel like some was false so I’m going into my last bit with a clear head and forcing myself to be honest as I can. Or I feel like I don’t understand some of what they say and interpret it differently and then leave that part of the assessment and thing oh yeah I do or don’t do that so feel like it give a false response 

    im also at the stage where sometimes I don’t think I’m autistic and then some times I’m like yes that’s what I have it makes sense etc. 

  • My biggest concern at the moment is that I have read so much on here and absorbed a lot of information, that I could work out the answer they want to get the diagnosis I want. Then the diagnosis becomes false. I’m not even sure that is possible, but I am so unsure who I am at the moment, it scares.

    ROCK-ME-HARD PLACE

  • in reply to Ash is a Goddamn Robot

    My husband bought me a weighted blanket for my birthday the other week and I think I need to have it permanently wrapped around myself. 

  • in reply to Ethan

    Ethan, that was absolutely fascinating, thanks for sharing that. I paid for (part of) my assessment privately as well, grateful to have that option, and I found spending my own money was an added incentive to be honest. It didn't matter to me how 'not together' and 'messed up' I might seem - what mattered to me was getting at the truth, for my own well-being. 

    Elizabeth

  • in reply to Ethan
    Ethan said:
    and paid to go private - thereby providing me with additional incentive to be honest.  

    Yes Ethan, I thought that too, secondary to simply wanting to know whether my fairly long-standing self-diagnosis was accurate, which it was - so money well spent.

  • I suppose one of the fortunate things that occurred for me was that I was sleeping badly, was absolutely knackered and didn't have the energy to mask any trait at all when I attended my assessment. My psychologist zoomed in on my (lack of) reciprocal small talk - which I struggle with at the best of times.  

    I had slipped into a routine on the 6 sessions of counselling which I've had periodically over the years, not intentionally, but I was very comfortable on a 1 on 1 scenario and only surface issues were discussed (oddly I was never referred on anywhere). It's only when I completely lost my bearings that I stopped making excuses for myself and paid to go private - thereby providing me with additional incentive to be honest.  

  • In my initial interview, when asked about weighted blankets I responded negatively as I don't use one, nor have I ever really felt inclined to.  But the interviewer strongly hinted that I should reword my response to include something like getting tucked tightly into bed, which I later discovered was because that was supposedly one of the requirements for entry into their assessment process.

    So not technically the truth, but I think she could tell or at least suspected strongly enough that I was on the spectrum to be worth giving me a nudge in the right direction.  Other than that I think I left my mask at the door, went in completely unprepared as I'd purposely done no research on the process or what I was or wasn't supposed to say and just told them everything.  I was quite surprised at how good she was at getting me talking, it was uncomfortable in places digging up stuff I prefer not to think about, but at the same time it felt good to just unload.

  • in reply to M

    Yes, I take your point, for a number of us masking can become our default setting. Maybe a little pre-assessment counselling or preparation could be useful for some.

  • in reply to Ben

    I think the problem is that most of us mask every single day to survive so to be true yourself can be hard. Some of us may have never discovered ourselves or been our true selves before. Especially to a stranger. 

  • Elizabeth,

    I absolutely agree with you.  What would be the point of NOT being honest?  If you are trying to convince a psychologist there's nothing wrong with you, then is that the opposite of hypochondria, or is it denial? I don't know.  I guess you could be trying to convince yourself you're OK, but you'd be lying to do it.

    I answered the questions with total honesty.

    If someone  doesn't want to tell the truth then maybe they need to talk to someone about that first, but I guess they  wouldn't.

    Ben