Adult female diagnosis - mum doesn't think I had many childhood traits

That is really interesting about your speech development and it's great that you were able to recover these memories of what you were like as a child. I studied child language acquisition too, as part of my degree, funnily enough, years ago. I found it fasinating. Are you trying to get a diagnosis too? I wish I could go back and see myself again! 

I would agree with Plastic on that one I had my mum with me when I had my assessment because they needed someone to talk about my childhood. My mum didn't think that I was autistic before getting assessed she always said about my personality traits "well that's just you" which because she didn't know anything about autism was autistic traits.

The questions she had to answer for me did come back with a lower result than the ones I did for my self but it still "passed" the quota of an indication of autism. You might find something similar I think my mum played down the symptoms too but there's playing down and just straight up lying about who you are which you can obviously challenge.

To add, I only filled in my own self-referral with the NHS after speaking to my GP. I didnt have to fill out any other questionnaires as part of the assessment process. 

My mum doesn't think I'm autistic for the same reasons. I think a lot of the things we experience are internalised, and it seems especially so for girls/women. My mum fortunately wasn't asked to participate in my assessment as the assessors were happy to go off my own descriptions of my childhood. 

I have struggled my whole life with feeling like an outsider and I'm SO glaringly aware of my masking now just two weeks post-diagnosis. I think I'm pretty good at it and it is what helps me to work with a varied "audience" in my working life. It is very tiring though.

Good luck with your diagnosis! Unfortunately with the NHS you sometimes have to exaggerate things to be taken seriously.

I asked my mum to fill out the CAST even though I knew it would give a low score. I was considering not using it but then felt a bit strange about not involving my mum even though we are close - despite now worrying that I will be refused a diagnosis assessment based on this. I think this might be a trait of mine - being too honest whatever the cost! I am hoping to get an NHS diagnosis as I don't really have the funds for a private one, I've heard they are very costly!

Unknown said:

I think it's really odd that all you're doing is sending off forms. Have you actually been seen by the service?

Yeah, I'm form filling endlessly too.  I'm assuming all the tests will come later.

Different centres must do things in different orders, I guess. Was your assessment NHS or private?

This is a tough one and I guess a) much depends on the parent as to what if any light they can or are willing to shed, probably for many of the reasons Plastic wisely points out, but b) hopefully, the assessors know that too and will focus more on you.  It might be that if they probe a bit your mum does have useful information.

I've had a very difficult relationship with mine over the years, but I am now probing her and some very odd things are coming out that she didn't think anything of at all.  Well, she wouldn't.  I was her first and to whom would she compare me?

For instance, there is a mass of information in her repeated stories about me learning to talk over the years which she thinks is absolutely normal, but which since I studied child language acquisition at university decades ago, I have known wasn't typical and had always thought either I was just a bit odd or she didn't remember it right.  She's re-telling that now with much more detail and it's gobsmackingly obvious very suddenly that those stories show I learned to speak through Echolalia.  It's also becoming obvious that, as eloquent as I was, I didn't use my speech for the purposes other kids do and some times wouldn't engage at all; sometimes not with my parents and certainly not with the doctor who wanted to specifically check on my speech development at two. I blanked her totally and refused to utter a word for the whole session.  The doctor was very concerned I was so unresponsive, but my mother cheerfully and truthfully told her I could speak in complete sentences.   Her stories of conversations with me are all about me information gathering or communicating functional wants and needs.  There's almost nothing about social interaction there at all.  My mother would have had no way of knowing that any of that was in anyway different to other children. She just thought I was a "very serious" child who was "very selective" about when and why I spoke and to whom.

With luck your assessors will be wise enough to focus on you and/or skilled enough to gently probe at what's behind her perception of "normal". I'm sure they have come across a disparity between patient and parent perception of the developmental stuff many times before.

Good luck

I don't think a parent's input is necessary for a diagnosis - I didn't have to do that, but I am estranged from my parents. A lot of the time, girls' traits don't get picked up because autistic girls tend to be quiet as children. I would try seeing different diagnosticians. But then again I didn't really get help for mine, I was diagnosed with 'mild Asperger's' and ADHD and dismissed.

Good luck with your diagnosis!

Hi

I wouldn't dream of getting parents involved with my diagnosis - they can really muddy the waters - parents always normalise any odd childhood behaviours - they don't want to think that they were bad parents for missing out something so vital - they will down-play or minimise everything strange you did.

It also reflects on them personally for having s 'faulty' child - a weakness - and admission of that might make them lose standing within the family - there's always sibling competition in the background - they might have difficulty swallowing that..

Another thing is one of them might be on the ASD scale too - and admitting your issues makes a penny drop for them.

It's complicated.