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Is there any point in asking for referral?

NAS74252

I have always wondered about this as when i was really young i had selective mutism. It took some time to grow out of i just remember that feeling of not being able to put my hand up to speak in front of others. People would say why don't you talk? Feeling like i was different, i was loud at home, quiet in school. 

I remember having some friends and must have grown out of it a bit but was then moved primary schools in my last year. Little things like them using print outs not books, whiteboard not blackboard i just could not adapt and was moved back to my old school. Id spend breaks just wanting to be on my own. 

I asked my mum recently why did i not get any support? Apparantly they would have looked into it if my old school could not take me back

Growing up i always put difficulty socialising down to social anxiety but more recently been thinking about this more, like i went out the other night and the next day im overanalysing how it went, did i say something wrong etc? I do take some things quite literally, dont like change of plans, can be avoidant find replying to fb messages awkward like i overanalyze responses, 

Over the years i have pushed myself out my comfort zone for certain things and i try and be sociable despite that difficult feeling inside, but i find it hard to maintain friendships or feel like i don't have any really close friends. Like i know a fair amount of people but not really close friendships. I think if i did have suppport when i was really young i could have adapted better rather than getting to the age i am now and feeling like i just dont really have any proper friends. In my med notes for something else i read the words possible mild aspergers and this was never followed up. In some ways i do get annoyed my parents never got how much i struggled and why i didn't get any support, 

On one hand i feel there is no point in a diagnosis as everyone is wierd in some way and I understand my flaws and have worked on ways to improve what i find difficult...., but really if I was like that as a kid nowadays i reckon they have diagnosed quite quick.

I also had a wierd hobby of collecting buttons when I was a kid!!

  • in reply to NAS74252

    yes that is the sort of thinkng autism gets as well. It all depends on their level of awareness and previous real experience of neuordivergent people

  • in reply to aidie

    Oh really, same with bipolar i was in work one day and people who talking about someone who got arrested for a violent crime. Someone commented oh maybe they are bipolar.

    I thought crikey they have no idea what bipolar is, i suppose there is stigma with a lot of conditions.

  • in reply to NAS74252

    autism has different meanings to different people 

    to some it is associated with violent outburst and lack of control, and Hackers

    to some they think of Rainman and other characters from films and TV series

    some people have autism in their family and they are the best usually more accepting

    some people  have  experience of severe autism only so they discount high functioning autism

  • in reply to Plastic

    Yeah i get what you mean, i have a diagnosis of bipolar type 1 so im covered with reasonable adjustments with that for work and ive been in remission for many years now so built good coping strategies

    Do you know what in terms of stigma though id be more open to telling people i have autism rather than bipolar! Im rather private about my diagnosis. Just looking back over childhood a lot would be explained by this autism scale. If id have had support and been more adaptable maybe id have never ended up on ssri which then switched me to manic psychosis and even got the bipolar diagnosis! I am quite philosophical about it though you cant change the past, it happened for a reason.

  • in reply to Plastic

    Humanity's intelligence is on a bell curve. Back in Victorian times, it became clear something had to be done to help the lower end, and all the work's gone into that for the last century. About the only lesson from it is that you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Just help them do the best they can, and protect them.

    At the top end (putative 163 at peak, now in age decline but last measured at Binet 153-5), the maths is horrible. The median's at 104, 153 / 104 = 104 / 70. In other words, how Norman Normal sees Simple Simon is how I see him. Thankfully for Norman, Simon, on a barely functional IQ of 70, has few simpler. Unfortunately for me, half of humanity's simpler than Norman.

    I know from extended studies done in my diagnosis, that my mind is hyperactive, with capacity many times that of a neurotypical. It's simply unfair to try explaining my more complex models, Norman can't follow. It's trying to pour a gallon into a pint pot. Pointless. The communications problem's not mine, but his.

    What's unfair is that the education system's full of those who can't make it in business and industry. They come across an ND kid and call him hyperactive, over-excitable, and then pathologise them into trauma, when the brutal truth is they're running rings round a teacher who's happier working at the speed of the slowest donkey in the class because even that's pushing it for them. The kid needs proper provision: people like Greta Thunberg and Ramses Nyx shoot ahead outside of the school environment. Perhaps the NAS should sue the Department of Education for denying human rights through exclusion.

    But then again, there's no provision for us to learn to socialise, even among ourselves: the medics seem to discourage it. MENSA, to me, is a joke: less than 2% of the candidate population.

  • NAS74252 said:
    In my med notes for something else i read the words possible mild aspergers and this was never followed up. In some ways i do get annoyed my parents never got how much i struggled

    And that's the problem - if you're very high functioning, you develop coping strategies to get you through the daily nightmare of social interaction - and you learn to mask too well so to most casual observers, you seem to be doing fine.

    Realistically, as an adult, you're unlikely to get any support but a diagnosis can be helpful if you need accommodations in the workplace or if you might need to claim benefits in the future.

    There's things you can do for yourself - if you assume you are aspie, then look at your life to find ways to de-stress it and play the game your way.    Be kind to yourself.

  • Hi welcome to this forum Slight smile

    what you can do is read a list of autism traits and see how many of them you have  

    if u have a majority of them I recommend you ask your GP for a referral.

    Are any other autistic people in your family that are blood relatives ? 

    you wont be incarcerated against your will due to an autism diagnosis.

  • depends if you think you can improve and get some help out of it or not.
    if your life seems a bit dead and not getting anywhere, then yeah id get a referal to see what help they can offer.
    if your life is doing fine, then perhaps id guess it maybe not so good looking at some peoples stories of which they said they pretty much get treated worse and even incarcerated against their will due to their diagnosis.

    i guess its a toss up on whether you think you can benefit off some help and need a change vs whether you can take the incompetant system using it against you.