I’ve been under my NHS personality disorder team for years. I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) but non professionals who know me often tell me things like “I know people with BPD, there’s no way you have it, you’re nothing like them”. Also my key workers have frequently asked me if I was autistic over the years.
I recently had a meeting with clinicians from the personality disorder clinic to be screened for referral to the ASD Assessment Clinic for a full assessment. It didn’t go well because I always struggle to communicate but also completely didn’t understand the questions. I got so overwhelmed and panicked I remember just saying any old thing to make them stop asking me stuff. I did ask if I could just see the question sheet they were using and complete it myself but they said I could not.
Anyway I ddidn’t know precisely what the outcome was but they wrote on my records that their findings indicated that I didn’t require a full assessment for autism.
Which was fine but then I discovered that that question sheet was in fact the AQ-10 which you are able to complete by yourself! So I completed it, took it to my GP, was referred to the Autism Diagnostic Clinic who sent further screening questionnaires. I completed them and sent them off.
Then yesterday I received a letter from the ASD Assessment Clinic they did not consider my referral in detail (which I assume that means they didn’t look at the questionnaires I completed?) because they had looked at notes on my records and the Personality Disorder Clinic had made one saying “on the basis of completion of screening tools for ASD and ADHD, there is no current need to refer for formal diagnosis”, therefore a full ASD assessment is not indicated.
So I am rather confused and would now quite like to find out if I have ASD or not. Hoping for any suggestions…
