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Adult Assessment rejected

Butterfly

Hello, 

I need some guidance here.

I am 42 yo and self-diagnosed as part of spectrum recently. 

After a lot of difficulties, I got the referral and was asked by the clinic to fill the AQ50, EQ and CAST. 

Today I received the rejection letter because the CAST does not put me on the spectrum  

The CAST is a questionnaire about events that happens 40 years ago. My sister who agreed to fill it (because I don't have much of close relatives from that period) admitted she did not remember much everything and was not sure at all. 

The letter does even let me request a second opinion.

It took me 8 months to get there. 

Now I am just lost

  • in reply to SpaceOctopus

    I think part of the problem is I am a completely new situation but I know some basics of self-care. So I manage to get by without a missing support system. 

    The private route is not an option financially at the moment. I will double-check with my private insurance later. 

    I will see what I can do with the second opinion. 

  • Really sorry to hear that your assessment was rejected. I can understand your feeling lost considering that you spent a lot of time on that waiting list and you are probably quite invested in this process now.

    The first thing I would say to you is that you should continue to self-identify as being autistic if that helps you to understand yourself - it is 100% valid to do so. It may seem too simplistic for some but I think that if you readily identify with the autistic experience and it helps you make sense of your life, then the odds are that you are probably autistic. 

    The problem with clinical diagnoses is that they presume that being autistic is having "clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning" (from the DSM). In other words, if you mask well or are settled into a routine which reduces your anxiety then you aren't going to get a diagnosis. If you were surrounded by a new situation, new people and so forth, then it would be an entirely different story. This is one of the many problems of clinical diagnosis.

    Apart from asking a second opinion which has already been mentioned, if you are really interested in finding out whether you are autistic then you could always consider the private diagnosis route. This has its own problems, of course, not least that it isn't affordable for a great deal of people.

    - Sp. Oc.

  • I had a screening apt locally in 2019 and was so anxious that they would not offer me an autism assessment, they just said I was suffering from anxiety. You are entitled to a 2nd opinion. I went back to my GP, who applied for out of county funding through my local CCG, and I requested an assessment at the Lorna Wing Centre. This was all in place Feb 2020. Because of covid, I had a long wait but on 25.1.22 I went to the Lorna Wing Centre in Chigwell for the day, and got my autism diagnosis. I had to do a lot of research to find out what to do after I was refused an assessment locally, there is a lack of information and support, but if you know your rights it does help.