Communicating with health professionals

I entirely get where you are coming from with this. I have been there many times myself. I don’t ask for help from medical professionals often, so I almost feel like I will be ‘taken seriously’ when I do get in touch. It rarely happens that way though. I had an example recently where I had some worsening symptoms, so eventually plucked up the courage to contact them. During the phone call I explained that, whilst the symptoms were to be expected, they were worsening and I wondered what I could do to alleviate them. The fact that I said all of that was not even picked up on and the person went on to explain that the symptoms were to be expected with what I was experiencing and to get in touch if they worsened. Which is exactly what I was doing! In the end I waited a bit longer and spoke to someone different, who actually provided some advice that helped.

It’s tough contacting someone when you know that you are likely going to be dismissed anyway.

In one instance I was even told I needed counselling to deal with an issue I was experiencing, it turns out, like I’d been saying all along, that it was physical and not mental, so I saw someone else and I needed an operation! Problem solved since then. I still laugh sometimes at the idea of sitting in a room talking to a therapist whilst they tried to convince my body to repair the problem.

I entirely get where you are coming from with this. I have been there many times myself. I don’t ask for help from medical professionals often, so I almost feel like I will be ‘taken seriously’ when I do get in touch. It rarely happens that way though. I had an example recently where I had some worsening symptoms, so eventually plucked up the courage to contact them. During the phone call I explained that, whilst the symptoms were to be expected, they were worsening and I wondered what I could do to alleviate them. The fact that I said all of that was not even picked up on and the person went on to explain that the symptoms were to be expected with what I was experiencing and to get in touch if they worsened. Which is exactly what I was doing! In the end I waited a bit longer and spoke to someone different, who actually provided some advice that helped.

It’s tough contacting someone when you know that you are likely going to be dismissed anyway.

In one instance I was even told I needed counselling to deal with an issue I was experiencing, it turns out, like I’d been saying all along, that it was physical and not mental, so I saw someone else and I needed an operation! Problem solved since then. I still laugh sometimes at the idea of sitting in a room talking to a therapist whilst they tried to convince my body to repair the problem.

That's shocking! Both situations!  It really does depend who you get. I understand doctors are only human like everyone else but it's when you get one thing off one and one thing off another. (One GP said to me once about something "oh we all get like that from time to time". I realised after that I wasn't using the right language to explain the problem).  I know everyone across the board is having problems but when you are autistic but present as "normal" I think sometimes it's the difficulty in advocating for yourself. I know not just from my experience, other people get asked "and what do you want us to do about it?" I know patients are more informed these days but, come on! They're supposed to tell us what to do about it!