Dear all,
first of all, thank to everyone who replies to this forum. I have some questions I want to ask before my autism assessment.
1) I’m being referred to psychiatry through NHS, today I received a call from them telling me to set up an account with them. After that I asked when will my assessment be and the person who answered the call said he also doesn’t know, and he said he would get back to me on that but nothing has happened since. So I was wondering if anyone who has also been referred to psychiatry in the past and has had their assessment could let me know what usually happens after setting up your account and how long you are normally expected to wait for?
2) My family aren’t close to me (I started boarding since I was 5 years old), and my mum might even be considered a bit abusive (when I was doing researches online a lot of things she did to me in the past are listed as abusive behaviour, which including but not limited to hitting me, insulting me, controlling my finance, won’t allow me to eat as a punishment, hitting me while I’m trying to eat so I would cry and chock myself etc.). The reason I’m mentioning this is because I’ve heard during a lot of autism assessment people are being asked to bring their parents or ask their parents to fill out questionnaires about their childhood. My mum even insulted an autistic child in the past(not in front of him, she was acting super supportive when we were visiting the child’s family, and immediately made fun of him after we got on the car after the visit). Because of her behaviours I’m super nervous about letting her know I’m even considering of getting myself assessed. I am already assessed with dyslexia which she doesn’t know about, and she often makes fun of my speech because sometimes I can’t speak properly or say what I’m thinking. She also finds the fact I only started speak when I was 3 very funny and often used it as an insult to shame me during conversation.(she thinks my delay in speech proves how stupid I am therefore it’s a great tool to insult me even I’m already an adult)
3) I am currently seeking for assessment because of two main reasons, one being that my university told me I could receive support from them if I’m autistic, two being that I don’t have any friends or family members that supports me so I want to know if it just me being a horrible person so people don’t like me or there’s actually something wrong with me.(I only started to look into autism after everyone I spoke to in university, this is the first time I actually speak to people, have told me that they think I might be benefited from getting an assessment), but I’m unsure if there’s actual benefits of having the assessment and kinda want to back off, especially after having to constantly worrying about 2). The only benefit I have found out is PIP, which according to many stories online it’s barely possible to get anyway. So I want to ask what’s the actual benefits of getting diagnosed?
Again, thank everyone who answers my questions, I know I’ve said a lot and I am sorry. Also sorry for my grammar and spelling.
