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Bad Assessment Experience

NAS80071

I have just come to the end of the NHS autism assessment process and I am incredibly frustrated. I was contacted yesterday to be told that I do not meet the autism criteria. 

For context, I am a young woman in a long term relationship, and the assessor took this is a sign that I can maintain relationships. I only have one friend who I struggle to keep in contact with. 

I felt ill prepared for the assessment, as I was not sent any prior documents preparing me for what we would discuss as they initially promised. It was hard to reach them beforehand as the system they used was not very easy to navigate. 

The assessment itself was very stressful, and I got to point where I struggled to answer the questions she gave me due to her responses feeling quite judgemental. It might have been a normal part of it but she kept saying things like "well all people feel like this" when I talked about some of my difficulties connecting with people in school and my preference of being alone, amongst over things I said. I struggled to give authentic responses to what she asked me. I ended up crying from the stress towards the end. 

My psychotherapist of 2 years, who has a lot of experience and knowledge working with autistic people, strongly suspects that I am autistic and even created a supporting statement for this.

As I said before, on the phone she said that I didn't meet the criteria for a few reasons, one of which stood out to me she mentioned was the maintaining relationships aspect and because of lack of routines (I do have routine, routine soothes me, I just struggled to think of an answer there because I was stressed). 

I feel very frustrating, and like she is going off some stereotypes. I have yet to receive the report but I am waiting to get that before I move forward wih anything else. 

Has anyone else had a similar experience? Is there a way I can redo this or anything I can do different moving forward? I am struggling to cope with life demands, particularly at work, and it feels like I am not going to have access to the support and accomodations I need for a while. 

Thank you in advance

Parents

  • I would imagine she’s ignorant, or it’s about budget. Harsh, but true. Even if the NHS use the out of date criteria, they still know how differently women present, because it’s all out there. Common sense should prevail, but they stick to the stereotypical nonsense built on a typically presenting young male.

    I have mentioned what my daughters assessment was like hundreds of times. I was outraged, and despite giving them a huge typed up report, and trying to explain our answers, we didn’t feel listened to. Oh yes, she’s at a big school, so she’s anxious. She doesn’t like the noise because there’s lots of children there. She has loads of friends. She knows when someone is sad. She smiles, she’s funny, she had an imagination, she shrugged her shoulders, blah blah blah. 
    We went private a few years later.  Came back with ASD, ADHD and Dyspraxia. I’m still angry about it, and still might complain about the shocking experience.(Lost paperwork, no continuity, wrong name in paperwork, long times between appointments, a stream of staff leaving and being (not) diagnosed by someone who had spoken to my daughter for about half an hour.

    You cannot get a second opinion, becuase it will be evaluated by the same team. So your option would be a private diagnosis, by someone who specialises in females.

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  • I would imagine she’s ignorant, or it’s about budget. Harsh, but true. Even if the NHS use the out of date criteria, they still know how differently women present, because it’s all out there. Common sense should prevail, but they stick to the stereotypical nonsense built on a typically presenting young male.

    I have mentioned what my daughters assessment was like hundreds of times. I was outraged, and despite giving them a huge typed up report, and trying to explain our answers, we didn’t feel listened to. Oh yes, she’s at a big school, so she’s anxious. She doesn’t like the noise because there’s lots of children there. She has loads of friends. She knows when someone is sad. She smiles, she’s funny, she had an imagination, she shrugged her shoulders, blah blah blah. 
    We went private a few years later.  Came back with ASD, ADHD and Dyspraxia. I’m still angry about it, and still might complain about the shocking experience.(Lost paperwork, no continuity, wrong name in paperwork, long times between appointments, a stream of staff leaving and being (not) diagnosed by someone who had spoken to my daughter for about half an hour.

    You cannot get a second opinion, becuase it will be evaluated by the same team. So your option would be a private diagnosis, by someone who specialises in females.

Children
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