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upcoming Psychiatry UK assessment

LM2022

After 3 years of waiting, I finally have my assessment through NHS right to choose. I am so unbelievably anxious and literally cannot function in anticipation for the assessment. I am so worried that I will not get a diagnosis, and what that will mean for me going forward... I am not sure I will be able to cope without a diagnosis. I was wondering what other people's experiences as an adult (21), and female was when being assessed by Psy UK. I am so nervous about it being a zoom consultation too? I know I can't exactly 'prepare' but the not knowing of everything is making my head whirl! I have even googled the psychiatrist carrying out my assessment and can find so little on him that its fueling my anxiety.

Any advice or support would be greatly appreciated.

Parents

  • You can prepare. I have my assessment next week (going private though) and she advised me to write notes on various relevant topics we will discuss. As you don't know which topics you will discuss, you might want to look at the diagnosis criteria and note some events from your life which apply to suggest you are autistic, especially going back as far in young childhood as you can, perhaps good to have at least one from then and one recent one in each category.

    Maybe find a list of autism traits in women and list which of those you relate to, especially if you have a more "female" presentation like high masking and maybe you do have an imagination which some ignorant people people think we don't have and is still even in some of the tests! but that is the outdated view based on stereotypical "male" presentation. You might want to make sure you have some evidence of this stuff to hand just in case the assessor is one of those outdated ones like we do hear about on this forum, who thinks we can't make eye contact (as if that can even be really tested on a video call as the eyes are not where the camera is!)

    Also make sure you do the online tests like RAADSr and AQ50 and have your scores to hand, unless those have already been done as part of the process.

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  • You can prepare. I have my assessment next week (going private though) and she advised me to write notes on various relevant topics we will discuss. As you don't know which topics you will discuss, you might want to look at the diagnosis criteria and note some events from your life which apply to suggest you are autistic, especially going back as far in young childhood as you can, perhaps good to have at least one from then and one recent one in each category.

    Maybe find a list of autism traits in women and list which of those you relate to, especially if you have a more "female" presentation like high masking and maybe you do have an imagination which some ignorant people people think we don't have and is still even in some of the tests! but that is the outdated view based on stereotypical "male" presentation. You might want to make sure you have some evidence of this stuff to hand just in case the assessor is one of those outdated ones like we do hear about on this forum, who thinks we can't make eye contact (as if that can even be really tested on a video call as the eyes are not where the camera is!)

    Also make sure you do the online tests like RAADSr and AQ50 and have your scores to hand, unless those have already been done as part of the process.

Children
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