Published on 12, July, 2020
I will keep this brief but I was diagnosed as not autistic. Here’s why....
good eye contact despite struggling (can only keep eye contact in one eye)
good childhood apparently, loved school....had friends. perfectly normal apparently according to my mum (I wasn’t)
I don’t flap my hands or dance in circles. I do other stuff
i didn’t notice pictures that were not straight in room
didnt talk excessively about special interests (I don’t want to bore people)
can communicate well, when people are asking my questions
I had friends but can’t maintain them now don’t want any.
can play football
despite struggling with a raft of problems since I can remember. I was just told......your not autistic. Goodbye
i very well may not be autistic but......I feel they were looking for an extreme case. I hide my stuff well and had to too survive.
I just feel like I’ve been given no help and just basically told, yeah....you’re just not very good at stuff and maybe it’s trauma? I felt different since a kid and this was brushed off. Rant over.
anyone else had something similar?
I just wish that clinicians who diagnose adults would take far more notice about what their patients tell them, and show a lot less misplaced confidence in their observational skills. Diagnosing a 4 year old is necessarily largely based on observation, but a 40 year old can tell a clinician much more about themselves than can be gleaned from any amount of looking at them.
Absolutely! Especially when they misdiagnose with something else. I've had that... they trotted along with what they thought and then blamed me when it didn't work! Meanwhile, looking back through the notes and my corres, I was so very clearly telling them about an autistic experience throughout without realising that was what I was describing, only for everything I said to be dismissed as delusional.
But hey! Why listen to me? I was only the patient. Nothing I said had any relevance apparently, only their fixed ideas.
Hard to know what to say because my autism assessment was positive. I'd identified that myself, but had really good assessors who confirmed. They pro-actively looked for other explantations but were sure ASC was it. So, what I did was have a disco for one in my front room and celebrate - different from dealing with MH before that who were making everything worse.
I'd have accepted another explanation accounting for the sensory issues from my autism assessment, but they were sure. It makes sense and I am sure too.
Basically, I guess the shoes you are in are akin to mine before my assessment - everyone sees a problem, but no one is giving you any answers as to what it is and what to do with it. It's like the world is just spouting garbage at you before you find the truth.
I'd push at MH until you get a concrete answer which sits well with you. I'm a big believer that none of us get better until we are looking at the truth and we do know the truth when we see it, whatever that may be.
If they are noting autistic traits but coming up with rubbish about eye contact, I'd really want that double checking. You might be autistic and they missed it, you might be otherwise neurodivergent and they missed it. If neither, what DO they think the problem is? They should be able to specify and it should make sense to you for it to be right.
What did you do after the assessment dawn? I’m basically in limbo really. I completely think they have got me ‘wrong’.
I tried explaining how I felt but said they can just tell? Also took into account my mums side. She didn’t really tell them anything. Self preservation really.
also at the end there is recommendations for my work and it reads as autistic traits. Which they alluded too, everyone has.