waiting to be assessed

WOW I can really relate to a large amount of your post.  Get a diagnosis.  It will not change anything but will help you to understand yourself better.

Kate, I relate to your comments too, it's all about understanding and accepting.

There are many on this forum experiencing the same as you and I after their diagnosis or assessment, and I find that  most reassuring.

All the best, 

Ben

It makes me so sad to hear about autistic people being in abusive relationships. My advice would be to date other autistic people as I think that can work so well. My husband doesn’t have a diagnosis but he has many autistic traits and we truly understand each other and can relate to each other so well. 

I relate to these comments Ben. I agree that realising these things are a common experience for autistic people really helps. Autistic people have many common experiences and challenges and that’s really helpful and encouraging to know. As I’ve learnt more about being autistic I’ve felt less alone and feel so much solidarity with other autistic people. I’ve felt better about myself too. For much of my life I felt like such a failure because I found some things so difficult and didn’t really know why. Now I have many of the answers to those questions. I feel more accepting of myself, and more forgiving of myself. I feel even more positive about the strengths I have due to being autistic too - and have learned to recognise that more and give myself credit for the things I have achieved despite finding many areas of life very challenging. 
Life still isn’t exactly easy for me, but I feel I my increased understanding helps me to tackle the challenges I face. 

Hi,

I’m also in my fifties and I this year I got my diagnosis of autism from the NHS. Between being referred and actually getting the diagnosis was about two and a half years - so once you ask for the referral you will have plenty of time to think about it and if you want you can decide not to actually go ahead. So there’s no harm in starting the process even if you have some conflicted feelings about the whole thing. 
I can relate to much of what you say - and I’m also an artist. I think having a profession where you work alone enabled me to have the ‘quiet life’ that I needed. I also struggled with so much throughout my life that other people seemed to have little difficulty with. I found friendships quite stressful, although thankfully I did meet a lovely man when I was a student and we got married and had children. I feel so fortunate to have that as I think I’d have struggled on the dating scene too long term. I have trouble trusting men generally - in fact trusting people overall. 
I’ve been struggling with anxiety for decades, and occasional depression due to the struggling so much with the anxiety. Both my adult children are autistic too - one diagnosed at about 10 and one diagnosed in his 20s. None of us regret getting a diagnosis, we’ve found it to be positive overall. I think the more understanding we have of ourselves the better. I found that before I got the diagnosis I didn’t feel so able to assert my needs as an autistic person - I felt more that I had to apologise for my difficulties as if it was more ‘weakness’ - but with the diagnosis I feel more able to say openly that “this is difficult for me because…..”. 
I also told my wider family about the diagnosis and I found that positive too as I think it made sense of a lot of things for them in terms of how I’ve lived my life, I why I struggled with certain things historically. I think I was a bit of a mystery to them in some ways and the diagnosis enabled them to understand me more (possibly! Hopefully……).

So if you want to try and get a diagnosis I would say go for it. My experience has been largely positive. Good luck!

You're welcome!

NAS86677 said:

Do you know where I can find out how to get a private assessment? 

I used a company called Harley Psychiatrists as my wife was already using a therapist there who was giving good results.

harleypsychiatrists.co.uk/

I believe normal practice is to be assessed by a Psychiatrist and they will give you a recommendation on how to proceed. Unless you need someone who will prescribe drugs then they will probably refer you to a psychotherapist if you want treatment - they are also expensive (£120/hour I think compated to double that of the psychiatrist).

They are based in London (a bit posh for my tastes but they seem well respected in the industry) and can do face to face or remote sessions. You can reach them on the contact page of their site

I felt that having a psychiatrist do the assessment would give it the level of authority to convince any organisation that needed to see it, and the money was thankfully not an issue for me (I think it was about £400-500 for the initial assessment, test and review of results plus diagnosis document).

Being a bit Scottish, I ended up looking at another site and have found a great therapist that I still use and who is less than half the posh companys price.

www.psychologytoday.com/.../counselling

I have no connection with either company other than as a patient.

I'm happy to give the names of the people I spoke with if you need this, but they are quite used to the process and everyone I had dealings with there was professional and capable.

The ongoing therapy has been very useful as unsurprisingly there accumulates a lot of trauma from our autistic traits and societies problems in integrating us (especially schools and the workplace) and this can cause behavioral coping issues on top of our autism, as if we don't have enough to deal with...

Hi, thanks for your message. Yes I know I keep making the same mistakes but find it really hard to stand up for myself. I am very good at pretending everything is okay which is very painful. I think I need some counselling. I really like ABB, that's excellent advice and it's really made me think

Kind regards

Helen

NAS86677 said:

I have also recently ended an abusive relationship and to be honest, most of the relationships I have had have been abusive, I am really bad at realising when people are not good for me and I believe men when they say they love me even though their actions dont seem loving at all

That sounds exactly like me!  I'm 41m, never married, and realized all of my adult relationships have been abusive when I saw a therapist that specializes in those relationships because I just couldn't figure out why they kept happening.  My personal opinion is that we are easy to manipulate by abusers.  They are predatory and hunting for someone to take advantage of, so when they see that we just believe what they say and treat them with honesty, kindness, understanding, and compassion, they think they've hit the lottery.  In an abuser's mentality, you're saying you're okay with it because you put up with it when they absolutely wouldn't.  Something I learned through therapy was the acronym ABB: always believe behavior.  If someone says they love you, but they repeatedly commit behaviors that hurt you, despite their excuses, they don't love you because people that love you would prioritize not hurting you and make extra special efforts to avoid that since it would hurt them to know they hurt you.  Once is a mistake.  Twice is a concern.  Three times is a pattern.  So, if someone does the same thing three times after you've already asked them to stop, they are not going to stop.

Hi Iain thank you for your reply, so kind of you

I am going to get my assessment. I saw my GP about 2 months ago but not sure if he made the referral. I am happy to pay. Do you know where I can find out how to get a private assessment? 

With kind regards

Helen

NAS86677 said:

I have also recently ended an abusive relationship and to be honest, most of the relationships I have had have been abusive, I am really bad at realising when people are not good for me

Welcome to the forum, and don't worry about your age for being diagnosed. I was 55 when I got my diagnosis and it has been the catalyst for me to make a lot of very positive changes to my life.

I get the issue with abusive relationships and it is unfortunately all too common for autistic people to find themselves in this situation. I don't know if we are simply being preyed on or whether our "naive" nature is a trigger for many non-autistic people to find their more base instincts coming to the surface.

The end results are the same however.

We are famous for having logical thinking processes in many cases, so if you consider all the tests and all the results you have had - it really points to you most probably being autistic.

If you are then it is a fact - in the same way sking colour is a fact or height etc. Once confirmed then you can find a world of information that will help you make the best of the situation and shape your life into something much more comfortable and rewarding for you.

I urge you to get an assessment. You can do these privately for less than £100 I believe - I opted to use a psychiatrist who could give a more clinical diagnosis (by my thought process) and it cost £250 - it involved a 45 min session spit over 2 days and an online RAADS test (multiple choice and striaghtforward to do).

He could tell within 5 mins of meeting that I was autistic and the test confirmed it - he sent me a diagnosis certificate to use with my GP and any other official body that would need it (eg your workplace etc).

Once diagnosed you are not obliged to disclose it to anyone you don't want to, so it isn't going to change anything you don't want it to.

There is loads of literature out there that is helpful to us so if you go through with the assessment then please come back and we can help with specific questions, recommendations of books to educate yourself with or just a support group to talk with.

Good luck

It is never too late, 86677, I repeat, it is never too late. I was assessed / dignosed ASD aged 67.  I've met quite a few  others on this forum since then who were also diagnosed in their fifties and sixties. I'd felt sure I was on the spectrum after doing my own research in the preceeding couple of years, but needed to hear it from a professional, so went ahead.

I've always been 'different' from others and found socialising puzzling and exhausting. I've had numerous diagnoses of anxiety disorder and  had to deal with 'addiction by prescription' more than once.  Then there are the breakdowns and childhood tantrums to consider, they apparently were  'meltdowns',  who knew ? Recently, and not for the first-time, I retreated into the house, drew the curtains, swiched off the telephone and took an essential break from everything and everybody for a few weeks. That was either a 'shutdown' or 'burnout'.... and believe me, it feels much better when you know it has a name and is, like meltdown, a recognised thing.

Then we come to masking, I've been doing that all my life, and what a relief to know that others do it. I'm not alone in my behaviour!

So, hooray!  Puzzles from the past unravell at last as I become enlightened to my own reality, my identity; however, I think I still have much to learn so shall carry on reading and interacting on this forum.

Wishing you well.

I am Ben