Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone,
I'm nearly 40, pansexual and have just started working with Autistic adults (3 months ago). I'm also a published author.
Since doing all the awareness etc training and my own research, it's feeling more and more likely I'm Autistic.
I've always been 'weird', have to decide how to feel and what to say about stuff beforehand, and have various sensory 'quirks' that I always assumed were normal for everyone.
I suppose I'm just here looking for accounts of experiences of the assessment process as an adult, and any barriers anyone has hit regarding other people believing or understanding my suspicions that I'm Autistic.
Thanks everyone,
Jenn.
The barriers I had were all about the services being kinda run down by the pandemic and also some human decisions which have hammered the NHS. At the time I was referred my borough didn't do adult assessments and it took probably around a year in the end after I got some lucky breaks.
The actual assessment process I found difficult but manageable. My main worry at that time was that after being told autism was behind my struggles, if they said I wasn't, that kinda leaves you in no man's land. If your approach is not so much of the "I need to know how my brain works to keep myself from going insane", you might not have as strong a reaction about whether you are or aren't.