Published on 12, July, 2020
Hey all,
Firstly, thanks for this forum and your participation, its brought me much comfort over the past few weeks. I’ve been on a journey for a couple of years, reading and exploring if I might be Autistic, and because of this forum and the positive examples many of you set, I felt confident to go ahead with an assessment. Thank you.
Secondly, I wanted to share my experience with Psychiatry UK for an ASC diagnosis. Timeline as follows:
8 Nov 2023 - Created an account and paid for a private ASC assessment
9 Nov 2023 - Received Self and Informant questionnaires and AQ-50 to complete.
15 Nov 2023 - Returned completed questionnaires and AQ-50
24 Nov 2023 - Assessment completed and diagnosed as Autistic.
Other than a couple of false starts on scheduling appointments between the 15th and 24th Nov and consultants not being available, the process was smooth and the team at Psychiatry UK were kind and caring throughout.
Agreed! I used psychiatry uk under the NHS 'right to choose' scheme and got a quick response. The process was smooth but definitely not as quick as the private route. However, 2 months in and I have finally been diagnosed as autistic. As a high-masking 51 year old woman, my life makes sense at last.
I think it is around a six month wait, I applied around the start of July and I received an email on November 6 to upload id and some forms to fill out.
The forms are taking me quite some time, for me certain sections are mentally draining, especially going back over my school years and reading the few school reports I have were emotionally upsetting. It feels like a life time of being ignored or dismissed in some ways, it's made me feel broken as it all feels rather negative. I give myself credit for the ways I have found to cope in various situations and I think it'll certainly help my son who is autistic and aged six.
At the moment I am waiting on my parents to fill their form out, but my sister has just said they aren't doing it because I am not autistic! I find this astonishing, I get that they might feel guilt that it was missed, but I am 49, so it was very different then to now.
I just wondered if anyone else encountered family members being a bit dismissive and how they resolved it?
oh yeah they will discard entire swaths of your life.me for example, when i refered myself to a assessment i was broke had nothing, owned nothing, no money, never any job, living in parents still at 30 years old.... i changed that myself now and still not got my asessment but now i have job and my own home now in all of this time and so they will see that and ignore the fact i was living up to my 30s in my parents with no jobs or friends or relationships or anything, all that will be ignored now because i have a job and a flat lol