Published on 12, July, 2020
I have my ASD assessment booked. The NHS waiting list in my area is years and as I am now 36 and struggling with depression and anxiety I think may be related to masking I just don’t feel I can wait that long.
I am incredibly fortunate that through my husband’s job we have private healthcare which will cover a private assessment.
Unfortunately I’ve had a few people tell me that ‘you get what you pay for’ and that private assessors will pretty much diagnose anyone. This is making me really worried and I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this?
The NHS is understaffed and with the waiting lists getting so long they are in a rush. I were diagnosed in 1996 and the diagnosis process took about a year's worth of observation.
As the diagnostic criteria has been changed more people have become worthy of a diagnosis. This is a problem in psychiatry in general, the diagnosis manuals are very, very loose. So it's not private assessors will diagnose anyone, it's psychiatry has expanded the autism spectrum, in the US autism rates are 1 in every 36 people (self-diagnosis not included), in Australia 1 in every 50 people, and here in the UK 1 in every 100. Different countries use different manuals, autism is more common than we originally thought.
Daniel said: here in the UK 1 in every 100. Different countries use different manuals, autism is more common than we originally thought.
That statistic is not accurate, I have read that 1 in 30 people could be autistic in the UK. There are so many of us and obviously that figure doesn’t even include self identified autistics like myself! It’s so cool!