Published on 12, July, 2020
So after 4 years waiting I finally got to have my NHS diagnosis for ASD and ADHD. My ASD diagnosis was rejected. I am nuerodiverse, not nuerodivergent, I think thats the right way round. So basically I am 80% autistic. I fell down on being able to hold a normal conversation, having hand movements that were consistent and not having a mononitous voice. I also fell down that being 54 nobody could validate anything from my childhood. So over all dissapointing, but I do 100% meet the criteria of innatentive ADHD. I am not really sure how I feel on this whole thing? Maybe I got hung up on scoring high on stuff like obsession, social interaction, and the like.
Now very confused.
Rob
NAS65321 said:So basically I am 80% autistic
You are however 100% neurodiverse and 100% you. The definitions used to assign the label of autistic are somewhat arbitary as they are largely used to define if you are disabled by it (this is a definition used by the medical community based on how many and how severe the traits are).
Knowing you have a significant number of neurodiverse traits is a great thing as you now know the cause and there is an abundance of literature out there to help you understand more.
You also have this community here to support and offer advice, so you are in a much better place than you were before.
NAS65321 said: I also fell down that being 54 nobody could validate anything from my childhood.
This won't have had a lot of impact as most late diagnosed adults have few reliable sources of witness to their early childhood.
What are you confused about? Specifics are much easier to help with.
I think I am confused because I waited 4 years for this and looked into ASD so much I was totally convinced. I hardly looked at ADHD. So I have loads of things I atributed to ASD, what is actually ADHD? Just feels like I have taken some massive steps back.
NAS65321 said:So I have loads of things I atributed to ASD, what is actually ADHD? Just feels like I have taken some massive steps back.
ADHD and ASD are just different zones on the spectrum - have you tried to self diagnose using the online tests for these? Waiting years for a fallible human to assess you may not be the best way forward if you are relying on it.
There are quite a few out there so I've chosen one from a .ORG site that is non-profit so at least unlikely to want to steal your data:
https://www.mind-diagnostics.org/adhd-test
similarly with autism:
https://www.thevividmind.org/blog/test/autism-test-online/
If your results are quite different to your in person diagnosis then you could be up for doing it again privately if you believe it to be true.
My advice is to try the tests, be brutally honest in the answers and cross check with other sites if you want to improve the chances of a consistent result.
Once you know, self educate and take it from there - take control of the narrative.
That would be what I would do in your situation.