Occupational Health

Hi there, I wanted to share this experience just to see if it was me or if this was something that maybe someone should look into.

I've just started a job and had to fill out a "Fitness To Work" questionnaire before I started.  On the form I spoke about my long term depression, ASD and the back pain I had when I was doing a lot of building work on my house 15 years ago.

The Occupational therapist called me and asked me some supplementary questions about the form.  They were pretty standard questions asking me to elaborate on what was written.  The emphasis I felt was a lot on depression, especially as my depression has caused me to visit "crisis" teams because I got so low.  I explained that I felt the source of the depression was similar to a lot of ASD people, just the difficulty that some of us have understanding the world, finding friends, feeling lonely, feeling marginalised etc.

I'm in my 40's and was only diagnosed 2 months ago, so the better understanding of myself is only a recent thing.

My concern, and the purpose of this message was in her conclusion she said (to paraphrase)

"Listening to what you've told me, I would conclude that you are 'fit to work', and along with that statement, I'd like with your permission to inform them that I consider you to have a disability, and that disability is Depression"

I said, that's fine (I think it is always best to be honest when possible), but I did ask that if she considered making a formal statement about my Autism?  She said no, her rational surprised me because she said "as unlike your depression, you don't receive any medication for your autism, so I wouldn't consider that a disability".

I replied that I wasn't aware you could medicate autism (as I was pretty sure you can't) but she was adamant that your could.

I did a google search afterwards to double check, and no - you can medicate some of the secondary issues related to ASD (like anxiety, ADHD etc.) but you can't medicate Autism.

What are peoples view on this? Especially the views of the NAS?  Do you think I misunderstood what the Occupational Therapist was saying?

I worry that a Professional who society is trusting to advise businesses about conditions such as ASD might not have a great understanding of what it is, and if so, is it the place of the NAS to arrange training?