Published on 12, July, 2020
A question to the round of readers in the UK with an official diagnosis/self-diagnosis/waiting diagnosis for Autism/ASD/HFA/Aspergers (I have after a very long wait been diagnosed as having ASD).
Do you feel that for you personally formal support has become better, worse, easier or harder to access? By support I mean understanding, tolerance, acceptance by colleagues, direct supervisors, managers, HR, job interviewers, PIP assessors, benefits deciders. I do not include informal support from friends, family, charities or your local community.
It's not been any better for me where I am. I read all the time there's going to be more support but I haven't found any yet for my autism. I live in hope though.
Hi
I had no formal support for the first 5 decades of my life, mainly because I wasn't diagnosed due to most people having no idea what autism was. I trained as one of the first SEN teaching assistants 30 years ago and it didn't even come up in my training.
Over the last 7 or 8 years, I've made my managers aware that I'm on the spectrum, and gradually revealed it to my colleagues too. Everyone has been tolerant and accepting, and my managers made accommodations to my needs when required.
Some of my colleagues have family or friends who are on the spectrum or suspected to be. Some of them are also very interested in autism and how our minds are different to those of neurotypical people. As a woman who doesn't stim, can do eye contact pretty well most of the time, and has some interests common with other women (I'm quite interested in clothes, hair and romantic comedy fiction) I don't present as the stereotype that some people have regarding autism. So I hope I have helped them to learn more about it, which they will pass onto other people they know, meaning that others on the spectrum will be able to get better support.
What support!?! I was diagnosed aged 50, 12 years ago and was offered nothing, just a group that met in a restaurant 20 miles away. There is/was a support group for adults in North Wales, but they were about as much use as a chocolate teapot, all they seemed interested in was if I was getting enough benefits. I asked for help navigating the digital world as my skills are very poor, I had a lovely chat with the woman on the phone and I thought she really understood me and my problems, then she said they'd put me on a course and I wouldn't have to worry about being in the same room as people because it would all be done via zoom. She was totally stumped when I told her I don't know how to do a zoom call and have neither camera, mic or speakers and I don't have a smart phone. After that she acted like a human google emailling loads of sites and web addresses for me to contact, many of whom I'd already contacted, most of them didn't opperate in Wales at all, let a lone in my bit.
I'm lucky that I dont' work and so don't have to deal with the above people, I am quite good at self advocating and I did a whole seperate 2 sides of A4 for an Atos assessment, I have multiple health issues, so I worte about how they all gang up on me. Here is the nearest I've come to getting any support formal or informal.