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When seeking a diagnosis is it essential to have input from someone who knew me in childhood?

Don Rocinante
4 hours ago

Thanks to everyone who responded to my previous question. I got looks of helpful answers.

My next question is about having an assessment. 

I have read that assessments ask for information from someone who knew me when I was a child. My problem is that I can't think of anyone who I could ask to do this. There are reasons why I don't not think either of my parents would be suitable options.

Is it a necessary part of an assessment for diagnosis to have information from someone who knew me in childhood? Is it even worth bothering asking my GP about seeking diagnosis if I know that when they ask me about this I already know there is no one to ask?

  • 9 minutes ago

    I Hope it will not being asked of me if I get to the point of having assessment. I could use only my husband who knows me only 6 years, my parents or siblings - absolutely not. In fact they often tell me that I live in my own world, that I’m do funny because I understand everything or at least most of things literally and how awkward I am how a loner I a as m without friends etc. but my mom was told by my teachers in primary school that I’m most probably autistic and she should have had me assessed. She denied the idea of having a “defective” daughter and ignored my teachers, my problems, my meltdowns etc. so she is the last person who I would have ever asked for involvement in my assessment. My both father and step father were abusive and toxic, so also no. There is one more problem- even if I have found anyone in my family who knew me in my childhood and would be willing to help me, I would have needed a translator because I’m living abroad’s. 
    but as far as I know the involvement of a family member is not necessary. Maybe I’m wrong or maybe the procedure varies in different countries. And if I ever get the diagnosis, I will announce it here in the forum and will share my feelings and thoughts around it. But my family will never know about it. They just broke my trust enough. 

  • 1 hour ago

    I wasn't asked for this, which is just as well as there is no one, I have no siblings and didn't come from a close family so there are no cousins or anything. I think it's ridiculous to ask this from older adults, we may genuinely have no one we know from childhood, our parents may be dead, likewise grandparents. We no longer live in the same places we were born, everybody moves about and people lose touch with eachother. I think this is all part of a myth in a lot of medical thinking, that everybody has loads of relatives and friends who are all close and loving, and no one gets scapegoated, no one moves away, it's all very Enid Blyton and wrong.

  • 3 hours ago

    The diagnostic classification standards for autism do specifically refer to symptoms being present during childhood:

    • Under the DSM-V criteria (which Psychiatry UK, for example, used last year when assessing me): "Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities, or may be masked by learned strategies in later life)." 

    • Under the other major guidelines, ICD-11, essential / required criteria include: "The onset of the disorder occurs during the developmental period, typically in early childhood, but characteristic symptoms may not become fully manifest until later, when social demands exceed limited capacities."

    I have limited memories of my childhood. Something that helped me enormously in preparing for my assessment was requesting a copy of my full medical records from my GP. They provided me with photocopies, including everything from my archived paper records (which are transferred between practices if and when we change GPs).

    This helped in two ways. Firstly, it prompted various forgotten - and relevant - memories to resurface. Secondly, it provided hard, third-party evidence from various stages of my childhood. To share just one example from mine: there was clear evidence of sensory sensitivities that had proved an issue during physical examinations.

  • 3 hours ago

    I was worried about this before mine, because I didn't want to ask my brother, who is the only person left. (Not for bad reasons, but because he would have done everything to make me seem as 'normal' as possible.)

    Others have said here before that it is not a trial. I think the childhood witnesses make it easier for them, but they can still get by with your recollections. Collect as many of these as possible and keep notes of them when you remember them.

    My wife helped, but not because she knew me then, but for more present day information and conversations that she had many years ago with my mum. I don't think that this was essential. It just helped.

  • 4 hours ago

    Sorry for the "don't not think" typo, I meant either  "don't think" or "do not think" but I can't see a way to edit it.