Hi all, am new here.
Decided to join this community because I saw other people have conflicting autism diagnoses (one positive one negative) and wanted to raise a question.
Some background: In 2024, after the worst burnout of my life, I decided it was imminently important for me to seek an autism diagnosis. The lack of understanding for why I was feeling the way I was feeling felt life threatening to me. ADHD is definitely part of the picture but it didn't explain the whole story for me (still on assessment waiting list for that). So while I was on the waiting list, I had a private assessment as I couldn't wait the 2 to 3 years for the NHS one.
The private assessment concluded that I was indeed autistic and it set me down a path of self acceptance and combating internalised ableism, and it allowed me to give myself grace and understanding as well as from the people closest to me. I ended up taking myself off the NHS waitlist as I thought "I've got my diagnosis, I won't take up space on the list".
Fast forward to this year (Oct 2026), after having been told by the GP to put myself back on the list, I had an NHS assessment. This assessment concluded that I didn't meet the criteria for autism. I basically broke down because it didn't make any sense to me, I didn't have any other good explanations for why I am the way I am. I asked them how they accounted for masking and internalised symptoms, and their answer boiled down to "the ARDOS accounts for that and we would be able to tell, since the assessment is a novel environment that would stop an autistic person from being able to mask enough for us not to notice". I wasn't particularly impressed with that answer, and after reading the report they sent and comparing it to my private one, it just smells fishy.
During my private assessment, the 2nd part included meeting a psychiatrist to RULE OUT other potential explanations for my experience, and it came to the conclusion that autism was the best explanation.
So basically, I want to ask if anyone else has had this experience lately, and if anyone thinks that the government narrative of "overdiagnosis" that they continue to push despite the review showing the opposite has affected NHS assessments to the point where unless you are, for lack of a better phrase, noticeably autistic, you're going to struggle to get diagnosed?
My father who did the parental interview said that it seems clear to him even in the questions they were asking that they had already come to the conclusion that I wasn't autistic. And the ARDOS boiled down to "she speaks well, can smile and laugh, and has an imagination, therefore can't be autistic". Just feel like it's been very reductive and I will be seeking a second opinion from my GP.
Thanks for reading and I'd appreciate hearing others' experiences.
