Published on 12, July, 2020
I visited my GP yesterday and spoke to her for the first time about Aspie’s. She said that she would refer me if I wanted but posed the question what would it achieve? Or rather what would I want to achieve? What are my reasons for seeking one?
I need some opinions and experience about self-diagnosis vs formal diagnosis...I have some reasons already which I will inevitably list at some point...
but for now I’m just interested in a general opinion so I can make the choice a little easier...
many thanks for your helps!
Back to self diagnosis vs formal diagnosis !!!!
Forgive me for repeating what I wrote here several months ago.
I need money to live on but I am finding it very difficult to find paid work. Currently I have people from four agencies helping and advising me.
After my latest suicide attempt I was advised by a mental health team to get a formal diagnosis and my sister was a driving force behind this. Before then I knew next to nothing about autism. My sister works in an Autism friendly workplace and said that two of her workmates are officially autistic, yet I seem more autistic than them and have more problems with life.
I described an incident back in 2001, which really hurt me. I told them (mental health workers + sister) how I was sent by the job centre on a work training scheme which guaranteed a proper interview at the end with a major supermarket (Tesco). The job centre made clear that if I didn't attend, misbehaved or was thrown off this course. For ANY reason, then my benefits would be stopped.
After a week I was called into the training centre, manager's office. And he asked me to leave the centre and course.
I asked him for his reasons. I turned up every day on time, I took part in all the activities and as far as i could see I hadn't done anything wrong.
His eventual reply after a lot of hesitation was:
1. I didn't fit in with the rest of the group.
2. It was obvious I didn't belong here.
3. The course trainers are terrified of me and just want me gone.
4. And a supermarket would not employ me in a million years. So there's no point in me being there.
5. Just LEAVE!
So it was back to the job centre. Where my job advisors reaction was, "I just give up!"
My sister's opinion in 2016 was that with an official autism diagnosis this would not happen and I would have been protected by disability discrimination legislation.
Thank you! That’s really helpful! Looking back over my past employment I feel that I’d been misunderstood and treated badly, and I couldn’t understand why things had happened the way they had, and that a lot of the way I was treated was through being seen as neurotypical, if I’d had a formal diagnosis then I would have been better protected. The irony is that i worked in a special needs school.
Thank you for sharing your experience, it’s a really awful feeling to be hounded out for no clear reason and being left confused.