Published on 12, July, 2020
On Monday I went to get the feedback of my assessment to find out if I have ASD. I didn't receive a diagnosis.
Part of the assessment was about my upbringing. I had an unusual childhood. When I was about 18 months old my father had a serious accident that nearly killed him. This time was very stressful for my mother, who suddenly had three children to look after, a paraplegic husband to care for and bills to pay all by herself. My grandparents stepped in and helped to care for us, and my mother was grateful for the help on the face of it, but in private she took it as an afront, an accusation that she wasn't able to manage. Over the years this anger and frustration festered and to cut a long story short we fell victim to that as children in the form of abuse.
As a child I spent a lot of time in hospital. When I was a baby I had whooping cough, and I have had lung and airway problems ever since.
The psychologist felt that while I definitely display some distinct autistic traits, it is more likely that these are caused by this double disruption to my development as a child, and so therefore she felt it wouldn't help me to receive a diagnosis of ASD. I disagree. I work full time in a stressful position and a diagnosis would help back me up with asking for reasonable adjustments at work. My boss is talking about making adjustments to my work practices, which is good, but who's to say those adjustments will remain in place after a year? Or after she's moved on? Or after I've changed roles?
So I'm going to wait until her report has been received, and then I'm going to look into the possibility of getting a second opinion.
Since Monday I have been feeling really down about things. I'm disappointed because this ins't the outcome I was looking for. I've also got other family issues going on - a row has broken out between me and my older brother and my mother has sided with him - because he never reported her for abuse. I did. And I would do it again.
Part of me feels like I no longer belong here because the assessment came back with a non-diagnosis. I feel like an outsider (not an unusual experience for me tbh) But here I found people that started making sense for the first time ever. So hopefully I can still be a valued member of this community.
Thank you for reading this far. I have Christmas presents to wrap before my other half gets home from work.
Grahem357 wrote:
The psychologist felt that while I definitely display some distinct autistic traits, it is more likely that these are caused by this double disruption to my development as a child, and so therefore she felt it wouldn't help me to receive a diagnosis of ASD.
So, not providing a diagnosis of A.S.D. on account of parental role disruption during your childhood makes sense enough, but not quite so much when it comes to having had the immunological infection of whooping cough (or Pertussis), what with the resulting neurological side-effects involved with oxygen deprivation and oxidative stress ~ all within a few years of your birth.
Consider perhaps the following information via these links:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1513329/
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www.sciencedirect.com/.../S0009912009001465
As also being questionable, is that you stated that the psychologist felt that you "definitely display some distinct autistic traits," and then, here is the questionable bit:
Part of me feels like I no longer belong here because the assessment came back with a non-diagnosis.
Maybe feel and think differently about this for at least a lifelong moment, being that there you are definitely having diagnostically distinct autistic traits (according to a psychologist at least) which could rather well explain why it is that you feel and have described as follows:
I feel like an outsider (not an unusual experience for me tbh) But here I found people that started making sense for the first time ever. So hopefully I can still be a valued member of this community.
Focus a little less perhaps on the "hopefully" then, and more as such on the "certainty" of actually being here a valued member of this community, i.e. this community of people who feel more as outsiders elsewhere but more as insiders here on account of having diagnosed and undiagnosed autistic traits, and those also who do not have autistic traits themselves but care for and or about those who do.
As for:
I work full time in a stressful position and a diagnosis would help back me up with asking for reasonable adjustments at work. My boss is talking about making adjustments to my work practices, which is good, but who's to say those adjustments will remain in place after a year? Or after she's moved on? Or after I've changed roles?
What ever a psychological or medical practitioner puts into a diagnostic report about the character and or nature of their patient's condition or symptomologies ~ requires reasonable adjustments to be made by employers for such employees.