I’d like to share my experience.
I’m female, in my 50s, with good academic qualifications and work experience. However, I’ve always had difficulty with social interaction and stress, and this has led to periods of depression.
It was last year that I was referred for assessment and I received the diagnosis of Asperger’s. Not surprisingly, they found I have a high IQ and cognitive abilities, but I received my diagnosis on the basis of deficiency in social skills. No surprises there then. But the reason I wish to share my experience, and perhaps get off my chest annoyance, is the way I was treated by so-called professionals in the team supposed to support people with ASD.
When I received my diagnosis, the assessment team told me I was eligible for help and support. There wasn’t much I needed support with, but I did need some help at the time I requested support with that. This was when I began to feel as if the ‘professionals’ were no longer relating to me as a person, but dealing with me, or processing me, as a label. The problem was the support team. It was like they hadn’t bothered to consider my capabilities, but they were making assumptions about me as ‘disabled’. I may have difficulty with social skills, more precisely sustained contact with people, but I am not completely oblivious to the nuances of social communication. They should have known that from my report and been able to discern that from talking to me.
I won’t go into a lot of detail, but suffice to say I felt patronised from the start. It was as if they just glanced at my file, saw the word ‘Asperger’s’ and jumped to a whole lot of wrong conclusions about me. It was very hurtful to be spoken to and treated as if I was some kind of idiot and this added to the stress. It wasn’t every member of the team, but the fact that some professionals behaved this way destroyed my trust. Finally, I decided not to rely on them because some of the support team appeared to have such an inaccurate view of me.
I have personally found this diagnosis to be a negative experience and a waste of time. It has opened my eyes to the lack of empathy and understanding that exists towards people with disabilities. In fact I regret having the assessment, because it is now on my medical record forever, there to prejudice any future encounters with medical professionals.
