Diagnosis

Sorry to hear that. I must say that I don't think that it is crystal clear from your posts whether you have ASD or not. I think your later posts were tending to confirm some autistic traits but it really isn't that obvious. Some people come on the forum and they are really "barn-door" obvious ASD and others are not. At this point it is probably best to think of yourself as a "known unknown". We know that we don't know that you definitely have the syndrome but equally nobody has suggested that you definitely aren't far enough along the spectrum to cause real problems.

For your own benefit you can still try and deal with yourself as if you think you might have autistic traits. You are entirely entitled and welcome to keep posting questions here to continue trying to work out if some of your problems are ASD related. You can also read around the subject to try and work out if your behaviour matches ASD. Before my diagnosis, I read the book "Living Well on the spectrum" by Valerie Gaus. This helped me work out that I did have the condition but it also gave me some strategies for living with the condition in a very positive way from day to day. It is important to know that having the diagnosis does not have to be a terrible thing. If you understand the condition, and how it makes you behave, then you can make more allowances for this and adjust your ways of dealing with the world accordingly.

Second opinions are available on the NHS. There is a recognised process for this and it is not up to anyone to deny you access to this. However, at this point I might suggest that you don't rush into this. One of the problems with ASD is that we have difficulties with communicating the things that we need to tell people. This leads to a real Catch 22 situation of being unable to communicate to a GP that we have genuine communication problems! Perhaps if you do some more reading and posting here then you might be able to make a clearer case?

Sorry to hear that. I must say that I don't think that it is crystal clear from your posts whether you have ASD or not. I think your later posts were tending to confirm some autistic traits but it really isn't that obvious. Some people come on the forum and they are really "barn-door" obvious ASD and others are not. At this point it is probably best to think of yourself as a "known unknown". We know that we don't know that you definitely have the syndrome but equally nobody has suggested that you definitely aren't far enough along the spectrum to cause real problems.

For your own benefit you can still try and deal with yourself as if you think you might have autistic traits. You are entirely entitled and welcome to keep posting questions here to continue trying to work out if some of your problems are ASD related. You can also read around the subject to try and work out if your behaviour matches ASD. Before my diagnosis, I read the book "Living Well on the spectrum" by Valerie Gaus. This helped me work out that I did have the condition but it also gave me some strategies for living with the condition in a very positive way from day to day. It is important to know that having the diagnosis does not have to be a terrible thing. If you understand the condition, and how it makes you behave, then you can make more allowances for this and adjust your ways of dealing with the world accordingly.

Second opinions are available on the NHS. There is a recognised process for this and it is not up to anyone to deny you access to this. However, at this point I might suggest that you don't rush into this. One of the problems with ASD is that we have difficulties with communicating the things that we need to tell people. This leads to a real Catch 22 situation of being unable to communicate to a GP that we have genuine communication problems! Perhaps if you do some more reading and posting here then you might be able to make a clearer case?