Hi,
I finally referred myself to the adult autism diagnostic team in my area six months ago, and my assessment is next week. I am pretty convinced I'm autistic and will be disappointed if I'm not diagnosed, partly because it explains my life *so* well, and partly because I've been repeatedly let down and misunderstood by the local mental health services, employers, education system, etc - I've slowly learned to be assertive about my needs even if I have to say they are a consequence of mental health problems rather than related to being non-neurotypical, but it's such hard work, and I feel like having an autism diagnosis would help me explain better what it is I struggle with. Mostly people look at me and see an articulate, intelligent adult, and insist that I can't possibly have all the cognitive and social problems I experience on a day to day basis. It's really frustrating.
So I am anxious because I have quite a bit invested in getting an answer to whether I meet the criteria for an autism diagnosis, but my main worry is that I don't have anyone to take with me or answer questions about what I was like when I was little. The letter suggested I bring a parent or sibling, but my family are not supportive of me getting assessed (they didn't seem surprised that I thought I might have autism, but didn't want to help either), and I don't have anyone else I could ask. Have other people been to assessments without someone to answer questions about developmental milestones? Do you think this is likely to be an issue? Of all the frustrating outcomes I can imagine, them saying I clearly have a high level of autistic traits but can't be diagnosed because I don't have anyone to say whether I started talking or walking on time is the worst!
