I had my initial assessment yesterday and was extremely surprised not to pass it. The assessor said that none of the screening tests count because of my childhood trauma and he was only interested in the triad of impairment. His argument was that I was interacting well with my close friend who I bought with me, that I can produce art (as long as I am given set parameters o work within) and my interests are not narrow enough. I stupidly didn't mention the one compute game I've been playing for 15 years or the special interests I've carried from childhood.
Basically I got super nervous and went into autopilot "social" mode. I've been perfecting my act for 30 years and spent a whole year in inpatient mental health rehab literally learning how people communicate. I was taught to fake it to make it and I've stidied the vocal inflections people use, make sure to listen and not butt in etc. I've had plenty of chatty interactions with diagnosed artistic people and I'm very confused.
The thing is, my childhood trauma wasn't that severe or that early. This dosent explain why my parents called me "baby glum" because I didn't do facial expressions. It dosent explain the physical stuff like stimming and IBS and migraines and extreme clumsiness which we never got as far as discussing because my act was too slick.
A few days before I had an hour log mental health assessment without a friend there and that assessor felt I almost certainly did have AS.
I'm open minded and had a look at papers on Traumagenic quasi autism and it's all about very young children with extreme trauma.
From my reading the people I most relate to are those with atypical autism. I'm so confused now I feel like my diagnosis of PTSD will preclude me from ever getting an autism diagnosis and not sure whether to go for a 2nd opinion or just stay "self diagnosed" because the only people who share my life experience are those with atypical aspergers.
Id appreciate any advice or opinions. I'm open minded that I could be wrong but this has raised more questions than it answers. If I'm not autistic why is my brain like this !