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Assessment process...looking for some reassurance

Amshep

I met the consultant at my autism service yesterday morning, which is the last part of my assessment. This meeting was 1-1 with him and he was really, really outgoing, which are two things that help me interact with others better (the other assessment parts had 2 people in there, and they were normally friendly and I feel like my social skills were much weaker there). I'm very clumsy at verbally explaining my problems etc so I'm already feeling *** about not being able to put my case across properly, but then the consultant also completely disputed my mental health diagnosis saying that he is not convinced I have what I'm diagnosed with, and that because of my history it's understandable I have problems dealing with/ expressing my emotions, so now I feel really confused about a lot of things. To top it off, at the end of the interview, the consultant made a comment about how when he looks at all my collated information from the whole assessment that he'll probably see some traits of autism, as if to say that many people have traits but that doesn't mean they're autistic.

Now I feel like I completely blew it. I need the diagnosis as a validation of my experiences and to help the people around me understand me and my problems. I'm waiting to get an appointment for the review meeting at which I'll be told whether I get a diagnosis, but I'm so scared that they'll refuse to diagnose me based on my meeting with the consultant, especially because I'm pretty high functioning and some of the more stereotypical signs of autism aren't very severe for me, but I know in my heart that I'm on the spectrum...

  • Ah, I see, you came across as older! Sorry. Yes, in that case a diagnosis probably would help.

    It would be "just in your head" though, either way - or where would else would you place it? Shouldn't really make a difference, should it? The head is the only part of our body that makes us significantly different from all other animals, so an issue that originates from your head should be just as real and relevant as any other, I'd think.

    But perhaps with explaining your feelings and difficulties to people around you some professional view on these very issues helps more than a diagnosis as a whole because quite possibly that wouldn't mean much to them anyway so they still wouldn't understand you better. Hopefully you'll at least get that. Some people seem to require things being given a name though to make them real... That's a shame because it makes it quite difficult with things where everybody is somewhere on a continuum and not necessarily at the same level of that in each aspect. You may be pretty good in recognising and reacting appropriately to how others feel but really struggle to communicate or deal with your own feelings - so where to draw the line...

  • Hey oktanol,

    Thanks for your message - it's really helpful. On a personal level, a diagnosis would legitimise my feelings, my experiences, and difficulties. In the past people have been rather dismissive when I've tried to explain my difficulties, which in a way alienates me, if that makes sense. I need to know that this isn't just me being a drama queen and that it isn't just in my head - I need to know that it's real.

    At my autism service they also offer twelve weeks of social skills training, which is something I really want as my communication/ social skills are the most affected. 

    As I'm not finished with my education yet, a diagnosis would also definitely help with entrance exams, and life and exams at university, etc. 

  • Hi Amshep,

    There seem to be huge variations in how long this whole process takes – here it was just three questionnaires and perhaps 2 hours 1 to 1 with a psychologist and the result straight away… So I can see that being left in that limbo isn’t great. Regarding your outcome, let’s hope you get what you want if this is what you would find useful, but if you don’t it doesn’t really mean it’s not useful for what you would like a diagnosis for. I would assume that you get some report that goes through all the areas they assess and says how they think you do in all these areas. So presumably the things that are causing you problems and where a diagnosis would be helpful to explain things to others will still appear in there as areas where you struggle and perhaps with friends these autism traits you have got are a more useful thing to explain why you behave the way you do than some bold label “autistic”. Especially if it’s rather borderline people around you may not take that diagnosis particularly serious anyway because it doesn’t really match what they expect autism to present like. Don’t know what you need to explain to others around you, but getting such a report that will (hopefully) make it clear that you don’t do the things you have trouble with intentionally to annoy them or whatever might actually be quite helpful for people you are close to. One situation where a diagnosis would be of advantage is when you need help at work, but otherwise I can’t really see a big benefit of that comprehensive label (if any). For a child this would be more important because it may or may not entitle them to support, but for adults who can function reasonably independently there doesn’t seem to be much help you would miss out on.

    Perhaps it’s easy for me to think like that because I wanted to get what you fear and getting what you want was a bit of a disaster for me… But I guess they could easily have decided otherwise. For example nobody had told me before that the way I speak is unusual in any way but the psychologist found that I make strange breaks to find the right word. Well, we did talk about things I very rarely talk about, so perhaps if we had done this in German (which is my native language) I would have been more fluent… Or she asked me if I sometimes correct people when they say or do something wrong. Yes, I do that if I think it is important. Would it not be quite strange not to do this? Or I can get so absorbed in something that I forget about the time – it doesn’t happen very often but is possible – is that really something that doesn’t happen to normal people? All these things were used as diagnostic criteria and I guess they could just as well not have been used. The difference between getting the label or not is not necessarily that big really…

    Hope you manage to accept whatever the outcome is and make the best of it because that’s one issue with these assessments, that there is no support really if you struggle with the results. Perhaps it helps a bit to post what happens and how you get on!