A couple of days ago I finally attended a formal adult diagnosis session for autism.
I decided beforehand to behave what I considered to be my normal self. And unsurprisingly I failed by passing.
By this I mean I passed their tests so I failed to be diagnosed as autistic.
In real life people consider me to be an oddball, mental, anti social, reclusive, aloof, unemployable etc etc etc.
The formal diagnosis found me to be not autistic.
I start at the beginning. I have though long practice and observation of normal people, learnt to fake normal behaviour. Although many people have told me that I give off uncomfortable vibes and there is always something wrong about me.
The invitation to the assessment mentioned a multidisciplinary team being present. This turned out to be only two people, a psychiatrist I met before and a social worker.
The assessment!
I managed to find the place and travelled there alone using public transport. Normal, not autistic!
I was offered a drink, asked and accepted coffee. I'm guessing this was part of the test. Again normal behaviour, not autistic.
Formal test started with statement that test was designed for small children but they adapt interpretation for adults.
I was asked to place pieces of soft plastic shapes onto a paper outlines. I wasn't given all pieces and social worker refused to give me rest to complete task. I asked her, are you treating me like a child and trying to get me to throw a tantrum or have a meltdown? I also askef her politely for the other pieces. So failed meltdown test.
She asked me about my last holiday and got me talking. Then dropped hints about her holiday. Obvious attempt to see if I was able to hold a two way discussion and pick up social hints. In this artificial test i can. But in real life I can not. So failed conversation test by passing it?
Gave me sets of photos of people with various expressions and asked me to describe what I thought they thinking or expressing. Found this easy. But in real life I fail because I fail to distinguish between people being genuine or wearing a mask or just taking the Mickey.
I maintained the appropriate eye contact throughout the session. I have had years of practice and I make a conscious effort to do it. In the past I was reprimanded for not looking at people at all when I was speaking to them or when they spoke to me.
I was given a children's story book full of drawings and asked to make up a story based on the drawings. I made a good attempt so failed this autism test. Although as a child I was totally lost with these kind of situations and had almost no friends and failed school exams in English language and literature ( I was ungraded. Grade U. That bad).
Last page of book had quote : " when pigs will fly" I was asked if I understood what it meant and explain it. I explained it successfully and added that it was an idiom.
So test was a series of tasks suitable for 5 year olds. I past so I failed.
As for my personal problems of dealing with people and life in general, there is very little written proof. And other people's opinions, again very little. Since most have passed away and I have lost what little contact I had with other people during my life. And I have always been reclusive.
So end result. They decided I am not autistic.
