Hi There

Hi dan, welcome.  How did you come to arrive at this destination?  

Hi and thank you. During a hospital stay last August, the consultant looking after me said I was displaying some autism traits and asked me if I’d been diagnosed as autistic, which I hadn’t, so he put in a referral in and got me to fill in an AQ10.

When I first heard from the autism people they sent me 3 more questionnaires to complete. One was the EQ10, I can’t remember what the other one was and the third was for my mum to complete.

These were completed and returned and I later got them returned to me with scores that suggested autism (I can only remember the AQ10 score which was 9) and I got an appointment for a video call with a psychologist, which lasted 2 hours and I can’t remember much about it now but it seemed to consist of a lot of questions!  At the end of that session the psychologist told me it was highly likely that I am autistic and asked me if I’d like to continue the process, giving me a week to think about it.

I ummed and ahhed about it for the week and on the next video call I said yes.  So she advised that they’d need to speak with someone who knew me when I was 3-4 years old, I nominated my mum and so on January 4th this year the psychologist called my mum on the phone and had a 2 hour conversation with her, I think off the top of my head this was called an ADI-R and that brings us to present day, I’ve got an appointment actually face to face with the psychologist for an ADOS assessment, and wondering what it’ll consist of. All the examples I can find on YouTube show kids playing with toys and making up stories with frogs, and I’m afraid I’ll feel terribly silly if they get me doing the same.

My ADOS appointment is on March 14th, so I’d say this all seems to have happened really quickly, and I’ve read stories where people have been waiting years.

Sounds like you've had an eventful year!  

I havn't been assessed yet, so cant help with what happens there, sure some other people can put you at ease.  I can imagine this being a cause of anxiety, that why i've not looked into it too much.

Were you shocked when the consultant mentioned autism?  Or did you have a feeling?  Noticed a few people on here habe put the pieces together themselves and worked it out, others not so much and it's been brought to their attention from other mental/anxiety issues....

I think i would be more nervous about what they would ask my mum rather than getting grilled by a pschcologist myself.....would love to be a fly on the wall for that one haha

I would say I was more surprised than shocked when autism was mentioned.  I have MS as well as a few other health conditions so I put everything down to the MS, but I have known from when I was a kid that there was something different about me.  I was the kid who played by himself in the school playground because I couldn't understand the games the others were playing.  I did well on project work though lol!

I would say I was more surprised than shocked when autism was mentioned.  I have MS as well as a few other health conditions so I put everything down to the MS, but I have known from when I was a kid that there was something different about me.  I was the kid who played by himself in the school playground because I couldn't understand the games the others were playing.  I did well on project work though lol!