Published on 12, July, 2020
I am an adult female, 48, who has just had a remote assessment funded by the NHS but carried out by a private company I think to reduce the waiting list times. I felt really lucky to be seen more quickly than waiting for a face to face assessment but the experience hasn't been satisfactory and has left me feeling low and confused. I prepared thoroughly for the assessment and have read a lot of books about autism. I feel convinced that I have autism after reading about the experiences of other adult females but I know it can be really tricky to get diagnosed unless the clinician has the right knowledge and experience dealing with adult females. My assessment was in 2 parts with a different clinician for each part. The first doctor said that she thought I was autistic and would write a report to say so. The doctor for the second part was a consultant psychiatrist who said that he wasn't convinced and that anxiety was the issue although I had autistic traits. HIs recommendation was to try different medication and a higher dose, although I've tried that before and it doesn't change anything. As he's the consultant he isn't going to take the first doctor's opinion into account and said that she was asking me leading questions! This leaves me in limbo! I have read that you are either autistic or not on a spectrum and that you can't have autistic traits unless you are autistic. Also, I don't want to be fobbed off by being called simply anxious, which is what people have told me my whole life, but I want to understand more the reasons for the anxiety, things I have worked hard over the last year with my therapist to find out and have really helped me. Sorry to rant but I'm so angry and would love to know if anyone else has had a similar experience and if they have any advice for me. Also, should I consider a second opinion but I guess I would have to pay privately for this. Many thanks.
I did have a similar experience. I was first assessed aged twenty-two or twenty-three and found to have many autistic symptoms, but not to be on the spectrum. Fast-forward over a decade, and I was in a job that was clearly not a good environment for me, but I struggled to work out why. Then I transferred to a worse one. Gradually, I realised I was on the spectrum and these were autism-unfriendly environments. I was able to get my GP to refer me for a second assessment and I did eventually get diagnosed.
In order to get diagnosed, I did a lot of reading and autism and compiled a big document (about five or six pages) listing all the symptoms I had and I showed this to the psychiatrist at the second assessment. I was fortunate to have a supportive GP too.
Did you have someone who gave evidence about your childhood? This was the issue with my first assessment. There were things about me that my Mum didn't know where evidence of autism and as the psychiatrist didn't ask her a direct question about them, she never mentioned them, so I made sure to put those t hings in my document.
Yes I think parents often do not realise that some of the traits that their child display are autistic. Especially as parents might also be autistic but undiagnosed and therefore have no idea that some traits are autistic as they experience them too so it doesn't seem unusual to them. At least that's what it was like for my Mum and I- now that I am being diagnosed, we strongly suspect that she is autistic too. Now that we are learning more about autism we are seeing more and more traits that we previously though were perfectly 'normal'.