Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello. I'm brand new here and I guess I'm looking for advice or other experiences from people and their diagnosis process.
I strongly believe that I have high functioning adult ASD. Having discussed this with my GP he has proposed a 6 week therapy course for anxiety problems, being that it is NHS funded and a distinct lack of ANYONE who deals with autism in my area (the closest being people who actually deal with ADHD but probably could help me). My GP is supportive but as a GP he is not able to diagnose me, after the 6 week course we will review and if I feel like I want to pursue a diagnosis then we will see about investigating one but also looking into personality disorders, which I do not believe I have, much looking into high functioning ASD and BPD and BPD absolutely does not ring true to me whereas ASD sounds exactly like me.
I'm wondering really about what other peoples process was like, and if there is anything I should be doing, asking etc. I feel like the anxiety counselling will be helpful but other than that I kind of feel like I'm not going to get much help because it just isn't there!
Thank you for listening.
Hi NAS 24727 and welcome,
You might be interested to look at the NAS page on adult diagnosis:
http://www.autism.org.uk/about/diagnosis.aspx
Also you might be interested that the Autism Act 2009 was the first ever disability specific law in England. The act led to the government producing the Autism Strategy. As part of this strategy, it was recommended that local areas appoint a lead professional to develop diagnostic and assessment services for adults with autism. One of the guidelines is that local authorities must have a clear pathway of diagnosis for adults. This means that wherever you live, you should be able to access a diagnostic assessment and your GP and/or local authority should be able to tell you how you can access this assessment: http://www.autism.org.uk/working-with/autism-strategy/diagnosis/find-your-local-diagnostic-leads.aspx
Hope everything goes well for you.
Kind regards,
Heather - Mod
Thanks, my doctors office has called this morning asking me to go back and discuss it further. There were people who dealth primarily with ADHD who were most likely to be able to help me but they were currently not being particularly to another one of his patients so he was a bit reluctant to send me tot hem. Hopefully when I go back he'll have some more ideas.
I have just raised this issue with my own GP who told me there's no provision for adult diagnosis, it being an irrelevant waste of time and resources. This is very enlightening, thank you.