Published on 12, July, 2020
I was recently diagnosed with autism. I got the assessment done on the suggestion of the community mental health team. However, I now feel that, even though I have the diagnosis, they are not interested in how they could make small adjustments to make communicating with them less stressful. I find social encounters distressing anyway, but when attending appointments with cmht, the very nature of the meeting, which requires me expressing how I feel etc, makes it overwhelming. That’s aside from the usual stressors of the environment, and trying to read their intentions. As a result, the relationship is strained and in a moment of frustration I said I wanted to be discharged. They did it instantly. Yes I said it, but I explained that it was in a moment of upset, and that they didn’t even open a discussion about how to better accommodate my needs. I am due to have another appointment with them.
How do I go about making me needs heard and met?
And on a separate point, I find that when you have an autism diagnosis, instead of viewing any comorbidities as separate from autism, everything is attributed to it, as an excuse to deny you treatment, rather than adapting treatment to suit an autistic person. I am newly diagnosed, but I still know my own mind and I know what is autism driven, and what is not. They try to say my OCD compulsions are ‘comforting’ and are part of my autism, when they are not. They are highly distressing and driven by intrusive thoughts. It is the same with my eating disorder. They keep trying to say it is restrictive because of sensory stuff to do with autism, but again, I know what it is driven by. Yes, some of these things may have been exacerbated by autism, or made more likely because of it, but this blanket use of autism to try and justify not treating it, means I am left struggling.
Again, any advice on making sure my needs are met int his area? And is there any rule or guidance that makes it obligatory for services to meet these needs?
Sorry to hear about what happens in mental health team. Unfortunately CMHT are not geared up for anything other than mental health,and prescribing anti psychotics(that's psychiatrists job!). All health is pigeonholed and if u have more than one pigeon hole they know nothing of it(yet to be proved wrong by anyone over decades!). Personally if you are dealt with for Autism by a team that is great,and discharging urself from MH could be the best thing you've ever done. As CMHT don't deal with comorbidities(as i found out for over 30 yrs with brain injury symptoms!). I think your GP could deal with other things(tho their job is guided by CCG's and money,so mostly again just drugs-mostly anti depressants!),but primary care(GP)is only different than CMHT in that they give less hard drugs(disregarding comorbities).
CMHT is only rarely good in a crisis,which unfortunately means people have done something drastic.
Mostly CMHT will put ur health down to u causing ur own problems,as if it's ur fault-saves them bothering!
The problem with NHS is that they calling anything mental health and so too many are dealt with by them,and there is even less money to treat,just give depo drugs instead.
Even Epilepsy is constantly being dumbed down to MH or anxiety-is ridiculous.
Yes I’ve found they as soon as you have more than one diagnosis, or ‘symptoms’ fit into different categories, they write you off because the ‘referral pathway’ for you doesn’t exist. The amount of people wrongly cut out of the system because of illogical criteria etc is awful. I know people say mental health doesn’t have parity of esteem with physical health, but in some ways mental health is approached TOO much like physical health in terms of ‘ticking boxes’ and the ‘one size fits all’ approach.
What dismays me is that even with physical health, they join the dots better. If you needed an op on your back but also had diabetes, the impact of the diabetes would be integrated into the plan for the op and your recovery.
If you have MH problems and autism, the one may be impacting on the other, even though there will be other factors involved. The two disciplines can't keep batting you between them, nor can either one deal with the separate issues without consideration of the other. I can't believe that there doesn't really seem to be some specialist dept. that deals with general MH FOR people with autism.
I'm quite frightened actually because I have serious medical phobias which MH Services have been no help with. I have always been able to tell which adverse childhood events have a role in its development (that much could happen to anyone and looks like general MH), but now that autism in on the agenda and my mother is telling me about some events with doctors at the age of two, I'm beginning to understand that the sensory aspect also probably has a role, and autism is probably behind the problems with care so far; I can't process or think or feel about anything the way they expect people to. I honestly believe the only way the services can help us is to start seeing these things as both psychological and neurological and start developing therapies which accommodate both.
To my mind, if they just don't have the resources or the treatments available, the very least they could do for us is tell us that honestly and at least leave us our dignity. After all if you had a back problem they didn't have a treatment to correct, that's exactly what they'd do. Instead, they bat between pillar and post because they don't want to deal with it, or worse, when we can't fit the boxes, blame us. That's not honest and it makes the problem so much worse.