Concerns about the Autism diagnosis process with benzo use.

I have finally figured out what has been causing the debilitating social anxiety that has blighted my entire adult life - I am Autistic.

I've only self diagnosed so far, I've done heaps of research on You Tube channels and forums, done online tests and joined Neuro Divergent type Meetup groups. Scored well over the threshold on mosts screening tests, including a score of 7/10 on the medical screening test they use in the UK.

Although I feel quite sure within myself that this is the case, finally and suddenly all my difficulties finally make sense and can be explained to myself, I suppose that the absolute certainty of a professional diagnosis would make it absolutely real, and not just something that could be all in my head.

Such is life though that there are always complicating factors. My concern and dilemma at the moment with all of this is the following: Do I disclose my benzo use?

I read somewhere on Bluelight that you have to be off all medications and drugs, prescribed or otherwise, for a period of 6 months prior to a diagnosis. Benzo use and or withdrawl could interfere with a diagnosis, so someone on Bluelight said.

Is this true, does anyone know? Does anyone have relevant experience or knowledge? I would love to hear from you.

I have tried life without benzos several times, and for stretches of years at at time. I am currently not willing to do it again, not right now. It makes everyday social interactions so much more difficult for me without benzos. I genuinely fear that I would lose my job and become unemployable without benzos. The positive reinforcement is abundantly clear to me every time I experiment with facing social siuations with benzos and without benzos. The elimination of the anxiety is a huge part of it sure, but benzos just seem to make relating to other people so much easier. They fix my social issues to a very large extent. (I have tried CBT - recently completed 16 weeks of one to one session sessions with a therapist, although it helped a bit with some parts of my issues it never really got close to addressing the route cause of the anxiety)

I don't use benzos every day. I try to have days off every week. I'm technically not addicted, although getting close. (Let's not get too much into that aspect at the moment please, this is not what I want to focus on right now)

So I could just keep quiet about my benzo use during my assesment, and not disclose the fact that I am using them to help me deal with the anxiety I face, and turn up to the assesment in my natural / non benzoed state. That would be the real, unmedicated me. It would be a white lie, and in my mind not of any huge relevance or significance to the diagnostic process. I know life is not fair, but to me it is grossly unfair that benzo use would invalidate an assesment, IF this is the case, and if the psychologist / diagnostician would consider that to be the case.

But if i did keep quiet my concern is that the assessor could then say something along the lines of 'because you can hold down a full time job and look after yourself without support, therefor you dont have any clinically significant impairment, so you can't possibly be autistic'. I have heard that they do say things like this, from the hundreds of hours of Autism experience You Tube videos I have watched. I could try to get the point across about how difficult all this is for me. But then the "clinically significant impairment" aspect comes into it, and it's the assesors judgement call.

So in summary, my dilemma is this, risk the assessor refusing to make a diagnosis due to me having disclosed my benzo use, and consequently the assessor then refusing to see the test as valid due to the fact of my benzo use. Or, if I was to keep quiet about my benzo use they might turn around and say 'you're doing fine, you can hold down a job and look after yourself therefor you dont have any clinically significant impairment', therefor you dont meet the diagnostic threshold.

Do you see what I mean? Does this make sense? Does anyone have relevant experience, or just any advice?

If you got this far, thank you for reading.
 
  • I've never heard of this before. Perhaps someone else knows the answer. I know that Benzodiazepines are highly addictive drugs with terrible withdrawal symptoms and are dangerous for long-term users. I'm pretty sure they are not recommended for people with autism, or anyone else apart from for a very short time (a day or two) and in acute circumstances. But, I don't see how they would prevent a diagnosis unless you were in a heavy state of sedation.