Due to ongoing mental health difficulties, my school nurse assisted me in phoning my GP about a referral for autism assessment in 2020, in my final year. After several months of battered around (my GP originally referred me to the wrong organisation) and then turning 18 (no child assessors would take me on at 17 due to waiting lists and adult services don't accept until 18) I was finally accepted by BASS. In July 2021 I got my triage appointment in which I was told that the waiting list for the final full assessment was 7-9 months, and that they'd contact me a month beforehand. I resolved therefore, to contact them if I had not heard by March.
At this point I was relatively sanguine, I was taking a gap year anyway, I had a firm uni place for the year after. An assessment in March or even April would allow me a reasonable amount of time to send evidence to uni's disability centre, get a needs assessment, sort out accommodations etc.
March arrived with no contact. At this point I was with a social prescriber who was trying to help me sort out mental health difficulties triggered by and limiting my ability to work. I was getting referred to various mental health organisations, and he was helping me with phone calls as I massively struggle with initiating such and an enormous amount of healthcare can only be accessed by a call from the patient.
So I sent an email to BASS and was promptly (by which I mean a week and a half later) informed that due to a backlog on the calls to those who know the patients as a child thanks to staff shortages, the waiting list was now about a year from triage. My mental health was not in a great place, this sudden change in plans led to a spiral that was narrowly avoided from heading very, very dark indeed.
Throughout this, I have periodically been with various groups, charity and NHS, who might have been able to help me sort out my brain to a point where at least I am less of a danger to myself. The charities tended to say that while they were happy to do chatting (for 4-6weeks only) they were not equipped to deal with my difficulties and that I needed more formal healthcare and that they wouldn't be able to give me any resources or information that I had not already had access to or been given. Meanwhile the NHS mental health teams told me that as my mental health symptoms were currently pointing towards autism, they could not help, especially before I had had this assessment, and that I needed specialist care. Meanwhile any specialist care is behind the wall of diagnosis.
My uni has sent out forms with deadline of June 30th which include accommodation for disabilities sections. When I contacted the uni's disability centre about this, they sent me a standard email with a link to a form for disclosing disability which requires assessment letters and certificates. I obviously cannot provide this.
So now I'm in a situation where my mental health is barely stable, by which I mean not actively getting worse, the mental health teams are refusing help because I 'need specialist care', the specialist care is getting put off longer and longer, and I'm increasingly worried about getting support put in place for uni, something that both I and the mental health risk assessment person agree is a risky transition for me anyway, even with support.
I don't know what to do, I don't know who I can turn to any more, it feels like every route I try gets blocked for some reason or other and I'm scared of what happens when I lose control.
