Published on 12, July, 2020
I recently went for an ASD assessment through the NHS and the outcome was that I’m not autistic. She said to me that if it had been picked up when I was a child then I probably would have gotten a diagnosis but because of my intelligence (apparently, although I am yet to find my brain! Haha) I have become very good at hiding it and adapting. I am also a woman which makes it a lot harder to diagnose. So I don’t have a diagnosis. A assessment was started when I was a child but it was never finished for some reason. I know it sounds weird but I feel so upset by this. I feel like I don’t fit in anywhere in the world and this felt like the answer. The assessor said she thinks I may have ADHD so that means another wait list for however long to find out how my brain works. I don’t want this to come off like one of those people who wants to have ASD because I don’t. I want to be normal and to be able to live like my peers and I don’t.
You seem to be saying that if you were less intelligent, you would have been given an autism diagnosis. Intelligence is not mentioned at all in the diagnostic manuals, so should play no part in a diagnostic assessment for autism. If the assessor was unsure about giving you a diagnosis because your behaviour and presentation were inconclusive, due to masking, then your own description of your traits and difficulties should have been conclusive. Personally, I have little faith in clinicians 'divining' the autistic status of adults from observation.