Published on 12, July, 2020
I’m autistic, and I’ve been dealing with depression and social anxiety for over a decade, now. My family has been battling the NHS to get the little support I have now. I am wondering how other autistic people are finding the NHS.
My first issue is that there are no autistic professionals accessible to me, which means I’m having to try and educate every professional I encounter on autism. I’ve been struggling to properly understand what autism is, myself, so I haven’t been doing great. I’m thankful to have an Adult Autism Intensive Support Team that operates in my area, because they have now taken up the role of educating NHS professionals on autism, but that means I’m now having to hope these other human beings internalise what is said to them, view me as equal, and treat my problems as equally as serious as a non-autistic person’s problems, which has happened rarely so far, it feels.
My second issue is the interactions with the professionals who do not care that I am autistic. Having a psychiatric doctor laugh when I told him I was autistic, asking me if it was something I had read on the internet. Having an occupational therapist try asking me to separate myself from my autism. Medication being the solution, for the time being, while I waste years of my life terrified of the world around me. I wonder what else there is that I’ve forgotten to mention. I should document the things that make me feel miserable.
If I were a caged animal, I’d have somebody in my corner. Somebody would scream “This is neglect!” Unfortunately, I’m an autistic human, so I don’t really have that. I have a team of NHS employees in my corner, who aren’t willing to bite the hand that feeds them, verbally, of course. Who would be willing to criticise the one that pays them, that gives them what they need to make it to the next day? I’m trapped, because they’re trapped. I’m losing hope. I have no faith in the NHS, or in British society to force our political leaders, those whose jobs it is to serve the people of our nation, to come to the aid of any autistic person.
In short: I have no faith in the NHS’ ability to help autistic people. How about you?
This "triggers" me. I already had my suspicions about the NHS but then I got the ultimate "snoopers dream job" auditting and updating every computer in the local NHS service. (You see EVERYTHING as an IT geek, and no one sees you...)
I learned two things that shocked me. 1. How ECT actually works and how the service is delivered. 2. How many high paid cushy jobs there are for every low paid service delievery worker.
I saw awesome levels of DGAF (don't give a F***) and in the I.T. section incompetence, low quality result (dr's waiitng 20 minutes to get a log-in!!) and a really, really piss poor leadership attitude twards the service users. VERY, VERY few of the people I met were enthusiastic about anything except staying out of trouble and getting out as quick as possible.
We Audittors discovered that they had LOST 1400 computers, by the time they sacked me (gross misconduct apparenlty, although was never given any specifics past "acting like a manager") the team I ended up "leading" had found all but 400 of the missing machines.
And don't get me started on the psychology suites and offices... I don't "snoop" as such but I do LOOK AROUND, and their offices were like windows into their weird little souls...
Great thread Jermaine. Your depression from my perspective stems for the fact that you have still got your eyes open, and can still clearly identfy and describe what you see, without lapsing into condtioned helplessness.
It's not your FAULT or FAILING, but it IS your PROBLEM. Problems are solvable.
I've personally been their trying to do myself in at 24, and like you failed to do that. (I suspect because we are't really bonkers).
You are a young man living in England, it is depressing.
Your masculinity is derided, (as for expressing it, well it isn't yet illegal, but we are literally getting there fast..) and there are very few satisfyng and fulfilling jobs available anyway, and anything that pays well is where all the psychopaths and vicious people congregate, so even if you get there on merit(!) the workplace is a psychological cage fight.
So most of us who don't kill ourselves or generally go off the rails or simply give up, have to CREATE our own way OUT OF NOTHING. Almost no-one is going to help you. Some will, but I've found that you can only really count on yourself.
SADLY I find that even counting on myself only works some of the time, too. yet, young Jermaine, it is very possible to put in another forty years in this crappy life, and come out smiling.
I sit here aged 64, read your profile and read your EXCELLENT AND INCISIVE post here about the NHS (It WAS once a service we could be proud of) and it's failings.
FWIW, when I did my NHS contract they had all sorts of depression scoring charts, which I used to score myself and I was 100% GET HELP before they sacked me on a pretext... I still survived.
I like trite little "sayings" and I have a whole list that I've picked up over the years and my favourite is:
"Don't let the bastards grind you down".
And I really like that "tub thumping song"...
And if you ignore what the people with the blue hair say, being a MAN is about confronting life, rolling with the punches, and prevailing. (In my case "prevailing" does inviolve and awful lot of knowing when to flail away fruitelessly and when to go and take a lie down).
That gets really boring, really fast, and you have to KEEP DOING IT, so the rest is about 1. Adding your own style, and little flourishes to the process and 2. Finding your cat...
I Sperg said:they sacked me (gross misconduct apparenlty, although was never given any specifics past "acting like a manager") the team I ended up "leading" had found all but 400 of the missing machines.
yeah that tells me your bosses were "losing" all them computers on purpose so they could steal them for themselves and sell them for money for personal gain. this is why the nhs is actually funded, its the most funded institution in the world... but its corrupt, all the money is stolen and wasted like this by the ones in charge.