Hello,
I am a 19 years old autistic person and I'm currently at uni. I got diagnosed in November last year and I've been struggling ever since. The friends I made at the start of the year ditched me after I told them I got diagnosed and I'm still unsure as to why. It's been hard since, I always miss home, everyone in my class is so loud and they are exhausting to be around and yet my I'm on my own at the weekend I feel so lonely.
I've been struggling with my mental health for years and I'm finally starting to try to get help for it. I found a chat service for autistic people and asked for advice on services to go to. They sent me to this organisation called VitaHealth. After doing an assessment with them, they promptly told me that they don't offer services for autistic people. They then told me to get a referrel from my GP to the Specialist Autism Team.
Last week, I called my GP and asked for a referral, I was then given a phone appointment (I really struggle with phone calls so it was very stressful) over the phone I explained why I feel that I need support and that I've been told that the SAT would help me. The GP then told me that the service I wanted support from didn't exist. Obviously with it being over the phone I couldn't show her the services website so I kept tryign to explain what it was and what they did but she was adamant that they don't exist.
Does anyone have any advice for how I could get my referral, I really need help and I feel like most of the battle to getting better is going to be fighting my GP to listen to me.
