Non-diagnosed 17 year old

In the ways that you mention, I was very much like your son when I was his age. Academically OK, but very stressed, severe insomnia, and easily overwhelmed socially. It's not unusual for autistic people to experience greater problems during the years of puberty, and I certainly did. On top of the exam pressure, it's a time when the social scene is changing drastically; all of his peers are growing into adults, which brings along with it a huge amount of new social behaviours that can be utterly bewildering. Alliances and rivalries are changing all around him, and, of course, romance and sexual feelings are being discovered. Even the changes in our own bodies as we go through puberty can be more worrying than usual to autistic people, due to sensory and body-image differences. Worse still, because we recognise that we're different somehow to our peers, we feel that we should never talk of these things, or feel that we're being left behind, isolating ourselves from our peers even further.

The insomnia is also very common in autistic people. The early results of a study by Autistica suggest that up to 60% of us have sleep difficulties of one kind or another. Anxiety may be partly responsible, and will certainly make it worse, but for some of us there are genuine problems with how our body clock works, disturbing dreams, or being easily woken if we're sound sensitive. Sleep hygiene can certainly help, but if it's as persistent as you describe, the possibility of a primary sleep condition should be looked into; knowing what kind it is might be necessary in order to tackle it more effectively.

The GP is certainly not wrong that your son is suffering from anxiety, but isn't seeing through it to the underlying problems that are causing the anxiety (many of us late-diagnosed adults have had diagnoses of anxiety, depression, etc. for decades before our autism was recognised.) Although disappointing in the short-term, the hour long CAMHS appointment is a very good opportunity to drive home how serious your son's problems are. You have much more time to get into details which you couldn't possibly at a short GP appointment, and you'll be talking to someone who at the very least has some specialism in psychology, which few GPs do. Although much later in life, this was the way that I ended up getting an assessment referral, after my autism had been missed by multiple doctors and counsellors for decades. It sounds like you've done a good job of identifying the traits that are stressing your son the most; if necessary write them down to cue you during the interview; you need to make sure that they get spoken about, and they'll act as catalysts to get your son talking about the right things.

If you do get the opportunity for a full assessment, which I hope you do, I would enquire whether your son will be assessed as an adult or as a child. The diagnostic tests can be quite different between the two, and childhood assessments can include puzzles etc. which an academically able 17 year old could solve using their cleverness rather than their instincts, so might be misleading. I think they probably would do this, but I've heard of the odd case of near-adults being assessed using very simplistic tasks which were too easy to tell anything much from.

Best wishes, I hope the interview goes well for you both.

Thank you Trogluddite. I'm sorry to hear of what you went through during your teens. As you say, it's a hard time for anyone but much harder when there's so much you don't understand going on. 

I'm very glad to hear that you did eventually manage to get the assessment and diagnosis you needed and I hope it's helped you. I plan to write as much as possible down before we go but it's so hard to remember 16 years ago and traits he showed then which aren't there now. Your point about the different diagnostic processes is a very good one and I'll definitely keep an eye on that. 

Thanks for your good wishes.

Thank you Trogluddite. I'm sorry to hear of what you went through during your teens. As you say, it's a hard time for anyone but much harder when there's so much you don't understand going on. 

I'm very glad to hear that you did eventually manage to get the assessment and diagnosis you needed and I hope it's helped you. I plan to write as much as possible down before we go but it's so hard to remember 16 years ago and traits he showed then which aren't there now. Your point about the different diagnostic processes is a very good one and I'll definitely keep an eye on that. 

Thanks for your good wishes.