Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, does anyone have an idea roughly how long I’ll be waiting for an autism assessment? I have already been waiting 17 months and it is negatively affecting my mental health not knowing if I will have a diagnosis or not. I can’t really afford to go private at the moment and I could do with having a diagnosis this year before I finish uni.
For context: I am a 21 year old female with anxiety, depression, a history of an eating disorder and suspected POTS.
It can be a very long wait if you are young through the NHS.
If you are fortunate enough to have access to private medical health, like AXA, it can be a lot quicker.
I recommend you do it via https://www.problemshared.net/ even if you're going via NHS, they will give you some handy templates that you can take to your GP to speed up the process.
I hope this helps. Good luck!
Also, to be fair, if you are looking to get a diagnosis it's probably because you are in the spectrum. Non-autistic people don't go wondering "I think I might be autistic, I should probably get a diagnosis." If you got to that point, I'd assume you've done your research and it resonated with you.
I understand what you said about the wait affecting your mental health. I went through the same prices myself but I only had to wait for 4 months, and it was torture.
Get in touch with Problem Shared as I mentioned, and also take a look at some resources on YouTube, these channels helped me a lot:
- Paul Micallef's channel Autism from the Inside
- channel "I'm autistic, now what?" run by a British woman called Megan
- Orion Kelly - That Autistic Guy