Not able to get diagnosed/not taken seriously as a woman

Many people are taught to behave a certain way to people showing emotions like crying, but it's also often conditional on who is expressing the emotion. The difference in your behaviours are allowing your daughter to come between you, " mummy ignores me, daddy gives in to me", I can see that setting an unhelpful precedent for later life.

Havew you asked your husband if theres anyone he wouldn't feel sad for and want to help if he saw them crying?

TheCatWoman said:

I don't doubt that you love your daughter, you're just unimpressed by crying

Yes, but many people including my husband don't get it and I heard from him how can I be so cold. But it's me, who handles our daughter's tantrums best, with me she behaves much better because she knows her tears don't impress me and I'm consequent. 

Tears are telling you something, in the case of illness it's that the person is unwell or injured

Thats totally different to manipulative tears and I've know a few people who can shed crocodile tears at the drop of a hat, it's those people who really annoy me and I find myself with very little wish for them to do anything except shut up and go away.

And what if someone's crying happy tears? Why would I want to stop that, I might not understand why someone would cry at a wedding, but that dosen't mean that I don't know that people do it and it's an apparently natural response to overwhelming emotion.

I don't doubt that you love your daughter, you're just unimpressed by crying.

Hi and welcome to the community.

I was told that there wasn't any point in me going for an assessment because even if I was diagnosed, I wouldn't get any support. That was around 9 years ago.

I've been a member of this forum since then and I'm happy to be a self discovered/self identifying autistic woman and to try to support others who are struggling.

Do not worry, you will not be judged here.

I don't understand how can one get upset when seeing someone crying. Ok, I get it that someone is upset and cries but it has nothing to do with me. This is actually my 'super power' when it comes to raising my daughter. I feel absolutely nothing when she cries to get something. I also feel nothing when she cries because she got hurt or got sick. But in that second case I help her, for example quick pack up and i take her to emergency room. My husband cries together with her, I am the one acting without any emotions. Just to be clear- I love my daughter. 

Hi, welcome to the community. 

It's hard, I also experienced a lot of disbelief when sharing my experience with others. So I stopped doing it, I do only here in this forum. That therapist might not be trained to recognise autism in high functioning autistic adults,  especially women that are not so stereotypical. You may try to find other therapist or ask your GP to refer you. They might give you some quick est like AQ10 for example, the result might convince them to refer you.

There is the stereotype of a boy with the trains, honestly I was a girl with trams and tram lines and still many don't believe I might be autistic,  because I'm not a boy.

You may also try self report tools such as tests: AQ50, RAADS,  print the results out and show them to therapist/GP.

Anyway you can stay here in this forum with or without formal diagnosis, explore yourself and connect to others.

What Dorrmouse said.

there's still a lot of prejudice against autistic women and some are jumping on the "overdiagnosis" bandwagon.

In some ways I was lucky enough to get diagnosed before the reshuffle of criteria and all the tests etc, but still had or have any support apart from here.

I remember being asked by the psychologist if I got upset when people cried and tried to stop them, he was really shocked when I said no I don't, and that often people need to cry to release feelings, or that I might even have made them cry, he got really airated and I think this was what convinced him I really am autistic.

The tests often don't accomodate the way women manifest autism, which can be very different to the male orrientated view that was in vogue when the test were created, hopefully they'll be ammended soon.

Hello and welcome.

If you have not already completed them, your GP ought to be able to arrange the autism screening questionnaires (one step before attending an assessment).  Alternatively, you could consider taking the screening questionnaires yourself online and then discuss the outcome with your GP - see the section about screening tools for the links:

https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/diagnosis/before-diagnosis/deciding-whether-to-seek-an-autism-assessment#What%20are%20screening%20tools%20for%20autism?

Women sometimes struggle to "fit" the stereotypical profile of what some people (or a particular Assessor) consider to be "an autistic person".  In reality, there is no such thing as a stereotypical autistic person.  We each have our own presentation / traits / challenges / strengths.

I had trouble getting my autism assessed and diagnosed ... however, I got there eventually.  I don't think it is an uncommon issue for autistic women - even these days.

In the meantime, you are welcome on the forum (you don't need a diagnosis).

Please do ask questions / share those of the things you like / dislike etc. which you are OK about discussing here on the forum.

I think you may well find some shared experiences and interests among some of us here.

If there are some barriers / particular hassles to negotiate and navigate about college - someone here might have some practical suggestions of strategies / techniques with which you might choose to experiment to see if they might be of benefit to you too.

(We cannot give formal advice on medical and legal topics - however, we can be resourceful about other topics and might know an idea for onward signpost suggestion if we are fresh out of lived experience ideas ourselves).

I am sorry to hear this.

Your GP might refer you.

Reminder of rule 7