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#and that pays more than any adult job that genuinely helps ppl I’ve ever had
purity999 · 3 years
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Customer made me cry today :(
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pet-diary · 7 years
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Hi! I saw your answer about "growing up autistic". I was jsut wondering if you were at any point misdiagnosed with something like an anxiety disorder or a personality disorder, and whether it was hard to find a professional who would take your symptoms/experiences seriously enough to arrive at an autism diagnosis.
I never went to a professional of any kind for any mental issues* (despite having them and needing to) until I was in my mid-twenties and set everything up myself. Which honestly is just sad because I’ve struggled with anxiety, depression, self harm, and suicidal ideation, sensory issues, meltdowns, unhealthy obsessions, unhealthy stims, and a mood disorder ever since I can remember. I’m a really quiet person irl, I don’t draw a lot of attention to myself and I’ve spent nearly a decade just keeping silent even when in my worst mental health. If I had been professionally diagnosed as a teen I probably would have been diagnosed as having an anxiety disorder (which wouldn’t have been a misdiagnosis) and possibly bpd or bipolar because both of those share some similarities to how autism and anxiety and whatever else manifests for me, and given that autism was considered a “boy’s disorder” in the 2000s when I was growing up (and especially in the 90s when I was younger), I highly doubt anyone would have made that connection for me. A lot of autistic girls are misdiagnosed before they finally land on autism. I’m probably kind of lucky that I didn’t have to go through that. No one was really paying attention to me so I just got overlooked entirely.
(*Once I went to my GP for depression when I was a freshman in high school, I got antidepressants for a month and then nothing else, like it never even happened. I don’t really consider this seeing a professional bc he was a general practitioner and basically said “so you’re feeling a little sad? Aww. :( Well maybe these will help sweeeeetie, ok? You’ll be fine.” I was never evaluated or talked to really about anything I was feeling and I was with my mom the whole time so of course I felt really closed up about things.)
Sorry this is turning into another long answer! To address your second question, no it wasn’t hard at all to find people who would take my diagnosis seriously. I know a lot of people have trouble with that, but luckily I didn’t have too much trouble at all. I reached out to a handful of professionals through psychology today’s messaging system (therapists, doctors, etc, just because I wasn’t sure who to ask and I was looking for advice more than anything). I think they all wrote me back. Some said they couldn’t diagnose but they could see me for therapy. I ended up going with a psychologist who said he was equipped to diagnose autism in adults, and he seemed nice enough (he was also close by my job at the time). Once I went, I felt he was a little skeptical, but I think mostly just because I was bringing the diagnosis to him and I think he thought that was bullshit at first. But I guess after all the millions of tests he was like “yeah you’re autistic”.
I ended up getting a few months of counseling from one of the people that wrote me back saying they could see me but couldn’t diagnose. That was a really positive experience (though scary for me bc it was my first time doing something like that). He was really empathetic and helped me a lot with my self esteem and learning how to talk about my diagnosis because I was really scared of doing that (still am sometimes). He was really cool. I wish I could have kept seeing him but I moved away a few months after starting. I really need to start seeing someone again but I need to work up the courage (anxiety)…
I know the psych field has a LOT of problems (believe me I KNOW, I would love to blow the lid off some of those problems and fix anything I can when I actually have some pull in the field one of these days hopefully)… But there’s a lot of people who really are helping others and doing a damn fine job and they really truly care. If you ever have a bad experience in therapy or whatever, dump them and try someone else! But don’t just give up and call it all bad because that’s really not the case. I can only speak from my perspective, but also from the perspective of a psych student surrounded by other psych students who are flawed and human (so they’ll make mistakes) but genuinely want to help people going through hard times.Sorry I just have to include that bc I feel like there’s a lot of info out there scaring ppl away from getting help when honestly there’s a lot of good help to be had.
I know this is probably a lot harder to navigate and be taken seriously as a minor or someone who has multiple bad diagnoses but maybe try to reach out to someone asking for help on how to get reevaluated or an advocate to help you? I’m sorry I feel like I’m rambling and it’s late and I’m tired I hope this makes sense… Also, evals are damn expensive. Like, just need to throw that out there. :( But I can tell you from interning at a diagnostic clinic, everyone there really cared a whole hell of a lot and they were doing everything they could to help the kids and parents and they worked hard to try to cut through the bullshit so those ppl weren’t having to deal w/ more red tape than they needed to (I’m talking about young kids trying to get resources from school and stuff).
I’m open to more Qs about this stuff if anyone has any!!! Sorry this answer is a little all over the place. I need to go to beddd, zzzzzzz.
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