#me: cool! can I also get a referral to get screened for ADHD like you said I should? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hebrideansky · 3 years

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autism ask meme if you want to - 1, 11, 18?

Wow tumblr mobile is so bad it didn't tell me you'd sent this lmao Let me go find that meme.... Okay, here 1) How old were you when you found out you were autistic?

Errrrrr this is really complicated because I got diagnosed in a rather atypical way. Essentially it was the change from small local pupils from-a-mix-of-class-blackgrounds primary school to relatively posh private secondary school that did it. Primary school was horrible also, but there were a bunch of children from very disadvantaged backgrounds, so although like weird that my relatively affluent parents had a child that was struggling that much was atypical, no one really looked at the root cause of that. Not helped by having had several form tutors who also strongly disliked me. I suspect if those teachers had cared they'd have flagged it, but the teachers at the relevant milestone years didn't.

But then transfering to secondary school was just horrible and no one would have anything to do with me at all, but by contrast the teachers and the school setup did have a very strong pastoral thingymajig. So the school were like hey Heb's parents your child is fuckin weird you should look into that. Like I was sent to the special English catchup class in yr7 because my fine motor skills were terrible and they were like why can't you hold a pen properly (I still don't do that the way you're meant to, it's part of why I hate writing in non-pencil).

So my parents were like okay hmm maybe there is a background reason to why our child has been bullied every fucking single day of their lives. And they asked a husband/ wife family friends who were psychiartrsits and they were like do an autism assessment. Except right. Big flaw here. They sold it to me as "let's find out why you're weird". Not "let's find out why you're struggling so that we can help you". A thing that made me weird? That would highlight me as being definitely different? WHY WOULD I WANT THAT. The assessment was boring AF and they kept asking the same question in 348576234 different ways and also the person doing the assessment I didn't like straight off the bat. And er, I walked out halfway through. Because fuck that shit.

So I got a write up of "yeh we think this child is autistic but we didn't complete the thing so we can't say for sure." And then my parents continued treating it as a "look how different you are" thing rather than a "hey this means we can get you these accomodations" thing. And eurgh. As a result of that combo of things I didn't get *any* dissability for it in education *at all*.

Then a few years ago, 2016, I talked to my nice GP and was like hey I've been doing some reading and I think I probably am autistic I have having a shittonne of sensory issues please can I have a referral. But the sum of THAT was that (I assume due to funding) was that they were like "given you think you are, and given you have this half thing, we're gonna just go ahead and say without seeing you in person that you are okay cool". So I have like two half formal dx and no... actual one. So I'm kinda screwed if I ever do want to go back to formal education?? [this is also why I think I need an adhd assessment (and specifically caring about where that referral is sent to), because clearly that could so easily have been completely missed. Actually the 2nd place did adhd assessments too, so I was hoping I could be screened for both at once type thing? but er yeah. ] 11) If you could give any advice to your younger self, what would it be? Oh I hate these sorts of questions as they make me think about younger me and I try not to xD Probably something like 'stick with it, you'll find your people you can be yourself around'.

18) Do you find it easier to get along with other autistic people?

I often find it easier to get along with other autistic and/or adhd people for sure. But equally some people it's a hell of a lot worse for, like, our communication styles just keep clashing. Usually comes round, but it takes a couple of years to learn that individual person's stuff, rather than amazing instant slot in? vs non-autistic people tend to be more like, spread out in the middle of the range?

#meme #actuallyautistic #batbetbitbotbut

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not-poignant · 7 years

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pardon this question, you definitely don't have to answer it, but how did you learn or realize you were autistic? I've been researching symptoms and experiences and i know a few people who are on the spectrum, and i've been wondering if i am even though it doesn't present conventionally in some ways? My psychiatrist shut it down v quickly

Hi anon, :)

Okay, I have a long response so I’m putting it under a Read More. The first half is basically my journey to where I’m at now, and the second part is my thoughts on where you’re at, and how self-diagnosis is pretty cool in a world where a lot of the system is against adults getting diagnosed on the spectrum. Feel free to ignore the first part.

It’s a strange journey to how I got here. My folks actually suspected I had autism as a child, but because Asperger’s wasn’t a thing in Western Australia back then (early 80s), I had some borderline traits and then was tossed back without a diagnosis, and that was that.

I had an idea about 8-9 years ago, but never did anything about it, because I was wary of treading into a community I didn’t think I was a part of, and I didn’t want to offend anyone.

Then I had a friend who is also likely Aspie’s, tell me that she thought I very strongly fit the symptom profile of AFAB folks with Asperger’s (people who are women, or assigned female at birth, often have a different autism symptom profile to men, for a lot of reasons, and are often dismissed, because misogyny and a patriarchal medical system). Those symptoms were spot on, but again, I kind of ignored it.

About a year after that, I was having some massive communication troubles, and I ended up with a book on ‘how to communicate with your Aspie partner’ (or something like that, I can find it for you) and it was way more helpful than any book I’ve ever gotten on communicating. Like, way better than my ‘living with a PTSD partner’ better than ‘living with an X chronic condition partner.’ Like, scary accurate. After that, I started self-identifying as neuroatypical. I already knew that it is extremely hard for adults to be diagnosed on the spectrum, especially AFAB folk. It’s one area of self-diagnosis where I was like ‘the material is helping me and my life improve, therefore, I’m going to self-diagnose as having this thing.’*

(*I actually think this is one of the best reasons to self-diagnose, which is if the materials improve your quality of life once you engage with them.)

Some time after that, maybe two years ago now, my current psychologist didn’t do an official screening, but said I met all the core markers for high functioning autism, and had been treating me as a client that was neuroatypical for some time (with some success) even though she hadn’t told me that (she just assumed I knew I was on the spectrum) and we started talking about it.

I’ve never had an official screening, beyond what I had as a 3 to 4 year old. Recently - last year - my Mum found out in a weird weird way. A friend of hers met me twice, her son’s autistic (he’s low functioning) and said to my Mum: ‘I think your daughter has Asperger’s.’ Mum was like ‘haha no, she doesn’t.’ And then apparently this friend showed Mum sites on autism and Mum came to me and was like ‘ahhhhhhh I don’t want to offend you buuuuuut this seems, a lot like - this explains a lot.’ And I was like ‘oh yeah, totally, I’m totally with you, your friend is right.’ And Mum was like: ‘O.O’ and that’s the story of how we get along a bit better now and how she understands me a bit more, lol.

But here’s the thing about getting diagnosed as an adult, particularly if you’re AFAB (I don’t know if you are, but anyway) - it’s really hard, and it’s often really expensive. Currently, in Western Australia, a place known for having very high standards of public health access, it costs $1300 for most to get the official screening done, and most doctors / psychologists don’t offer it, and it’s not covered by almost all forms of insurance, nor is it covered by disability/health welfare. A lot of adults literally don’t have the privilege to afford diagnosis - it’s things like this which make me a big proponent of self-diagnosis, especially in cases where I know the western medical system is really bad at supporting adults with whatever thing the thing is. (ADHD is another, it’s really tough for adults to get diagnosed with this, and get appropriate treatment, especially based on country - it’s possible in Australia, it’s basically impossible in Italy because of cultural biases).

I don’t want to say your psychiatrist is wrong, I don’t know your situation, or your history with them, I’m not a professional of anything remotely medical or psychological. At all. Plus I feel it would be remiss of me if I didn’t say that there is a huge overlap between some high functioning autism symptoms and mental illness symptoms, and a psychiatrist is in the best possible position to know the difference.

I will say it’s worth looking around on Facebook for groups that might look at adult folks with Aspie’s or similar, and ask them what doctors or psychs they saw for diagnosis. We have to do similar here in Western Australia for Fibromyalgia, because even though typically you go to a rheumatologist (at least here) to get diagnosed, a lot of rheumatologists here refuse to even acknowledge/touch Fibromyalgia (it’s notoriously difficult to treat) - so I wasn’t diagnosed for 10+ years, despite actively hunting down a diagnosis for what I had (and I’d even ruled out Fibromyalgia for myself, because I’d been conditioned to accept my chronic, intense pain as ‘normal’ and ‘untreatable’).

Now I have a rheumatologist that diagnosed me, and I have a medication that helps me. That’s a miracle. And I got a referral to this rheumatologist thanks to a Facebook group / friend that were on the ball with this stuff. So I think it would be good to search around online. I actually hate Facebook, but god, it can be really good for putting you in touch with the right doctors, or the patients who see the right doctors/psychs/psychiatrists/counsellors etc. Like I said, I don’t know if your psych is right for you or not, but this is a world where second opinions count, and not all doctors are supportive of every thing. If I’d known I had Fibromyalgia 10-15 years ago, I could have been placed on Amitriptyline early and I may not have ended up on Disability via destroying my life via ignoring illnesses until my body literally couldn’t take it anymore.

My thoughts are…you’re looking for something that helps you, right? That’s why we need labels sometimes. Sometimes the medical profession won’t help us out with that, but that doesn’t stop you from accessing those books, articles, how-tos and so on in the meantime. There are a lot of people, regardless of age, who self-diagnose as neuroatypical in part because the social anxiety of getting diagnosed (a facet of being neuroatypical, among many other things) is just too damn intimidating. You can start looking up ‘how to communicate in relationships if you’re X’ now. You can really start testing all of that stuff out now. If it helps you, if it improves your quality of life (that’s the biggie), that’s like…the most important part imho.

Also, finally if you’re AFAB or a cis female, and haven’t already, google the presentation of Asperger’s in women. You may find the symptom profile fits you better than what you’ll find on the standardised Wiki page. Finally, even if you don’t have Asperger’s, that doesn’t mean you can’t be neuroatypical, or don’t have neuroatypical traits? I’ve had synesthesia all my life, that alone makes me neuroatypical. So it’s worth… remembering that no matter what the final label is that you end up with for yourself, in the meantime, it’s okay to validate those parts of you that don’t seem to fit into the norm of neurological behaviour. It’s okay to seek help and support for it, and it’s okay to give yourself permission to look further.

I wish the path to diagnosis was easier, no matter what the diagnosis ends up being. I have lived what it’s like in a medical system where doctors miss things or ignore things because it’s more convenient for them to do so. It sucks. Trust me, there are a lot of self-diagnosed people on the spectrum, who are right to have self-diagnosed. You’re not alone (I bet there will be other people reading this who can relate to you, anon), and I think it’s awesome that you’re reaching out / putting out feelers about this stuff. *offers hugs*

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