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Refused diagnosis

Thanks so much for all your responses, everyone. I really appreciate them as they've been very comforting. I received a copy of the letter sent to my GP today with a summary of the session (and it re-angered me and set me off spiralling again) so at least now I have it in writing that they've made some incorrect assumptions about autistic people, as well as the names of the people who interviewed me.

And yes, it was a triage session to assess whether I should have a full diagnostic assessment. Maybe it's quite common for those to go wrong...
 
I'll ask on Twitter for any pointers from people in the area, with your blessing of course. I'll just describe you as "someone I've come across online" and see if anyone has any information that could be of help to you.
 
Autistamatic said:
I'll ask on Twitter for any pointers from people in the area, with your blessing of course. I'll just describe you as "someone I've come across online" and see if anyone has any information that could be of help to you.
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Thank you so much, that would be great! What a relief to find everyone here. :)
 
Pringles said:
Thanks so much for all your responses, everyone. I really appreciate them as they've been very comforting. I received a copy of the letter sent to my GP today with a summary of the session (and it re-angered me and set me off spiralling again) so at least now I have it in writing that they've made some incorrect assumptions about autistic people, as well as the names of the people who interviewed me.

And yes, it was a triage session to assess whether I should have a full diagnostic assessment. Maybe it's quite common for those to go wrong...
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Easier said than done, but try not to let the opinion of the two people you saw for such a short space of time upset you further.

You know yourself better than anyone else will ever know you. The triage assessment doesn't change who you are and the people you had the appointment with are not your only option.

I hope that something positive comes back from @Autistamatic's Bristol/West Country network :)
 
Those of us who get to adulthood without a diagnosis or perhaps without anyone even noticing are clearly very good at "masking." That doesn't mean it doesn't take an often severe toll. It's also not easy to just drop it even in those unusual circumstances where it might be helpful to as it's an ingrained mechanism that we know from long experience is very necessary, whatever NTs may say.
 
Pringles said:
Thanks so much for all your responses, everyone. I really appreciate them as they've been very comforting. I received a copy of the letter sent to my GP today with a summary of the session (and it re-angered me and set me off spiralling again) so at least now I have it in writing that they've made some incorrect assumptions about autistic people, as well as the names of the people who interviewed me.

And yes, it was a triage session to assess whether I should have a full diagnostic assessment. Maybe it's quite common for those to go wrong...
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Very odd. They claim that autism is rare and yet they're so swamped that they have to pre-screen people and boot them out the door post haste so that they can move on to the next rejection?

What the hey is "pre-screen," anyway, when it comes to autism? Autism is complex. My diagnosis took three one-hour sessions over a period of three weeks to arrive at, plus "homework" (filling out long questionnaires, having family and friends fill out questionnaires, etc.).

Is your GP going to be able to refer you elsewhere?

I hope you don't mind me asking this because it's off topic, but I was reading Treasure Island for the 12,000th time in my life the other day and got to thinking about Bristol. Is there a shrine or museum or anything of the sort there honoring the novel and Bristol's little part in it?
 
It's funny, the other day I was listening to a podcast where they discussed psychosis intervention services in Bristol which made it sound really progressive in that department.
 
Noba Loney said:
Those of us who get to adulthood without a diagnosis or perhaps without anyone even noticing are clearly very good at "masking."
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Not always for the lack of diagnosis until adulthood part.

Sometimes it is very clear that there is something going on with a person and they don’t mask well or at all but their problems are misdiagnosed or explained away as something else.
 
I got lucky - I bumped into a health care professional who suspected autism in me before I ever seriously considered it. She was a young psychologist who had specialized in autism in women and she just happened to be treating me for my depression. I’ve since had a lot of doctors (thankfully not doctors in charge of my mental healthcare) tell me I can’t have autism because I’m funny and friendly and I can be very sociable. Yeah, I’m 33, I’ve learned to mask and blend in. I can be a chameleon and still have Aspergers.
I spent over a decade telling various health care professionals I suspected I had a bipolar disorder and they all told me I just had mood swings. 13 years, a few depressions, a few manic episodes and a touch of psychosis later I finally ran into a psychiatrist who took the time to take my history carefully and decided that yes, I do have bipolar disorder.
What I mean to say is there are a lot of health care providers out there that don’t take the time to listen to you, that don’t have the knowledge they should have and that don’t take the time to look into things they don’t understand. I’m a doctor myself and I am regularly baffled by how ill-informed many of my colleagues are. I’m by no means an expert on everything about medicine, but that’s why I refrain from giving my medical opinion about subjects I’m not knowledgeable about.
I hope you find a healthcare provider out there that takes the time to work with you.
 
I will ask my doctor to refer me if she can. It was a doctor who asked me initially a couple of years ago if I'd been tested for autism, which is what started this process. Then I did loads of my own research and became sure of it.

I'm afraid I don't know of any museums about Treasure Island, but there could be something around here somewhere!
 
Pringles said:
Has anyone had a similar experience, or can anyone potentially give advice on coming to a place of self-acceptance without a formal diagnosis, but after being told by a professional that you're not autistic? I realise many people here are self-diagnosed, and I now wish I'd just left it at that because I'm ashamed and embarrassed about how the meeting went and keep obsessing about it and getting more and more angry.
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You just lived my biggest autism-related fear. :( Really the only advice I can give for self-acceptance is what you've probably done already--learn as much as you can about ASD and clinically analyze yourself and your life experiences to see if ASD fits. I'm secure in my self-diagnosis because I doubted it and challenged the idea until the evidence simply piled too high; you've probably done similar. I'm sorry to hear you were treated so poorly, hopefully your second opinion goes better. If you formally complain, make sure you emphasize the procedure, not the diagnosis. It's obvious they didn't bother to properly analyze you and they ignored your input, as well as operating from flawed and outdated understanding, so hit them on that. That way, people won't think "Oh, it's sour grapes from not being told what she wanted to hear."

Autistamatic said:
The comments made during @Pringles experience do worry me though, coming ,as they are, hot on the heels of the nasty and damaging "opinion" piece published in The Guardian a week or so ago. The guy who wrote it is a known agitator and bully who wishes to be a gatekeeper, determining who is and who isn't allowed to call themselves "autistic" and does everything he can to undermine any progress towards neurodiversity.

I hope "professionals" aren't listening to the likes of him.
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Can you point me to this piece? I find it useful to keep tabs on what the idiot masses are being told to think. Know thy enemy, and all that.
 
Is there any reason why you need to see yourself as autistic?

Psychological diagnostic is a complex matter, since a variety of traits can occur because of quite diverse circumstances, and this includes a fair amount of autistic behaviors in adulthood.
 
Tsurezuregusa said:
Is there any reason why you need to see yourself as autistic?

Psychological diagnostic is a complex matter, since a variety of traits can occur because of quite diverse circumstances, and this includes a fair amount of autistic behaviors in adulthood.
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You sound disturbingly similar to one of those doctors! :eek:
 
Fino said:
You sound disturbingly similar to one of those doctors! :eek:
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I'm very sorry. I agree with former posters in asking to a different psychologist/psychiatrist, however if they do indeed believe the very same thing than the former doctor, should OP go through more practitioners until finding one that confirms her diagnostic? I think this could potentially do more harm than good to OP, in terms of time and money, and the possible treatment of a different diagnostic that may require therapeutic treatments and might be the origin of this behavior.

I do believe OP should see an specialist in ASD, and I disagree with the statement "shouldn't go private because they'll just tell you what you want to hear and it won't be a real diagnosis" because it's utterly ridiculous. But I also hope OP doesn't fall into despair if she doesn't receive an ASD diagnostic.
 
Tsurezuregusa said:
I'm very sorry. I agree with former posters in asking to a different psychologist/psychiatrist, however if they do indeed believe the very same thing than the former doctor, should OP go through more practitioners until finding one that confirms her diagnostic? I think this could potentially do more harm than good to OP, in terms of time and money, and the possible treatment of a different diagnostic that may require therapeutic treatments and might be the origin of this behavior.

I do believe OP should see an specialist in ASD, and I disagree with the statement "shouldn't go private because they'll just tell you what you want to hear and it won't be a real diagnosis" because it's utterly ridiculous. But I also hope OP doesn't fall into despair if she doesn't receive an ASD diagnostic.
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Good point. I was dead sure I was autistic before I went in for my diagnosis, but early into the evaluation, I realized that I wasn't qualified to make that determination and so needed to be as honest and thorough as possible with the psychologist I was seeing, who did indeed later diagnose me as autistic.

I totally understand Pringles's urgency and need to be diagnosed, though, especially as a female. I would never in a million years have guessed I was autistic until one night I happened upon an article about females on the spectrum, which read like my own life story. Being diagnosed helps you understand yourself and your past so much, so I understand how Pringles must feel at not having been taken seriously or given the time to fully explain herself.
 
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