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Hi. New here. Needed somewhere to go that wasn't social media where people I know can't see my posts. I am undiagnosed but am certain.

I have an adhd assessment May 19. It feels like it is forever away. I can not stop obsessing about it. I FEEL autism in me. I am so afraid that they will tell that I'm ridiculous for thinking I have autism at 49 and won't look for it in my assessment. I fear they just won't help period. I NEED a clinical diagnosis for my own sake. I will never stop thinking about it until I am certain.

Please tell me diagnosis stories? Did you have to fight for it? How did you fight for it? Were you turned down? Where did you turn?

Uncertainty is my BIGGEST anxiety trigger and it's getting the better of me.

I self diagnosed in my early 30's and then just put it to the back of my mind and got on with things.

That was a mistake, I should have processed it properly and then figured things out looking back and then forward. It would have saved me a lot of stress and self loathing.

Even better would have been to seek a formal diagnosis so that I could be certain.

My first discussion with a GP about this something like 10 years later was met with 'whats the point - your doing OK'. Put me off pursuing it.

I paid for a private diagnosis at the age of 60. This was carried out by NHS specialists working under contract to a private provider- the report and diagnosis was entered onto my NHS health records.

Receiving feedback from the lead clinician, reading the report and then having a confirmed diagnosis was transformative for me. Looking back over my life many things then made sense viewed through this lens. Moving forward things became far less stressful as I reduced my masking and let more of the real me out.

Thats just me. I just like to know what things are - including myslelf. We are all individuals and it may not be such a positive thing for others.

welcome to our club, Enola i was dx'ed in the early 00s, in my early 40s. it was somewhat anticlimactic in that i already knew, but it just put the period. in the phase of my life where it was not official.

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

I came to realize when I was 64 that I had Aspergers. I have more than 20 years significant work experience with people with developmental disabilities, but still did not see it in myself until I stumbled on an article about professional women and how autism is expressed in women.

I personally feel no need for a professional diagnosis. This key fit the lock perfectly. Now my life makes sense and I am comfortable with that.

However, many find getting a professional diagnosis important and helpful. If you decide to go for a professional diagnosis, make sure they are experts in autism as expressed in women.

Hello,
wishing you luck with your assessment.

I know how you feel, I remember hating the uncertainty of believing myself to be on the spectrum but not having official confirmation. All that yoyo-ing between certainty and self-doubt.

Anyway, I was diagnosed 3 years ago and it wasn't difficult... but I suspect (unfortunately) the result may depend somewhat on the experience and biases of the assessor. I may have been lucky.

The way autism expresses itself in adult women is not always clearly within the diagnostic criteria due to (for example):
- camouflaging/masking behaviours or work-arounds developed over time,
- less external behaviours and more internal difficulties (often manifesting as or mistaken for mental health issues), and
- different types of special interests.

My suggestion would be to check which diagnostic criterion they will be using (DSM V or ICD-10 for example) and read for yourself the criteria. Then think of specific examples from your life that illustrate how those criteria apply to you - even if you only remember ones from childhood. This will help in any preliminary questionnaire or diagnostic interview. This is not cheating as long as they are real examples; the assessor will do more objective testing also, to be certain. The pre-planning just helps avoid getting mixed results which might lead to a judgement call by the assessor, where bias or inexperience with adult female phenotype could affect the outcome.

For instance, if I'd gone into the interview without forethought and was asked if I had any stereotypical / repetitive behaviours I probably would not have been able to think of any. But with forethought I realised I did have a few quirks such as lining all my pencils up in colour order and having all my books carefully ordered by topic and author in alphabetical order. These sort of things that may not be definitively autistic (many NTs do the same) but together with the other criteria can form enough of a pattern to get the diagnosis.

And I didn't realise it, but all through the initial interview I'd been playing with my fingers in a way that the assessor identified straight off as an autistic stim, and I hadn't even been aware I was doing it! I get the impression she tagged me as aspie even before the end of the first interview. So don't worry too much - if you are on the spectrum, it will probably show in some way.

Even if you don't get the diagnosis, it's not the end of the world. What you'll find is, there's no help out there for late diagnosed autistic women anyway, so it's not like there's much use for it. In fact, getting the diagnosis tends to trigger a bit of an existential crisis, it certainly did for me, I was on an emotional rollercoaster for a while afterward.

And whatever the outcome, you'll still be welcome here on WP

I've always put my faith in health professionals. Thus far, they haven't let me down. Make sure you check their credentials. Take one step at a time and you'll be ok.