For adults: how did you initially seek help?

Post Reply New Topic

Hi,

I'm a 32-year old woman in the UK on the edge of being DX'd

I looked up stuff for a friend in the Internet ahbout AS and ended up thinging OMFG this sounds so like me!"

After contacting the National Autistic Society (NAS) and printing off their "How to get a diagnosis as an adult" sheet, I set out an explanation centred around the "triad of impairments" as the sheet suggested. As I am no good at talking to my Doctor (or any authority figure) I thought it best to type it out with a short covering letter, and included the letter I sent to the NAS and the reply I recieved from them as well. He then called me in to talk about it.

At this point, I thought "Ohshitohshitohshit, he's going to accuse me of self-diagnosis and refuse. " I promptly typed up a one-page refutation of the idea I was self-diagnosing, (Centred around "if I was self-diagnosing, would i be asking you for testing?) and went in ready to "face the ogre".

All he wanted to know was where I wanted to go of the places available. He also wanted to tell me he was very impressed with the research I'd done and how well I'd set out my case. (If you want copies of what I wrote, PM me and I'll email it to you so you can use it as a template or something.)

To cut a long story short, a month after that I was talking to two psychiatrists who specialise in learning disabilities, presenting them with a 16 A4-page text summary of my life from just pre-birth till my early twenties, plus another loasd of stuff AAS could explain with me, and was told "We can't give you an *official* diagnosis till we've checked everything and looked through what you've given us, but i think you're probably correct in your suspicions that you have AS. I'll bring information about services you can access and things available to help you to your next appointment."

Hope this helps.

Julie

This is a very interesting and timely topic for me. I'm a 53 yr old male who's been in and out of therapy since childhood, mostly treated for depression. But recently, after having my current Psych mention autism (I didn't follow up then!) and having "seen myself" in a couple of articles, I have found a possible explanation for so much of what's made my life difficult. So recalling the episodes of selective mutism, difficulty with looking folks in the eyes, and avoiding the hugs of friends and relatives as a child, I sat down and made a list. I didn't use the DSM, but it was kind of therapeutic just to right it all down: the difficulties as a child, and then, what difficulties continue to this day. I had always been finding psychological explanations for my behaviors, but it didn't seem helpful.

The psych, who I've been seeing for over two years has tagged me largely as Bipolar II, but that's never really felt quite right. I'll be seeing her again on the 20th and bringing my list along. She sees alot of children, so I'd imagine she might be useful in this. That is, unless she's overly partial to her initial diagnosis. (I don't have a lot of faith in docs, what with working in healthcare for over 30 yrs!)

Thanks everybody for your wonderful sharing. As soon as I found a sight called Wrong Planet, I began to feel at home!

Hey Albert1,

Just thought I would post and say Welcome to Wrongplanet!

Thanks for the welcome trapped,

Tune in here after this Thursday and I'll post the results of my first stab at diagnosis.

So I saw my psychiatrist who had been treating me for Bipolar II for 2 1/2 yrs. She had previously mentioned that I seemed somewhat autistic, but then she's also mentioned ADD and who knows what else! Anyway, I read her my list of seemingly PDD or AS things. She seemed to feel that this confirmed alot of what she'd been assuming about me; no surprise, in other words. She said that I shouldn't focus so much on a particular diagnosis. But I pushed her for a more specific opinion and all she would say was that I was probably mild PDD as a child. She didn't seem to interested in coming up with an adult diagnosis in this area.

However, since I haven't been too happy with how her prescriptions have been helping me, next week I'm seeing another psych for a second opinion. My social worker is thinking that my main issues are more in the OCD realm. I wonder how close PDD and OCD are. Sounds like a question for a different forum, but any opinions on that?

Well, PDD is incredibly vague. It includes Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, Rett Syndrome, Child Disintegrative Disorder, and PDD-NOS. While PDD-NOS, AS and Autism are all similar, CDD and RS are completely different in many ways.

But that's besides the point. I'm thinking your Doctor may just not be qualified enough to make the diagnosis. I would recommend seeing, or being referred to someone that specializes in Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

I had noticeable signs of Autism, and my brother had been dianogied with AS and szchophrenia. I read alot about Autism and found that everytime I read about it, I felt like it was talking about me. I saw a professional who Very Kindly allowed me free-of-charge visits everyweek to talk about Autism and Anxiety disorder...she was a very well reguarded Psychologist and it was amazing she didnt charge me at all. She also referred me to a autism specialist in the city...

This was how i was Told I had High Functioning Autism, I was given some help with understanding certain social cues, but we mainly worked on my anxiety as it was running my life...sadly I left town after getting quite ill and didnt speak to her after that.