Is it worth a diagnosis?

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It is good to hear it has helped you not be so hard on yourself. I realise it will not change my life having a diagnosis, but it will help me I think in the same kind of way.

I contacted the Aspergers service for my area- I need to contact my GP for a referral to the first response team. Unfortunately the lady on the phone said it is a long wait, but was very nice to me. I will phone my GP this afternoon when appointments open up and get one sorted.

I found having an assessment worthwhile.

I suspect I am not alone in finding that once something set off my suspicions I could not leave the subject alone.

One of my concerns was the chance of being told not to be daft by the person either doing the assessment or the person who I would nerd to refer me for assessment.

I found plenty in my history and the things which don't come intuitively which were consistent with what I was finding out about the autism spectrum.

I was fortunate in the one or two people close to me are well informed and confirmed that the suspicions made sense.

I had not thought about the misdiagnosis angle, but that is actually quite important. For example, it appears that a number of women get diagnosed as Borderline Personality Disorder when in fact they are Autistic but this gets missed because there is still a mistaken belief that autism only affects males, and some of the symptoms can overlap.

I drew a note if caution through having winged things very well from the combination of a strong interest I could turn into secure employment and a paternalistic employer, meaning I got two out of three on key aspects Employment and Housing, and severely delayed on close relationships, but that sort of came together in my fifties plus one or two close lifelong friendships.

A key point is that a diagnosis gives you a strong position if you need any reasonable adjustments in the workplace.

I found it brought me great satisfaction when my suspicions and research was confirmed by a competent person when I had the assessment. Knowing that my cognitive profile is autistic I have found very useful as a tool to help me manage the various stresses and confirms the wisdom of my choices of activities outside work. I had winged it well enough in life that my assessor estimated I would be unlikely to be formally diagnosed at this point in time as despite that profile I had avoided itvdisabling me in those three key areas, which again confirmed the research and judgements I had made.

I chose a middle way which was to have an assessment against the criteria by a small consultancy and training firm specialising in autism and employment matters, also occasional training and consultancy with the criminal justice services. This means it is not clinical, so while I have a report scoring me using one of the accepted diagnostic tools, it does not put anything on my medical records.

Given fortunate circumstances as of this moment the report sits in my private papers. However, should a change in the requirements of my job start hitting those autistic pressure points hard, I have one tool to use to week some adjustments, and if the combinational n of the change in the job requirements and my aurist c profile look like putting employment at risk, I have good preparation work done should I wish to approach my GP for referral for a full medical diagnosis.

Downside of the route I chose was having to pay, but the non clinical nature brought the fee from £2000 to around £500.