15 Dec 2017, 6:47 pm
My assessment was at the Maudsley and went pretty much as AspieUtah described. I didn't have to write any letters, but then I was referred by the psychiatrist at my local mental health team so they already had their written evidence. I did have to fill out the various tick-box questionnaires though. The unit at the Maudsley used the ICD-10, not either of the DSMs. As I understand traditionally that's been the case in the UK, but perhaps that's changing with some units?
Seff wrote:
Wales is a very beautiful place, we have a lot of castles for keeping those damn English out! 
Sorry to be pedantic but I believe those castles were originally built by us to keep you ruffians at bay...
15 Dec 2017, 7:21 pm
thewheel wrote:
My assessment was at the Maudsley and went pretty much as AspieUtah described. I didn't have to write any letters, but then I was referred by the psychiatrist at my local mental health team so they already had their written evidence. I did have to fill out the various tick-box questionnaires though. The unit at the Maudsley used the ICD-10, not either of the DSMs. As I understand traditionally that's been the case in the UK, but perhaps that's changing with some units?
Sorry to be pedantic but I believe those castles were originally built by us to keep you ruffians at bay...
Seff wrote:
Wales is a very beautiful place, we have a lot of castles for keeping those damn English out!
Sorry to be pedantic but I believe those castles were originally built by us to keep you ruffians at bay...
Hehe. Fair enough.
18 Dec 2017, 5:50 am
Seff wrote:
Thanks for you reply, it’s a big help.
As I’ve been doing nothing but research and making notes for the last 9 months, I’ve gotten a bit bored of it in the last month or so thinking ‘there’s no point making anymore notes’ but now I realise I don’t have enough on stuff such as bullying and why it happened.
I am now panicking making new notes, but it feels useful so thanks again.
One thing that I have realised that has only just dawned on me is that my partner is coming with me to the assessment and I don’t know if I’ll be able to fully explain myself when she is there, I’ve spent my whole life trying to appear normal that I’m afraid I’ll reveal too much about myself and it will change her opinion of me.
Or absolute worst case scenario is that I manage to get across my personal demons and the assessment shows I don’t have AS...
I’m can’t wait to get this assessment out of the way. It feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this, I just hope it goes the way I’m expecting it to.
Wales is a very beautiful place, we have a lot of castles for keeping those damn English out!
As I’ve been doing nothing but research and making notes for the last 9 months, I’ve gotten a bit bored of it in the last month or so thinking ‘there’s no point making anymore notes’ but now I realise I don’t have enough on stuff such as bullying and why it happened.
I am now panicking making new notes, but it feels useful so thanks again.
One thing that I have realised that has only just dawned on me is that my partner is coming with me to the assessment and I don’t know if I’ll be able to fully explain myself when she is there, I’ve spent my whole life trying to appear normal that I’m afraid I’ll reveal too much about myself and it will change her opinion of me.
Or absolute worst case scenario is that I manage to get across my personal demons and the assessment shows I don’t have AS...
I’m can’t wait to get this assessment out of the way. It feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this, I just hope it goes the way I’m expecting it to.
Wales is a very beautiful place, we have a lot of castles for keeping those damn English out!
I know exactly how you feel. I have the same anxieties, especially as I was already misdiagnosed as having Borderline Personality Disorder
It can be so hard to explain yourself sometimes, especially as our brains are associative so one thread spawns 1000 others. We forget and go off on tangents, meaning there is always SOMETHING important we left out
and because we are articulate and/or may be fairly good at masking (though people will usually think there is 'something off' about us), people are sceptical about us being autistic. Like you, I can't wait to get the assessment out of the way. And I'll be absolutely crushed if they say I don't have AS. Not because I 'want' to have it if I don't, but because I know I do and there's always been that inner me that I've always felt that people can't 'reach'. I need them to reach it so I can be free.
18 Dec 2017, 6:00 am
Seff wrote:
Thanks for the reply Sandpiper.
Did the NHS send you for a private diagnosis?
To my knowledge the NHS is still on DSM IV but private places in the UK are on DSM V.
What makes me think this is that Aspergers has gone from DSM V as it’s lumped into The ASD category, but a lot of places will still say ‘yeah we mean Aspergers’ simply because of the wealth of information available that exists under that name.
I was thinking about biting the bullet and spending £700 on a private diagnosis awhile back - one of the councillors mid-informed me that there was a four year waiting list for diagnosis, but the next time I saw the psychologist he said this wasn’t the case and that he could do it in his next available hour-long slot.
That’s another thing that has me concerned - a lot of people and places say that diagnosis takes a couple of hours, yet I’m supposed to having mine in an hour?
I have already submitted 80 A4 pages of notes to the psychiatrist, that was by no means complete - just what I managed to get into some sort of document that made sense. I’ve also made loads more notes since then to take with me next week.
I guess my main concern is that this assessment on Tuesday will turn out to be some sort of pre-assessment and I’ll end up having to wait months again...
I’ve been dying to mention it to the one or two friends I think would understand and / or benefit from knowing what I’m going through (and maybe explain to them why I am the way I am) but I can’t bring myself to do it as until I get a diagnosis I’ll either feel like a fake, or if I don’t get diagnosed, a lying weirdo
My partner has said if I don’t get the diagnosis then we can pursue it further, possibly going back down the private route.
Thanks again for your reply.
Did the NHS send you for a private diagnosis?
To my knowledge the NHS is still on DSM IV but private places in the UK are on DSM V.
What makes me think this is that Aspergers has gone from DSM V as it’s lumped into The ASD category, but a lot of places will still say ‘yeah we mean Aspergers’ simply because of the wealth of information available that exists under that name.
I was thinking about biting the bullet and spending £700 on a private diagnosis awhile back - one of the councillors mid-informed me that there was a four year waiting list for diagnosis, but the next time I saw the psychologist he said this wasn’t the case and that he could do it in his next available hour-long slot.
That’s another thing that has me concerned - a lot of people and places say that diagnosis takes a couple of hours, yet I’m supposed to having mine in an hour?
I have already submitted 80 A4 pages of notes to the psychiatrist, that was by no means complete - just what I managed to get into some sort of document that made sense. I’ve also made loads more notes since then to take with me next week.
I guess my main concern is that this assessment on Tuesday will turn out to be some sort of pre-assessment and I’ll end up having to wait months again...
I’ve been dying to mention it to the one or two friends I think would understand and / or benefit from knowing what I’m going through (and maybe explain to them why I am the way I am) but I can’t bring myself to do it as until I get a diagnosis I’ll either feel like a fake, or if I don’t get diagnosed, a lying weirdo
My partner has said if I don’t get the diagnosis then we can pursue it further, possibly going back down the private route.
Thanks again for your reply.
I love how similar we all are! I haven't gotten round to it yet, but I have exactly the same plans to write a document for my assessment. It will probably be around 80 pages, maybe less because I'm exhausted lately and already wrote 78 pages for my PIP appeal recently
I have been obsessively collecting notes, screenshotting past and current posts by myself that have AS traits, photocopied childhood photos, writings, drawings and workbooks by myself! I know they won't look at it all, but I hope they'll look at the childhood photos and drawings. Do you think they will?
18 Dec 2017, 8:10 am
18 Dec 2017, 8:37 am
ADHDAspie wrote:
Seff wrote:
Thanks for the reply Sandpiper.
Did the NHS send you for a private diagnosis?
To my knowledge the NHS is still on DSM IV but private places in the UK are on DSM V.
What makes me think this is that Aspergers has gone from DSM V as it’s lumped into The ASD category, but a lot of places will still say ‘yeah we mean Aspergers’ simply because of the wealth of information available that exists under that name.
I was thinking about biting the bullet and spending £700 on a private diagnosis awhile back - one of the councillors mid-informed me that there was a four year waiting list for diagnosis, but the next time I saw the psychologist he said this wasn’t the case and that he could do it in his next available hour-long slot.
That’s another thing that has me concerned - a lot of people and places say that diagnosis takes a couple of hours, yet I’m supposed to having mine in an hour?
I have already submitted 80 A4 pages of notes to the psychiatrist, that was by no means complete - just what I managed to get into some sort of document that made sense. I’ve also made loads more notes since then to take with me next week.
I guess my main concern is that this assessment on Tuesday will turn out to be some sort of pre-assessment and I’ll end up having to wait months again...
I’ve been dying to mention it to the one or two friends I think would understand and / or benefit from knowing what I’m going through (and maybe explain to them why I am the way I am) but I can’t bring myself to do it as until I get a diagnosis I’ll either feel like a fake, or if I don’t get diagnosed, a lying weirdo
My partner has said if I don’t get the diagnosis then we can pursue it further, possibly going back down the private route.
Thanks again for your reply.
Did the NHS send you for a private diagnosis?
To my knowledge the NHS is still on DSM IV but private places in the UK are on DSM V.
What makes me think this is that Aspergers has gone from DSM V as it’s lumped into The ASD category, but a lot of places will still say ‘yeah we mean Aspergers’ simply because of the wealth of information available that exists under that name.
I was thinking about biting the bullet and spending £700 on a private diagnosis awhile back - one of the councillors mid-informed me that there was a four year waiting list for diagnosis, but the next time I saw the psychologist he said this wasn’t the case and that he could do it in his next available hour-long slot.
That’s another thing that has me concerned - a lot of people and places say that diagnosis takes a couple of hours, yet I’m supposed to having mine in an hour?
I have already submitted 80 A4 pages of notes to the psychiatrist, that was by no means complete - just what I managed to get into some sort of document that made sense. I’ve also made loads more notes since then to take with me next week.
I guess my main concern is that this assessment on Tuesday will turn out to be some sort of pre-assessment and I’ll end up having to wait months again...
I’ve been dying to mention it to the one or two friends I think would understand and / or benefit from knowing what I’m going through (and maybe explain to them why I am the way I am) but I can’t bring myself to do it as until I get a diagnosis I’ll either feel like a fake, or if I don’t get diagnosed, a lying weirdo
My partner has said if I don’t get the diagnosis then we can pursue it further, possibly going back down the private route.
Thanks again for your reply.
I love how similar we all are! I haven't gotten round to it yet, but I have exactly the same plans to write a document for my assessment. It will probably be around 80 pages, maybe less because I'm exhausted lately and already wrote 78 pages for my PIP appeal recently
I have been obsessively collecting notes, screenshotting past and current posts by myself that have AS traits, photocopied childhood photos, writings, drawings and workbooks by myself! I know they won't look at it all, but I hope they'll look at the childhood photos and drawings. Do you think they will?
One thing that’s made me feel much better about myself is people agreeing with things I say on this forum. Makes me feel almost ‘normal’, well ok, not normal but more importantly - understood.
As to if they will look at all the notes?
I couldn’t tell you, but i might know a bit more after my assessment tomorrow.
So far everyone I saw prior to the psychologist don’t seem to talk to each other or even make notes, it’s been like starting again every time I’ve seen someone new. Which is painfully difficult when I’m prone to forgetting stuff I’ve said, or even got straight in my head - purely because once it’s been said I kind of discard that information I go on to new thoughts.
Part of me hopes when I walk in tomorrow they say ‘before we start we reckon you do have AS because of all the notes I’ve given us’ but another part of me thinks it’s just as likely they haven’t read them, and probably lost them too. I’m now wondering if I should print them out again for my own use...
I’ve never felt so anxious, this kind thing has been on my mind since I was very young and tomorrow feels like my entire life has been leading up to this, and it’s killing me the thought that it’s down to me to explain myself properly and clearly when I go off on massive tangents every five seconds
We’ll see tomorrow...
18 Dec 2017, 9:01 am
Seff wrote:
...it’s killing me the thought that it’s down to me to explain myself properly and clearly when I go off on massive tangents every five seconds
We’ll see tomorrow...
We’ll see tomorrow...
When I started in politics in the 1980s, I learned to "script" myself. It is okay to read from your notes. It is okay to forget what you wanted to say. Based on just these two allowances, you should do fine. At the start of your assessment, explain to your diagnostician that you might get a little hyperverbal, but that it is okay for the diagnostician to bring you back to the main topic. Doing this also creates a give-and-take conversation. It gives both of you "permission" to move things along so both sides of the discussion are shared.
Do these things, and you will be amazed with how much the "stuff that matters" gets resolved well.
Good luck tomorrow!
18 Dec 2017, 9:33 am
I think my issue is that they seem to like making a diagnosis based on what you’ve said and not what I haven’t said - I know that sounds crazy but it feels like it’s all up to me to hold up a fact sheet of symptoms screaming ‘this!! !!’
Whereas it would be a lot more comfortable for me if they said ‘right this is the criteria for a diagnosis, what have you got that’s relevant to this...’
Does that make sense?
18 Dec 2017, 9:49 am
Seff wrote:
I think my issue is that they seem to like making a diagnosis based on what you’ve said and not what I haven’t said - I know that sounds crazy but it feels like it’s all up to me to hold up a fact sheet of symptoms screaming ‘this!! ! !’
Whereas it would be a lot more comfortable for me if they said ‘right this is the criteria for a diagnosis, what have you got that’s relevant to this...’
Does that make sense?
Whereas it would be a lot more comfortable for me if they said ‘right this is the criteria for a diagnosis, what have you got that’s relevant to this...’
Does that make sense?
Absolutely. In fact, why not offer to do just that with your diagnostician? At my assessment, I didn't want to influence the testing side of the assessment, so I waited until we had finished the tests to mention that I had brought lots and lots of lists of behaviors, characteristics and comorbids. My diagnosticians were actually thrilled because it gave them a road map to use in the discussion side of the assessment, but I doubt your diagnostician would care when and how you would like to proceed. Discuss it briefly when the assessment starts.
Most of all, if your assessment is scheduled for tomorrow, you would help yourself greatly if you found ways to relax today and tomorrow. Don't dwell on the assessment. In fact, I found that avoiding caffeine, and eating vitamin- and protein-rich food, helps do that nicely. Read a book or watch some comedy movies. Take a hot bath. To help yourself best, you need to be alert, but calm during your assessment.
I believe that you will do well.
18 Dec 2017, 10:32 am
19 Dec 2017, 2:38 pm
19 Dec 2017, 2:57 pm
20 Dec 2017, 4:23 am
Yes it is a good result, and I am happier for it. Just didn’t feel like an assessment.
He was quite open saying autism wasn’t his specialisation and that he’d been on a 2 day seminar about it recently and part of the problem is that they don’t have anyone who specialises in Autism in the mental health team at the moment.
If I want to pursue a more specific diagnosis such as Aspergers I’ll either have to go private or wait until they move over to DSM 5.
At least I do now have confirmation and I can now talk about it from the perspective of being autistic without feeling like a liar.
Spoke to my best mate about it briefly last night, he was quite understanding and felt like he related to some of the stuff I was talking about. (Although I’ve thought all along that if I’m autistic there’s a good chance that he is because we are quite similar).
So all in all a good result, I think I’m just a bit overwhelmed now because I can now talk to people about it and Ican now focus all my attention on wondering how people will receive this information.
20 Dec 2017, 6:54 am
Seff wrote:
...So all in all a good result, I think I’m just a bit overwhelmed now because I can now talk to people about it and I can now focus all my attention on wondering how people will receive this information.
Don't be too surprised that the people close to you are more critical at times. I have learned that people I haven't ever met before are far more supportive and kind than, say, some individuals I have known for years. Many people in the world know at least one autist. When the topic comes up, they seem genuinely interested in sharing a few remarks.
20 Dec 2017, 7:47 am
My parents at least have a half decent understanding of mental health as my mum was diagnosed as schizophrenic before I was born, and to be honest I think they both have strong autistic traits.
Also I’m quite lucky with my small circle of friends that we’re all a bit eclectic so I wouldn’t be surprised if several of them were on the spectrum.
Funnily enough, the best mate I spoke to about it last night has today messaged me saying he’s done an online test that says he shows high levels of autism.
I guess I’ve got him thinking about it now!
20 Dec 2017, 7:56 am
