Pushing for an assessment

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Hey everyone, I'm new here. Hope you're good and enjoying the weekend!

I'm in a difficult situation. Basically, my GP announced that she thinks I have Aspergers after some other GP's raised that concern. I feel annoyed with GP as she's known me for 10 years and it's in this tenth year she's mentioned it. She even had the cheek to say: ''well, I always suspected it''. So why not mention it before? Personally, I don't think I have it. What I was originally seeing GP about was anxiety which has been an ongoing issue.

I feel like they are now clutching at straws as the anxiety treatment hasn't worked. It might work in their favour to pass the buck and have me assessed by another team.

I had this meeting with GP and some other health professionals where they were just constantly on about the assessment. I reluctantly completed the questionnaire but I don't intend on going for an assessment. It's causing too much stress thinking about 2-3 hours with a stranger. I believe the assessment is completed with a Psychologist. I was seeing one of those for anxiety but I really cannot click with the person.

Was anyone else's proposition to have an assessment this heavy handed?

Another thing I have noted is this constant talk about me being intelligent and Aspergers are generally intelligent. I don't believe I am. In any case, I feel it's discriminatory to label someone they perceive to be bright as on the spectrum.

I had a psychologist tell me they thought I had Aspergers eight years ago, but it was presented like an accusation and so I didn't accept it. I had my psychiatrist diagnose me in a very respectful way earlier this year and I was able to accept it. I think a lot of it is in the delivery.

If you have researched the topic, been honest with yourself, then by all means avoid the stress of assessment.

Three months ago I would have self-reported that I did not have ASD (I am out and about all the time, I am warm and talkative, I love people) ---- I was exploring my daughter's stereotypical presentation of ASD and took the test myself simply b/c I like tests. Now, OMG it is so apparent to me (out and about to libraries, talkative when I ramble, shutdown when I feel too much, I love people, but fail to verbally communicate in unstructured conversation). However, b/c I am the non-stereotypical ASD, most everybody who doesn't know about ASD doesn't initially see it (including my dr). I can be very well behaved (stick to scripts, deflect otherwise).

My 1st AQ was 26 and now that I have taken off my own blinders it is consistently 34. I had created this world (routine) in which I was comfortable, so my ASD became apparent when this was challenged (at work, in the assessment).

Ironically my (non-ASD) husband is more the ASD stereotype: he's unexpressive, a man of few words --- while his wild, zaney wife (me) is ASD. Maybe you are more like my husband. Perhaps NT (neurotypical) or maybe ND (neurodiverse) in a way that is not ASD.

I won't lie - the assessment is grueling for anyone and doubly so for someone with autism. Even if you feel strongly that it's not the answer, though, a neuropsychological assessment can be very beneficial if you have functional impairments. If it isn't autism, you might come away with a different diagnosis that makes sense to you. That's how I made sense of my disability - I went in for an autism assessment and came out with a diagnostic label that I'd never even heard of before. But it put my problems into a framework I could understand and work with. (I also received an autism diagnosis, but I'm skeptical of it.)

If your doctor has held off on pressing you about an assessment for a decade, I don't think your symptoms can be too glaring. It might be, as you say, a last ditch effort, but it might also be worth trying. Don't overthink the intelligence comments - those were laid on pretty thickly when I spoke to doctors about an assessment, too. It's not that they're stereotyping, I think. In hindsight, it strikes me that they were probably trying to assure me that their suspicions did not cast doubt on my intellectual ability. Many laymen hold that view of autism, and I imagine the doctors tend to overdo it a bit to avoid getting a negative reaction from a prospective sufferer. They're just being pragmatically kind.