Am I autistic?

Post Reply New Topic

Yeah but I haven't filed a tax return in years. But I do have way more withheld from my check than I owe, so that way if they decide to come after me for it, they lose money. I'm just hoping that discourages them.

In the past 15 years, I've been to a doctor maybe 4 times. Even when I had insurance, I still paid out of pocket, because I could never understand what to do to use my insurance.

black0441 -

I can tell this is a time of enlightenment but also turmoil for you. I want to reflect that you have many strengths and positives, which right now, I think you are overlooking. Overlooking them may be a long-time pattern for you.

So be a little kind to yourself. You deserve better things than what you have now. Hang in there, it takes time.

Yikes be careful the IRS can come back to you half a decade later. Be careful

Thank you for your kind words. But to me, this feels way more like approaching the light at the end of a very long, long tunnel.

I know I have been so lucky in so many ways in life.

I'm not overlooking the positives. Honestly, the insurance thing, the tax thing-I don't even care about those. The whole reason they are a mess is because it was just requiring too much effort to maintain them.

But understanding them in terms of executive function deficits makes it easy for me to see why it's so hard: it's not the task itself, it's that I literally cannot allocate the mental resources to it. And thinking of it in those terms makes the solution obvious: I need to borrow someone else's executive function, or maybe train myself in these particular tasks, something along those lines.

If I seem overly negative, it's only because I'm talking here about what I need help with. I'm more hopeful about the future now than I've been in many years.

Yeah, no kidding. Not to mention the states of California and South Carolina, and possibly also New York. Not a day goes by where I don't think about this.

But years ago when it all started, I spent two days on my computer, staring at the tax form program, and I just could not fill out the form. W-2 sitting on my desk and everything. Eventually I just decided that if it was important enough to the IRS, they were going to have to force the issue. And they haven't really done that yet.

Only a very very few "Cadillac" plans cover adult Autism assessments. Insurence will usually pay for assessments up until age 18 and maybe 26 and all the plans Obamacare, private I looked at payed for 180 hours of Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy if you have been diagnosed. There were NO, NONE that paid for middle age adult assesment. Another words while it is advisable and legally required to have health insurence you are most likely going to pay out of pocket anyway.

If you can afford or have an adult assessment paid for in the USA that makes you very fortunate/lucky. What it does is make you a "real aspie" in comparison to those that self diagnose or those middle age and up that self diagnose automatically "Marla Singers" . It makes them in many cases trying to make the best out of a bad and unfair situation.

I know the above paragraph is irrelevant to the OP who can afford a professional diagnosis,but many here can not afford it because un and underemployment is very high on the Autism Spectrum.

My insurance paid for it.

What plan?

State government HMO. I don't think it's a Cadillac plan. I hadda get pre-authorization, but other than that, no sweat.

Lesson: check your own benefits, see what you can do, before assuming it can't be done.

Aye, I work at a low wage position and even with my insurance it cost me about $30.00 for the co-pay.

I paid out of pocket before Obamacare became mandatory.
But when obamacare became mandatory and my private insurence plan was dropped, and I needed to go on the New York State exchange, out of curiosity I checked all the insurence plans available if they had adult assessment
both obamacare and private plans and NO plans paid for adult
assessment. This topic has come up here often. I have read of only one other American who found insurance for adult assessment. I stand by my statement if you had your assessment paid for in America and you are over 26 years old consider yourself very very lucky. Everybody please stop assuming if American says insurence is not available or unaffordable for them they are making an excuse or just did not try hard enough. Just stop. Haven't us autistics who grew up and often went through a lot of adulthood before widespread knowledge that autism is a spectrum became available been told that our difficulties were because we were just not trying hard enough, too many times already? Do we need this s**t on a support site also?

ASPartOfMe, I sure didn't mean to imply any such thing, and I'm sorry if I upset you.

A lot of times, if you ask your insurance if something is covered, or it isn't mentioned in the schedule of benefits, the answer is no. And yet, people do find a way to access that service. A good place then to start is your primary care provider, who can assist in the authorization. This is true even if a referral from your PCP is not required.

Medical systems as well as diagnostic criteria are changing all the time, so it pays to be pro-active as well as up to date. We often see misinformation on the Internet that was true at the time the individual experienced it, but may not be true today. Gol darn world keeps changing on us!

I believe it is rare that insurance pays for ASD diagnoses--unless the client is a child under 18.

Here's what I did, in case it may be helpful to you. I explained to my primary care dr. why I thought I had Aspergers (heavy clustering of people in family either diagnosed, or textbook features; someone told me they thought I had it; highly sensitive to noise and certain types of touch), and said I just wanted the information to help me in life planning as I near retirement and old age. She was very respectful and receptive. I still made multiple phone calls, appointments, etc., but eventually received what I was seeking.

If you just call one of the psychiatrist's offices totally unreferred, you might find people not too receptive, since Aspie/autism is somewhat the diagnosis du jour.

Good luck, everyone.

Like I mentioned I was professionally diagnosed and paid out of pocket in 2013 to a person who has 30 years experience with ASD including adults. So I have nothing personally invested in defending self diagnosers

If between last year when I checked insurence and now the situation has reversed itself which I find utterly hard to believe or New York is just behind most other states which I also find hard to beleive
my bad all you self diagnosers that are claiming you can't find insurence just try harder.

delete, mistaken reply

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 28 Sep 2015, 12:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.