Chapter 4 Autism Formal Diagnosis Pros and Cons

hello chapter four week four uh recapping my unexpected autism and ADHD year in last week's Video available up here uh I talked about how it's okay to have a freak out after realizing you've been autistic all along the later in life you realize you're autistic the more you've probably masked and done some damage to your sense of self and self-esteem the bigger the freakout you'll probably have we're gonna put that freak out in the background for now it's normal and it will probably sit with you for for quite some time retreating into the background and popping in the foreground again over weeks and months as you you get used to to being the new you for this week the focus is on being proactive and moving forward Lupine back to the question uh that I posed back in chapter two the thought now after you've either self-diagnosed later in life or suspect you might be autistic but want to be sure some people are super happy remaining self-diagnosed and think a label adds absolutely nothing to that self-knowledge and that's absolutely fine I get that for me almost immediately I 100 wanted to be sure and wanted to get a formal diagnosis a lot of autistic people hate ambiguity and I'm one of them and sure I've done the self-test scored High started Googling recognized it realized it it was me but I wanted 100 certainty and I didn't care about the label so much as the professional opinion that I wasn't going down a random blind alley and was just seeing things about myself that that wasn't there um because my mental health was on a bit of a spin at this point anyway and I genuinely didn't know whether I was imagining things I wanted a formal diagnosis for me it was the only way to be sure I wasn't losing my marbles in retrospect I would have waited a little longer before diving in but I'm also impulsive and hello future ADHD spoiler so getting a diagnosis or even being told I wasn't autistic it was something else like OCD that that made me so routine and list focused um it became all I could could focus on some of the advantages of getting a formal diagnosis include validation although you don't need to be diagnosed to see and understand your own lived experience obviously some autistic people welcome the diagnosis as a way of making sense of their life experiences and being able to identify with with other autistic people a diagnosis can help you your family your partner your colleagues your friends understand why you might experience certain difficulties and what you can do about them a formal diagnosis might also correct a previous misdiagnosis and misdiagnosis is massively common unfortunately for autism diagnoses that were missed earlier in life and as a result it can get you better or more focused mental health support much as I referenced neurotypical self-help books being quite damaging for neurodivergent people in the in the previous video a lot of undiagnosed neurodivergent people get mental health for example anxiety support with tools or techniques that don't take into account their autism and can can also do more harm than good trying to live up to an ideal that's not right for our brains um what else a diagnosis may help you get access to appropriate services and benefits a diagnosis may help women who tend to mask more and and those with a PDA demand avoidant profile which again we'll get into in a future video and who may not have been previously recognized as autistic by others but possibly most importantly if you work or study at least you you'll be entitled to have reasonable adjustments made by your employer college or university if you've got a good employer or School a formal diagnosis may not be necessary to get adjustments put in place but with one they have a legal duty of care to make adjustments for you and a formal diagnosis can obviously help with that so how do you go about getting one um unconscious this is a UK focused and will be different in different parts of the world obviously so I want linger too long on specifics but briefly for a UK audience some local authorities you can self-refer but generally you'll have to go through your GP and that can be and and is a postcode Lottery a lot of GPS a lot of healthcare Professionals in general in fact don't have an in-depth knowledge of autism unfortunately and so you will have to do a lot of your own research and and fight your own Corner this uh should not be the case but it is um you you will have to be your own biggest Advocate and when you're not even a hundred percent sure you're autistic that's a big ask and is is massively massively stressful and so we're segueing in some of the cons now the uh the healthcare system at least in the in the UK is really not set up for neurodiversion people and you may have to fight hard for yourself if your GP doesn't refer you for an assessment and doesn't think you present as autistic enough and for example some BS reasons I've heard from others like but you make eye contact you've succeeded academically you've succeeded professionally you don't look autistic and you can ask to see a different GP or even make a complaint hopefully you won't have to think about these sorts of things and you'll get the support you need from your local medical provision um but just that heads up and you might have to be pushy to get hurt and if you're a typical atypical you probably generally don't like to be pushy um but if you you're going to put your battle armor on for one thing they'll put it on for this more cons of getting a formal diagnosis are do you need the label or is it enough just knowing there's there's still a lot of stigma and judgment having what's still classified in some areas as a disorder may well mess with your self-identity and the pathologizing language that gets used will often sound like a medical textbook and won't sound like your real life lived experience and people may people unfortunately will see and treat you differently with the formal diagnosis and that can be really upsetting so diving headlong into navigating language like the the medical model of understanding autism versus the social model of understanding autism let alone the absolute Minefield of self-identification language and person first language and differences between early diagnosed and late diagnosed autistic experiences can be exhausting and overwhelming when you first start getting into this whole new terrain diving into all this right at the start of your journey particularly if you mental Health's already a bit fragile cute pitch you in a full-on stress breakdown or autistic burnout as it did for me after a few weeks more future spoilers a a Counterpoint to These Warnings is if you've masked your whole life getting a diagnosis at the point you your self-identity kind of collapses and you're incapable of masking anymore is probably as good a time as any to get a diagnosis like bring your whole self to the appointment room to the assessment room when you're at your lower step just embrace the car crash and go all in why not I'm being slightly flipping but to reiterate negotiating a formal diagnosis can be a horrible process and it is worth being upfront about that and it can also be a stupidly expensive process if you can't face A month's long waiting list time and decide to get a private diagnosis and more quickly like I did um so ask you ask yourself do you have the energy for it in your life right now um be comforted by the fact that artistic self-identification rights seem to be very very high and if you're pretty convinced you're autistic and identify with what you're reading about there's a decently High chance you are what I would say just to wrap up if you don't immediately know whether getting a formal diagnosis is right for you or not it's probably not a bad idea to get some counseling with the counselor who knows about autism or neurodivergence and Google is your your friend here but your healthcare provider locally may be able to help signpost too and just take the time to think and Mull and reflect about about your next steps and but also get yourself onto a waiting list early if you can face it and believe me you'll have enough time to change your mind the weight here at least in the UK for an assessment unless you go private is months and months and months and so you've you've got time to to mull and find out more and work out whether it's what you you want or not anyway I hope that's given both sides of the coin a decent airing on on whether to pursue a formal diagnosis or not at least immediately after after self-diagnosing um hit my subscribe button uh the little Saturn if you're interested in continuing uh on the the journey through my autism and ADHD year and the highs and lows of it all and um yeah I hope that was helpful thanks for listening and see you next time cheers

Channel: Am I Neurodivergent?

Views: 1,603

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Id: qh0NxCCqgjE

Length: 11min 5sec (665 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 02 2023