How did I not know about this thread? Two autistic kids here, one autistic husband in denial (that’s my assessment anyway) and I’m totally convinced I’m autistic too.
I’ve been through all the stages of acceptance. In my early 30s I first did the AQ test, just for fun. I wanted to prove what I already knew - that I would score pretty high for autistic traits but not over the threshold for “maybe actually autistic”. The threshold is 30 IIRC? I was expecting to come in at the mid to high 20s. Imagine my horror when I scored something like 35
I didn’t take it well. I thought it was a load of crap and we were clearly pathologising normal personality traits if someone like me, a nerdy, obsessive, massively socially awkward person could actually score as autistic. Nope. There’s nothing wrong with me.
So I left it at that.
Several years later I had a toddler boy who wasn’t talking and my gut was telling me it might be autism. Spent a long time in the NHS system (who wanted to “watch and wait”) but when the paediatrician suggested we go on the waiting list for an autism assessment I had to revisit my own traits and this time I admitted to myself it could explain a lot about me. And, this sounds weird, but I felt a sense of
relief wash over me. I hadn’t acknowledged up until that point how much self-hatred I’d been carrying around since I was a child. My whole life I’d mostly felt like an oddball who never quite fit in with anyone. I had very few friends who I kept at a distance and rarely saw. I always knew that people, on the whole, just didn’t warm to me. Suddenly I understood that maybe it wasn’t my fault?
Once my son got diagnosed I had to look again at my daughter. Again, my gut had told me that she wasn’t like her peers from quite a young age, but no one else in the family agreed with me. Teachers never had any concerns either. But I knew something was up. I started researching autism in girls and saw her - and me - reflected back. She got diagnosed a year after her younger brother.
I’m thinking of going down the private route because I just can’t face having to justify myself to a GP and then potentially get rejected on the basis of being too articulate and being married with kids.
I used to think there was no point getting myself diagnosed but the older I get the most autistic I seem to be? Covid has obviously exacerbated my traits as well, so it’s hard to know what is behind it all.
Noooo not at all, just I’m aware people doctor shop until they get the answer they want… Also I think going in as a functioning white woman with other privileges saying I think I have x to the extent where I’m paying £1,900 to confirm that they’re more inclined to just agree with me than to thoroughly investigate the reality, as they would if it was NHS.
Sorry, I realise this is an old post I don’t think that’s entirely fair. A woman who has spent
years considering the possibility that she might be autistic is far more likely to present for a private assessment than someone who is unsure. Because who would waste that kind of money is they weren’t absolutely convinced? Private clinics also screen people before taking their money and putting them forward for assessment, because that’s the only ethical way to do it. What’s to be gained from getting a diagnosis of autism when you know you’re not?