Before we began with the questions, and there were a lot of questions, I was told how it would work: the questions, then I'd go out into the waiting room for a while whilst they discuss my assessment, reach some conclusions, and if there was any uncertainty, I'd be asked to come back for further questions, further assessment. Certainly, the impression seemed to be, that second stage of assessment was more likely than not.
Then the questions came, and I answered best I could, and as planned, I was asked to wait outside. No sooner had I sat down than they called me back; diagnosis of autism, no further assessment required, not borderline, clear as day, autistic.
Lurch back eight months: a helpful therapist called Liz, a curious rounded room in the turret of an odd-looking building, asking me if it had ever been suggested I might be autistic (no, never). I did some informal tests, was put on a waiting list, eventually got that assessment. But Liz told me something else, she told me that the proportion of new diagnoses of autism that were for people like me - well into adulthood, having found ways to just about get by, without ever knowing why just about getting by was difficuly - had increased markedly in recent years. In a world where so much discussion of autism came from or for the benefit of parents, and concerned their young children, it appeared that an evergrowing number of adults were suddenly finding out that they were autistic, that there was a reason for everything they'd been feeling.
But we remain largely hidden. In so much of the media, autism is presented as something which magically disappears on your eighteenth birthday. And remember, we're old enough to be watching or reading or hearing that media; we're being talked over, discussed without our own contribution. We often weren't getting diagnosed at all - I'd been in the mental health system seven years before Liz started putting those thoughts together. We - autistic adults - are a large part of society, but an ignored and isolated and dismissed - and above all entirely misunderstood - part.
And so, here I am, here these words are. I don't expect or intend to spark a great revolution. But if one person, any person, reads this blog and understands a bit more about the world faced by an autistic adult, then it will have been worth doing.
Then the questions came, and I answered best I could, and as planned, I was asked to wait outside. No sooner had I sat down than they called me back; diagnosis of autism, no further assessment required, not borderline, clear as day, autistic.
Lurch back eight months: a helpful therapist called Liz, a curious rounded room in the turret of an odd-looking building, asking me if it had ever been suggested I might be autistic (no, never). I did some informal tests, was put on a waiting list, eventually got that assessment. But Liz told me something else, she told me that the proportion of new diagnoses of autism that were for people like me - well into adulthood, having found ways to just about get by, without ever knowing why just about getting by was difficuly - had increased markedly in recent years. In a world where so much discussion of autism came from or for the benefit of parents, and concerned their young children, it appeared that an evergrowing number of adults were suddenly finding out that they were autistic, that there was a reason for everything they'd been feeling.
But we remain largely hidden. In so much of the media, autism is presented as something which magically disappears on your eighteenth birthday. And remember, we're old enough to be watching or reading or hearing that media; we're being talked over, discussed without our own contribution. We often weren't getting diagnosed at all - I'd been in the mental health system seven years before Liz started putting those thoughts together. We - autistic adults - are a large part of society, but an ignored and isolated and dismissed - and above all entirely misunderstood - part.
And so, here I am, here these words are. I don't expect or intend to spark a great revolution. But if one person, any person, reads this blog and understands a bit more about the world faced by an autistic adult, then it will have been worth doing.
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