Has anyone had an adult autism assessment through the NHS?

[Pastaandgarlicbread]

Did you go through right to choose and if so who with?

Were you diagnosed?

How bad were you at the time? As in were you functioning?

I’m being referred and just trying to gauge what my chances are of a diagnosis. I’ve had symptoms all my life and I’m at the point where I need answers.

I’m posting this in chat and mental health for traffic.

I was diagnosed with autism via NHS, they said it would be beneficial to go for an adhd diagnosis and they told me about RTC (to avoid waiting another 2 years for it) I did that with psychiatry UK

I was functioning but had regular meltdowns and my mental health was on the floor and relationships were struggling. All much better now

I was referred to a psychologist by my mental health team.

My son has just been through the process he transferred to adult assesment from children’s as he turned 18 during the wait, in our area it’s currently around 2 years for a child nhs assesment and 4 years for an adult. He didn’t get a diagnosis as although they could see the autistic traits and adhd traits too he also suffers from anxiety and panic disorder so I when the assessors couldn’t decide if what they were seeing was anxiety or autism they put it down to anxiety this means he hasn’t got a diagnosis and also is getting no support. So for us it was a very disappointing process especially as they said h based on what we said about his childhood he seemed more autistic then so if we had fought harder for a place on the waiting lists when he was still in primary we would probably have got a diagnosis.
not sure if that helps you with your decision but that is our experience.

That’s appalling. They could work out the other traits considering what had always been there and what had emerged in later life. If he had traits in early childhood then it’s more politely autism or adhd which has led to the anxiety and/or panic disorder. Given that both adhd and autism carry a high risk of comorbid MH conditions such as depression and anxiety, and “overwhelm” is often experienced as anxiety, you’ll never diagnose anyone in adulthood if you are going to make the assumption that any autism symptoms must be attributed to anxiety first as the starting point.