To ask questions about autism.

[coodawoodashooda]

About 10 years ago i was in a meeting about autism. The leader said something like, 'if the child could......... then they didnt have autism. What was the quality that was being referred to? Was it empathy? I cant remember and for various personal reasons id really like to know.

No need to apologise @WeatherwaxOn but all the people you are talking about appear to be those who are fairly articulate. That’s a very small subset of the autistic community. It’s a bit like only asking female leaders of industry about feminism and female issues. They may not have much insight into less educated and articulate women’s lives.

5zeds

Thats an excellent post. Excellent. Further to that my abusive xh finally, when the net was closing in, decided that i was the abuser. I guess I have a real aversion to this become I despise being labelled like this.
The impact of coercion and mental cruelty is impossible to explain to people who haven't experienced it. I relate to my child's behaviour as part of my own recovery. I am years out of the abuse but my children are not. They still have to stay overnight and manage the invisible nature of the abuse, and come down from the regime. In the whole thread i see nothing that has been mentioned in my son as asd except occasionally the eye contact. I attribute this to copying his father who im certain is a hardcore and sinister bad person.

Im certain that had my marriage not been abusive my son wouldn't struggle the way he sometimes does. There is also a significant change/improvement in his behaviour when he returns from his father.

Ok so what would concern me in your situation is can he access support for PTSD if he has a dx of ASD? If not it would seem prudent to take advice on how to proceed. Here (SW) I know anecdotally that some children have found it harder to access CAHMs services with dx (though I’m talking 5+ years ago and thing may have changed).

@BlueSurfer

I’m not sure there is any one specific thing that nobody with ASD can do. It’s a spectrum that everyone is on somewhere.

No, everyone is NOT on the autism spectrum. I am beyond tired of this being trotted out. It diminishes the very real struggles of too many autistic people.

I have found the podcast '1800 seconds on autism' incredibly helpful in helping me to manage DH better.
It's presented by 2 people with autism, one with more obvious difficulties than the other.
It's given me a lot of insight.

One of the comments above resonated as DS says 'See you later Alligator' and DH can't get that he has to say something different.
Often he repeats back to DS 'See you later Alligator' but sometimes remembers he's supposed to say something different.

I don't think that I have the right to get a label for anyone
Why do you consider a medical diagnosis of autism to be a label?
Labels are things that you stick on jars of jam or suitcases. Medical diagnoses open doors to support.

School have suggested he's assessed, that's likely to be because he needs funding for the support they wnt to give him, without a dignosis and the extra funding that brings, they may not be able to meet his needs.
Caveat, we all know this shouldn't be the case, but very often it is.

particularly if it changes the opportunities that life can offer
What changes would those be?
The ONLY professions that will not at present accept someone with a diagnosis of Autism are the Armed Services.
The Police welcome autistic applicants and even have their own Autism Association www.npaa.org.uk/
STEM, Academia and IT have a high percentage of neurodiverse employees.

I think that is an adult decision for him to make about him. Not me
You have already received first hand accounts on this thread from autistic people whose life would have been made so much easier if they had been given a childhod diagnosis which explained WHY they were different to their peers. I'd suggest you research this further on other sites so you can understand what a vast difference early diagnosis can make to an autistic person's life.

IF he is autistic, he was born autistic and will be autistic all of his life. No-one can change that and no-one can change him. He is who he is.
You have the opportunity to find out whether he is autistic and IF he is, to have strategies put into place to support his individual needs.

If he is not autistic, he will not receive diagnosis.

Why don't you go down the assessment route and tell the team that you believe he has PTSD, not autism and ask them to do screenings for both?

You'll need to be prepared for the possibility that he may actually have both.

@5zeds

Ok so what would concern me in your situation is can he access support for PTSD if he has a dx of ASD? If not it would seem prudent to take advice on how to proceed. Here (SW) I know anecdotally that some children have found it harder to access CAHMs services with dx (though I’m talking 5+ years ago and thing may have changed).

I'm in Ireland, not the UK, but my DS has had just this problem. He has a diagnosis of ASD, but also has co-morbid mental health problems that are known to have an increased incidence in the autistic population. CAMHS won't treat for these because they say he needs specialist provision from autism services and the help of therapists who have a lot of experience with autism. However, autism services here don't/can't/won't treat mental health problems of the severity he is experiencing. We've found the gap in services to be really appalling here - hope it's better in the UK.

It's possible to be both traumatised and autistic. In fact as autism is highly heritable, sometimes being raised by (undiagnosed) autistic parent(s) causes trauma in itself. My dad was undiagnosed autistic, cheated on my mother, had extreme emotional and angry outbursts, interspersed with periods of complete emotional detachment and withdrawal. My parents' marriage was awful. My childhood was very frightening and unpredictable and with very little emotional support as my parents were so wrapped up in their own problems.

I had lots and lots and lots of therapy but the anxiety and social stress I feel never resolved. I also have sensory issues. Having spent most of my 20s and 30s blaming myself for not being able to cope as well as other people and driving myself almost insane trying to diagnose myself with various mental illnesses (I identified as bipolar for years - too scared to seek a diagnosis for it), it was a huge relief but also a massive regret to get my autism diagnosis at 40. Literally decades of angst could have been avoided had I known. It could also have helped my parents and siblings if my Dad had realised sooner.

I can see absolutely no disadvantage to getting your son on the waiting list. It'll take years to get seen anyway and plenty of time for life to move on. They won't diagnose him if he doesn't meet the criteria.

By the way, I went to Cambridge as an undiagnosed autistic and met lots of people like me there. I can't see that a diagnosis would have held me back from doing anything that I've done. It might've meant that I avoided the 3 years unemployment on sickness benefits due to total burnout and complete loss of confidence.

[quote WeMarchOn]@RickiTarr i have a Facebook group for autistic adults and yes a massive amount of us dislike functioning labels!! [/quote]
Oh I don’t doubt it, and I prefer “Aspergers” to the “HF” thing myself.

I was just disagreeing with the word “mostly” and the idea that “Aspergers” is equally disliked.

It’s pretty clear to me that opinion is split.

When did aspergers become un pc? I hadn't realised that until lately.

I'm finding it tough at the mo to work put what is pc and what isn't. The jigsaw symbol is offensive to some asd people yet lots parents have tattoos etc. I left a parental asd online group as you just got jumped on if you didn't have asd yourself as you possibly couldn't understand.

Hans Asperger was tied into the Nazi eugenics programme, loads of articles online.

It would be fairly impossible not to have been a nazi in Germany at that time. He was really me of the few Drs who stayed with their patients so I’m not sure he was to be vilified.

Asperger isn’t un-PC the dx merged with autism.

There are a load of SJWs on social media spreading that Hans Asperger was a nazi and murdered children. The evidence is nowhere near that unequivocal.

The "autism community" is currently a fairly toxic place where lots of different agendas are being spouted as representing all autistic people. Best to take a lot of what is being bandied about with buckets of salt.

@coodawoodashooda

When did aspergers become un pc? I hadn't realised that until lately.

It’s not about PC. It was removed from the DSMV - the manual of psychological conditions that can be diagnosed - so nobody is able to get that diagnosis any more.

Some of us still have it from earlier years, of course.

@5zeds

It would be fairly impossible not to have been a nazi in Germany at that time. He was really me of the few Drs who stayed with their patients so I’m not sure he was to be vilified.

Asperger isn’t un-PC the dx merged with autism.

Agree, the idea that we should abandon any scientific or medical knowledge gained in inter war Germany is laughable.

Especially as nobody seems to mind driving Volkswagens, buying IBM machines or using Krupps equipment etc.

It’s just the name of the chap who first described a certain combination of traits. It doesn’t reflect on the condition.

ICD10 still has Aspergers as a diagnosis- it's being removed when ICD11 comes into effect in January 2022.

Yes I know @toastantea but they seem to use DSMv regardless. Our dx was ASD, rather than BBC autism or aspergers

Ignore BBC

@BlueSurfer

I’m not sure there is any one specific thing that nobody with ASD can do. It’s a spectrum that everyone is on somewhere.

I think everyone is taking this a bit too literally (a typical autistic trait ironically) - pretty sure BlueSurfer meant 'it's a spectrum that everyone AUTISTIC is on somewhere.' Bizarre to me that everyone jumped on it assuming the opposite after people with ASD were specifically mentioned in the previous sentence.

a typical autistic trait ironically

Not really ironic, TBF. 🤔😁

For those of you with an adult diagnosis, what do you feel better about since being diagnosed?

Tal45 lots of people do think that the autistic spectrum means a sort of scale from 0 to 100% autistic and that everyone is on it, not just everyone who's autistic.

Thing is, having a diagnosis as a child can help you get support for that child. God knows it’s hard enough fighting for your child with a diagnosis, let alone without one.

If I need to say to school my child is autistic you need to be doing xyz, then I will. Same with when they’re in secondary school. Maybe they’ll need more time with exams or need to sit in an environment that suits them. Maybe they’ll need to wear ear defenders at school due to over stimulation or have movement breaks, sensory toys. There’s all sorts of reason that having a diagnosis now can benefit them. I would rather they get a diagnosis now and get support in place than spend years struggling and wondering why they’re different or don’t fit in. It doesn’t mean your child doesn’t have ptsd as well.