What if the assessment says I'm not autistic?

[AuADHD]

I don't know how I'll cope with that. I don't know what else it could be because reading about autism and adhd was like all the tumblers on a massive slot machine falling into place one by one and many bells going off. An overwhelming mental image there 🥴
I've spent the past 5 years or so believing that autism and adhd explain everything about my life. But what if the assessor says she doesn't think I meet the criteria? My assessments are this month and I am very anxious that I'll just be diagnosed as a broken maladapted human who has failed at life and relationships through my own fault and flaws. My sense of self would be destroyed.
I'm being assessed through the right to choose.
I scored 16/18 on the self adhd assessment and 8/10 on the autism self assessment for the company who is doing my assessments.
I've waited for years for these assessments and feel like cancelling due to fear I'm not autistic or adhd and just broken or have a personality disorder.

Hopeful bump. I know this board is quiet.

I'm waiting for my assessment, too, and feel exactly the same. I know I'm autistic; the world suddenly makes sense. Yet I can't eliminate this nagging doubt, just like you.* *

Don't know what the asterisks are doing there!

Thank you for replying and I'm sorry to hear you're in the same position. It's an anxious life as it is and this is just making the worse. Nothing else fits my symptoms. My GP originally said that I'd been successful in life and therefore what's the point of being assessed. I don't see myself as successful at all. Degrees, jobs, married, kids yes but not working, kids also ND and divorced because I don't do relationships well and always choose abusive men so I've given up on that because I can't cope with someone in my space.

Imposter syndrome. I had it so bad I put off approaching the GP for several years!

Imposter syndrome?

Is it also common to be worrying that I actually am autistic and that will give me a whole new set of questions and anxieties to be diagnosed as such?

I’ve been diagnosed with autism and adhd and at the beginning of the assessment I was asked how I’d feel if I wasn’t diagnosed. Not sure if that’s common or not for the assessments. I do know someone who went through the assessment process and didn’t get the diagnoses and they were quite upset about it, it’s possible to have traits but not fully meet the criteria. It t might be worth thinking about it in case you do get asked, the question threw me a bit.

That seems like an anxiety-inducing question to ask people. I'd be upset because I'd be back to square one not knowing the answers. I'm already worried because I'm not sure how much help my mum will be for the informant's interview. I'm the youngest of 4 children and she always says she can't remember apart from being asked what was wrong with me by other people I obviously mask very well although I've always been seen as different by everyone. Always been drawn towards the "weird kids" at school, college and uni and never really fitted in.

That must have been tough on your friend. Was she given any pointers as to what to do next and what might be the cause of her difficulties if not autism and adhd?

She had a follow up session a few weeks after the outcome, it was stressed that although she didn’t meet the full criteria so couldn’t get the diagnoses, she does have traits and her struggles are valid. She was given some ideas to research to help manage some of the things she struggles with.

Do you have someone else who can also do the informant questionnaires? A friend who’s know you a long time or a partner? Or old school reports? I didn’t actually get my parents involvement in the assessment for various reasons and instead my husband did the questionnaires and I sent in school reports from primary school. There was a big focus on childhood during the assessment but it doesn’t have to come from your mum.

There's no one else. I'm just hoping the assessor can draw out the relevant information. I don't have any school reports from most schools. I was only at school around a third of the time for the secondary years. I was a school refuser full of anxiety who always felt ill. I didn't have friends.

Op, it is possible you might not be diagnosed, but that does not mean you don't have it. Assessors are human and make mistakes. They also only talk to you for a short amount of time (my assessment was shorter than an hour!) and because you have probably been masking for your whole life (as most women do), your instinct might be to mask during the interview, making them not diagnose you.

My advice is be brutally honest and try to drop your mask as much as possible. Give examples of how autism symptoms have negatively impacted your life. Tell them exactly the impact it had on your life (not working right now, abusive relationships etc.) and name specific symptoms that contributed to this. Do not minimize things out of shame, they have heard it all. They asked me how my daily life looks like and I told them I barely leave my room even tho I was so ashamed of it.

Good luck.

Op, it is possible you might not be diagnosed, but that does not mean you don't have it. Assessors are human and make mistakes. They also only talk to you for a short amount of time (my assessment was shorter than an hour!) and because you have probably been masking for your whole life (as most women do), your instinct might be to mask during the interview, making them not diagnose you.

I don't think this is true tbh, and an assessment lasting less than an hour? Was that an initial appointment and they decided not to progress because it takes far longer than an hour to do a full assessment, I would be questioning this.

Also for masking, yes people mask, but the clinicians and assessment see past that, you can't really mask your way out of a diagnosis.

Sorry I missed this yesterday, guessing you have probably looked it up by now but I suffered so badly with not believing I was autistic to being absolutely certain I was and went round in circles for years before finally broaching the subject of assessment with my GP.

Yes I agree with this, I haven’t heard of an assessment being less than an hour, mine was a lot longer than that. I also think if it’s a proper professional doing the assessment then they will have seen many presentations of ASD and be good at identifying masking. I’m sure there are some cases which get the wrong outcome but most will be accurate. Not everyone who thinks they’re autistic is.

Yes, the assessment was with Psychiatry-UK. It was less than an hour and then they diagnosed me. I had a list of 20 reasons why I think I have it, they let me list about 5 reasons on the list and then asked me 3-4 additional questions.

My appointment is 90 mins. I've made notes and have 3 pages of bullet points. I've done the pre-assessment questionnaires with the rarely/disagree/agree stuff along with a longer questionnaire with free text that when I looked back said should only take 5 minutes and it took me 2 hours 🤣

This sounds similar to my assessment process. It took me hours to fill in that questionnaire, I have no idea how people do it in 5 minutes. My face to face appointment overran too as there was a lot to go through.

@thatsalad

Yes, the assessment was with Psychiatry-UK. It was less than an hour and then they diagnosed me. I had a list of 20 reasons why I think I have it, they let me list about 5 reasons on the list and then asked me 3-4 additional questions.

That's shocking.

They actually diagnosed with only 3-4 face to face questions?

I have a lot of trauma in my childhood but didn't want the questionnaire to be full of that otherwise I'd have been there twice as long. I can't see be answering all the questions in 90 minutes either.

Yes, but I answered the questions in depth, not just with a yes or no, so maybe that's why. The pre-screening questionnaire was extensive and took me hours to complete as well. Maybe they had enough information, the assessors were away for only 10 seconds discussing amonst themselves before diagnosing me.

Mine was less than an hour too. I had really thoroughly filled in the questionnaire though, and she had definitely read it as she referred to things I'd said a few times. I was worried about my mums as she downplays everything so she doesn't look bad, but I didn't need to.

Try not to let imposter syndrome tell you what you know isn't real.

And degree, marriage, kids etc are all great but not simply a sign of someone neurotypical!

Is social media lying about the questions that are asked, for example, "what do the numbers 2 and 7 have in common?" I'm convinced I'm going to fail this test. I don't know how I'm supposed to be during the assessment. It's via zoom so I can't get up and walk around and pace to help me think. How much eye contact am I supposed to give? Should I tell her I have notes? Should I sit at the dining table instead of the sofa? Can I play with Lego while we talk? Is it going to be traumatic and bring up my childhood and make me cry so that I feel like an eejit? Can I doodle? Do I have to face the screen for 90 minutes and concentrate. That will give me a headache. What if she does anything to set off my sensory issues? What if I don't understand what she means even if she's repeated it? Are there any trick questions? Etc etc 😩

I didn’t have the 2 and 7 question if that helps. Mine was face to face rather than zoom as I find zoom appointments really hard, and would also have trouble concentrating on zoom for a long time. They also take your body language and conversation flow into account and wasn’t really sure how they can do that properly over zoom, but that may just be because I’m not very good at it. It did go right into my childhood and was a bit upsetting but they are used to it. I don’t think I had trick questions but they did have a whole conversation with me about my special interest which at the end was told it was to assess my conversation flow when it’s something I’m really interested in compared to other topics.