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.

There is no such thing as failing a question, as all the question is designed to do is asses the way you think and there is no right way to think. Telling them you have notes seems like a good idea. There is no right amount of eye contact you should do or right place to sit, do whatever feels comfortable. They only asked me 1 questions about my childhood; how was school for me. They did not say anything that set off my sensory issues. In addition, they asked me do I have any sensory issues, how does my day look like and do I have trouble making friends and remaining employed.

I never had anything like a 2 and 7 question. It was just a chat! (Over zoom). I had things I play with which she asked if I was doing anything she couldn't see, I showed her my clicker.

It's not a test, honestly it isn't. They just want to get to know you and see how your brain works. Have notes, have fidgets, get up if you need to, sit where you like. It will be ok!

I've realised that there's no informant's interview booked yet so I could still be waiting for a diagnosis, or not, for quite some time, therefore my own assessment might not tell me anything. I'm not sure how much help my mum will be other than yes, she was a difficult child and remains a difficult adult. She was/is too sensitive, too critical, too observant, too excitable, too aloof, too perfectionist, is never still, doesn't socialise, falls out with people and cuts them off, very all or nothing. Weird about food and germs and noise, oh my god the noise! She's SO SENSITIVE and can hear things others can't and complains about it. She can't touch certain things and flows her hands if she touches something that feels unpleasant. It's embarrassing. Why can't she be normal??

That's how it will go 🤣

I'm not convinced my mum is exactly normal either. Definite traits there that are more noticeable as she's got older.

Obviously normal is not a word I'd use but I'm too tired to say it nicely.

I've scored highly on my ADOS apparently although the actual score needs to be finalised but that's a good sign I guess. I'm exhausted now. I found the questions really tricky at times like I didn't know what they wanted me to say.

I've just realised I was supposed to ask questions about the things they told me like about their pets. I think I was supposed to ask more about their dog but didn't.

I'm terrible for over sharing so I was pretty shut down on the sharing front as otherwise we'd have been totally off topic.
I couldn't tell a story from a picture book at all and got quite freaked out by it.
I spoke a lot about my special interest and showed the assessor my collection and now realise they might not have wanted to see🙈
I'm going to be overanalysing this for days now.

I don’t know anything about assessments but how can any of those things you did have been “wrong” in this context? They are there to assess your neurodiversity and how that creates struggles for you in social situations and life .

It really sounds like you are so used to masking and worrying about doing the right thing in social situations, that even here where the whole point is to assess how difficult you find all this, you still feel like you “should” control your natural behaviours

It’s not an academic exam or a job interview. All the things you’ve described here and in other posts (needing to pace to think, having trouble sitting still, being bad at small talk) sound exactly like the autistic and adhd traits they were assessing .

for example I doubt you were supposed to ask about their dog. The fact you didn’t may assessed - but in your favour because missing that social cue is a very autistic type behaviour.

in the same way showing them your special collection and not maybe realising at the time the person maybe isn’t that interested. That’s again a very AuDHD thing to do.

please don’t worry that you’ve somehow offended the assessor. This is their job and what they are there to assess!

@Daffidale thank you, you are correct of course but I've gone into over analysing mode.
I've looked back at their website and the informant part of the assessment focuses a lot on age 3-5. I can't remember much from then and my mum really can't. The assessor said sometimes you can be your own informant and I will be with my mum when the assessment takes place. The trouble mainly is asking my mum to pinpoint any behaviour that was odd when I am normal for my abnormal family 🙃 She doesn't remember anything about any issues with food or play and in fact doesn't remember much at all. Age 5 onwards is much better as I can remember lots of specific incidents that would be deemed weird. People used to ask what was wrong with me and I wasn't an affectionate child. That's as far as we have got which isn't particularly helpful.,

I was asked about my family today and I just stated the number of siblings and children I have without any further information 😅

Don’t overthink it, you’ve done the assessment and answered their questions as best you could on the day. The whole point of it is so they can see if you meet the criteria or not so there’s no right or wrong answers.

I thought I felt ok afterwards and not too tired but then last night I was falling asleep on the sofa but didn't sleep well once I went to bed and today I've had a meltdown so it was obviously more tiring than I thought.

Yes. Called it Schrödinger's autism in that wait period.

It doesn't get much better after either. Expect that too. Apparently it does settle down but not til later.

They will have wanted to see as that is very autistic!

You needed to be your maximum autistic/ ADHD in the interview.

I did my interview over the phone in lockdown. My sister in law did the other person thing.

You'll probably feel shit for ages. You have to dig up all your "deficiencies" and lay them out for examination. It was awful but worth it in the end

I have my adhd assessment tomorrow. I'm less anxious about this one although 16 yo Dd has said, "what adhd symptoms?" and thinks that it's just my personality which has thrown me off course. I swear she's exactly the same as me though so adhd and autism is actually normal for our family.

We were on holiday earlier in the week and we all had meltdowns over what amounts to nothing. Me over a menu 🙄 dd over I'm not quite sure what and ds over frustration with a game. We were all disregulated and tired and it showed. I was nearly crying when I went up to the bar to order food and the lovely manager took me over to a quiet spot and sorted everything out for me in the kindest most patient way without any infantilising or making me feel like an idiot. The menu we'd viewed at home online before going was laid out very differently to the physical menu and it totally threw me and I couldn't organise my thoughts at all and ended up just ordering chips because I panicked. How ridiculous to panic over a menu and ending up close to tears. I might have flapped a bit too and Dd told he off. It's made me realise this last week how much I mask day to day and how when the mask falls it's not pretty and it's not accepted by some.

Please report back what you were asked in your assesment tomorrow! I am having mine in a few months

Good luck! I hope you are at your most ND today! (At least for the assessment bit)

Hope the assessment goes well today. Did you get the results of the ASD assessment yet?

Thank you. I've got Ds on an inset day which isn't ideal but he'll happily watch tv while I'm on the call. It's scheduled for 2 hours which seems a long time.
The wheels really fell off as I got further towards needing HRT. I find I can either be great at home or great at work (I'm a carer) but not both although lately I'm failing at both. My sensory oversensitiveness has been on overload for months now and pissing everyone off. Me included.

@Overthebow nothing yet and I haven't got the informant interview booked because they haven't released appointments yet. It's frustrating. I scored highly on the ADOS 2 and was told I was doing the right thing in getting assessed.

That’s surprising, with mine they did all the informant parts before the actual assessments as they used it to probe more into some areas during the assessments. Have they given any indication of when it might be? You’d think they’d need to do it all close together.

It's going to be a different assessor as far as I know for the informant interview. I think the one who did the ados is going on maternity leave. I did email them but they said appointments haven't been released yet which is annoying. I just want it over with.

I was told that sometimes the assessor for adhd will give the results straight away but otherwise I have another appointment in a week for the results.
I'm nervous now.

I have to wait until next week because despite being told they often give a diagnosis on the day I've been told they aren't allowed to do that. This kind of dual rule thing annoys the hell out of me. Rules are rules and are binary ffs. Unless they are my own rules of course 🤣

I'll get my follow up next week but I've been told they'd be very surprised if I get a "non-diagnosis".

It's either diagnosis, non-diagnosis, and/or further steps but I can't remember exactly what was said. Thankfully they do follow up with a written report.

They ask a lot about childhood and they are definitely geared much more towards the typical hyperactive boy rather than the quiet and well mannered girl so I found that tricky. I made sure to say I was quiet and still on the outside but my mind was never still. A pharmacist assessed me which is weird but apparently they are trained to do this. The questions were very much read off a list with no deviation or embellishment to help understand so hard to really know more context to some of them.

My mum's questionnaire didn't meet the criteria which I suspected it wouldn't because she just doesn't see things. Maybe I mask very well when with her although I suspect she might not be completely neurotypical herself.

I think diagnoses on the day depends on the physiatrist doing the assessment, the company and also how you score. I got told my ASD diagnosis on the day as they wanted to tell me to stop me stressing and they could as I scored highly enough that they didn’t need time to go through everything again afterwards. They didn’t give me my ADHD diagnosis on the day as I didn’t score as high and they needed to check my answers and scores against the criteria, I got that diagnosis a week after the assessment. It’s probably different policies at different clinics too.

I got asked about trauma and was told "challenges then, not trauma" when I gave examples of life events that have been caused me significant and long lasting difficulties. The assessors bio said they were passionate about adhd but that didn't come across at all and I felt a little invalidated at times.

I've since emailed a long list of my struggles to the assessors for ASD and ADHD to give further information. The ADHD assessment was too prescriptive although sometimes they did see through the lack of fidgeting in class and ask if I frequently got up to sharpen pencils or offer to go and get something for the teacher which I did. My issues were well hidden by being a well mannered and well behaved good little girl though. It's only the school refusal that was an issue. So I found it a bit of a mixed bag really.

I would be deeply unhappy at a pharmacist doing my ADHD assessment, they may be trained to tick boxes but they do not have the extensive working knowledge that a psychiatrist does.