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.

I did question it and was told they are qualified by the reception staff. All they'll be interested in is medicating though I expect.

I have a similar experience to yours, I did and Autism assessment and ADHD assessment with ProblemShared via RTC, the Autism diagnosis was straightforward but the ADHD assessor won't complete the diagnosis without reports of my behaviour at primary school.
My mum (undiagnosed but shows a lot of ND traits) can't remember anything about my childhood and has lost all my school reports.
I didn't really have friends and am not in touch with anyone from childhood.
My brother is much younger, and my sister can't remember much about me as a child either.
I'm a bit stuck, I almost certainly have ADHD as well as Autism but can't access a diagnosis or help because of my family's poor memory/recall and disorganisation.

@InMySpareTime I'm sorry that you're struggling too. My mum's recall is poor. You'd think she wasn't around when I was a child because she can't remember. School reports back then were very basic so probably not much help especially for high masking girls. It's so frustrating.

Dr J let me be own Informant for my childhood. My husband filled out the forms as an Informant but didn't know about my childhood. I was also very good at school but my interviewer was brilliant (nurse practioner but had to go away I assume to get second opinion before diagnosis in next appointment)

I've just done the autism forms for my second autism assessment and I just want to know now. I have empathy and can make eye contact and I know I can be autistic and have these but also worried they wont "see" it. A couple of friends say it won't take them 5minutes to see it and then I worry as is it hat obvious. And how???

@GoldfinchesInTheTree I'm going to ask if I can be my own informant too because my mum just doesn't remember anything. The assessor who did the ados said that some people are their own informants but I've not been offered the option. I'll certainly do any further questionnaires for my mum or at least with her. She was so difficult over the adhd one saying she couldn't answer any of the questions and it ended up with me scoring below the threshold on hers even though she is irritated daily by my symptoms.

I get my adhd results tomorrow and am worried I'll be told I don't meet the threshold even though I answered yes to about 98% of the questions and have followed it up via email with my big long list of symptoms and examples of my struggles. I'm worried they will just dismiss it all as anxiety or some maladaptive personality disorder although as it's a pharmacist doing the assessment I can't see how they'd be able to diagnose anything else and will just say yes you have adhd would you like medication or no you don't have adhd and you need further assessment by someone else. At least it's not a video or face to face appointment so I don't need to arrange my face into an appropriate expression. I just need to adopt the correct tone. Polite, respectful and grateful for their time I think? Give nothing away about how I feel if they say I don't have adhd, hang up and cry and consider how I've spent the past 8 years reframing my life when I saw adhd and autism fit like a glove and now I need to reframe it again. If they do say I have adhd I'll still cry I think and spend time thinking about lots of examples of how many events can be explained by it.

Good luck tomorrow. And completely relate to those feelings of having reframed life this way.... But it's still sad.

I started adhd meds yesterday and am still coming to terms with the fact this is"me". I was happier with autism identity I think - and now I'm so nervous if that isn't diagnosed.

I've seen it's on my gp records now and worried all over again about seeing my GP who has pooh poohed adhd/autism/obesity issues.

Have you had your ASD result yet? If you don’t get an ADHD diagnosis then it’s very possible you’ll still get an ASD diagnosis and there’s an overlap between some of the symptoms. Don’t worry about it until after tomorrow as you may get the ADHD too!

I’m the same, I was expecting the autism diagnoses so that wasn’t a surprise to me when I got it but the ADHD diagnosis threw me a bit. I was actually a bit angry about it at first.

I got a call from my ADHD assessor (without prior arrangement and from a withheld number - I didn't answer until she emailed about it and called me again later).
She was very unhelpful. Until I can make my family remember things about 40 years ago that they have forgotten, there's apparently no way to get an ADHD diagnosis, and no help is available for current symptoms without a diagnosis.
I'm in a bit of a bind, but DH's BUPA plan is bringing in ND assessment cover, so hopefully I'll be able to use the assessment and get a diagnosis from another professional who's more sympathetic and less "computer says no".

@Overthebow I've only had the ADOS appointment so far and was told I'd scored highly on that and that I was doing the right thing in getting assessed so I took that as a good sign. There's a section on the Clinical Partners profile for reports but there's nothing on there yet. I have no patience whatsoever to wait for anything. I want to know NOW!

@GoldfinchesInTheTree I bet it's weird seeing it written down. My old GP told me there was no point being assessed because I was successful and a diagnosis would affect me getting a job in future. The GP who did my right to choose referral said a diagnosis shouldn't affect getting a job but admitted that he's human and likely to choose a non ND candidate which was really shit of him. Does a candidate have to disclose their diagnosis?

You don’t have to disclose a diagnosis if you don’t want to. I haven’t told my employer that I have been diagnosed and I don’t plan to currently. I’ll only tell them if I need any adjustments that I can’t sort out myself.

Gosh that's rude of the GP!!! I would only disclose at hiring through occupational health. I think. I've long pondered disclosing autism as I think it could help in some of the jobs I was applying for. But I am not so sure about adhd. I feel less positively about that. Not sure if that's internalised prejudice or that I focus on the disabling factors of it whereas autism I'm easier to see it's a different way of thinking. I don't know.

My gp basically said "getting an adhd/autism diagnosis won't explain your weight you know" and that it was a waste of resources as I have a job and it's for people "really affected" (after I'd told her how I've struggled for so long...). I think she was just pigeon holing adhd to a certain demographic.

Anyway yes of course it DOES explain my weight. I have littler interception and certainly no awareness of full signals from my body. Being on Mounjaro for 2monthsnand realising what normal life is like has been so eye opening. And realising no wonder people say just stop when you're full. I can do that now!!! But only with the help of drugs in my brain.

@InMySpareTime that's ridiculous! What happens if you don't have any family? I hope you have better luck via BUPA. My mum only had the same paper questionnaire as me for ADHD and it didn't ask about childhood. She's not very observant at all and doesn't have an enquiring mind so she's been oblivious. Everything has been explained by me being difficult. I sent her the list I'd sent to the assessors to help her understand and she was upset because I'm lonely. That was her take away from the big 75 bullet point list where loneliness was mentioned only once. Oh and wondering if it was her fault. Not helpful.

@InMySpareTime who are you with?? Can you move to DrJ?

Who is Dr J?

I'm with ProblemShared via right to choose, I'll see what the report actually says, then try the BUPA route next, and see where that gets me.

Good luck.

DR J is one of the NHS Right To Choose providers like Problem Shared and adhd360.

Thank you. I'm nervous now. If I don't get anywhere I'll look up Dr J.

@AuADHD hope your appointment went well today.

It was very short, was half an hour earlier than scheduled so I was in the middle of something and I'm still processing the outcome. I'll update when I'm able to put it into words.

I'm still not able to process it but I have a diagnosis.

Yay I'm glad you have. Was it a difficult session? It sounds like you have the outcome you wanted?

My "part 2" is 5 weeks away 😭

so you got the ADHD diagnosis? I don’t think it’s something you have to process immediately. Are they arranging a follow up meeting? It took me a while to completely process and accept my diagnosis when I was given them but reading the report a few times over a couple of weeks and digesting the information, as well as the follow up meeting helped. I was also prescribed CBT for autism and ADHD, that may help you too.

My (final) part 3 is next Monday…”reflection session”. I feel a bit like the OPs initial post states. Good luck to you in 5 weeks.

OP, I hope you’ll be okay, at least you have clarity now.