autism / adhd

shannon_164

i have thought for many years that i might have autism. i’ve done so much research into it and genuinely can relate so much to a lot of it. around 5 months ago i met with youth workers from education authority for just a one of session - long story short, the outcome was they both suggested adhd specifically and requested that i get an educational needs psychology assessment and wrote a letter for my gp. it was then referred to the community mental health team (as that’s how adhd assessments etc are carried out in northern ireland) and they refused the referral claiming there was no evidence whatsoever, not that they even assessed me or as much as spoke to me about it / why i think i could possibly have autism or adhd (as i researched adhd quite a lot too after the youth workers suggested it, i had looked at it before but not too much). i then spoke to my psychologist about it and she then wanted to do autism, adhd & depression screeners. on the autism one she said anything over around 30 points they would consider a referral for assessment, i scored 44 i think she said so now she is referring me however it’s not guaranteed to be accepted then obviously there’s a longgggg wait list too, currently approx 5 years in northern ireland:/ in the depression screener i scored quite high too which i think is hilarious given community mental health team literally put on the letter “there was no evidence of clinical depression” whenever they actually had a LOT of evidence lol but its ok now, cmht are the most useless people ever i’ve found and im grateful they seen nothing at all wrong with me yet still somehow thought referring me to psychological therapies services was appropriate when i was ‘fine’ haha because now i genuinely do have the most amazing psychologist in the WORLD. today we done the adhd screener so she says she’ll total that up then we can discuss it further next session which is good.

i’m just not sure how i feel i guess? after spending years feeling so different and not being able to fit in and it going ignored and dismissed to now finally being taken seriously? it feels weird but im grateful.

independent_

I’m really glad you’re being taken seriously, at least by your psychologist etc. That, unfortunately, is very often the case with CMHTs - mine are crap, utter crap and I could rant about them for days on end. Hopefully the psychologist will put them under pressure. Give them the push they need to accept your referral.