I’m a 43-year-old father of two living in the north of England. I work from home most of the time and I enjoy playing video games, climbing, and making things. I also happen to be autistic. Early in 2023, I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As I had been looking into autism and reading more about it, the diagnosis wasn’t a total shock and it actually gave me some comfort as it explained a lot of things about myself. The process and the diagnosis also caused some sadness and regret though as it meant thought more about how I can come across to others but I also think it has helped me to deal with it better too. In this blog, I want to talk about how I got diagnosed, how it is affecting my life and how I’m learning more about autism and myself as I deal with day to day things.

The process itself was interesting. It was via the NHS in the UK and I was expecting it to take a long, long time to complete. I had heard stories of people waiting years to be seen be the right people but I wanted to find out and so I initially spoke to my GP asking about an autism assessment in October 2022. He ran through some questions with me and said he would get some forms sent out for me to complete to move on to the next stage of the process. I was pleasantly surprised at how supportive he was as again, I had heard stories of people not even getting that far but I’m assuming the information I provided made him think I was worthy of being looked at by the professionals. I can’t remember lots about it but one thing he asked was “do you have problems with the texture of different foods?” or something like that and I replied “no, not really as I tend to always eat the same stuff”. “I’ll put ‘yes’ he replied.”

The next milestone was at the end of December 2022, I received a 40+ page set of forms from the autism service with questionnaires etc to complete. I received them on the 29th December and the letter said they wanted them back by the 28th December, it went on to say if they didn’t receive them by that date, they would assume the appointment was no longer required and would close the case. I did wonder if this was part of the test but after venting on an online forum I have been using for the last 20 years I made a slightly panicked phone call to the autism people and they said they would make a note to expect my forms and not to close my case which was a relief.

Towards the end of January I got a letter with an appointment for a face to face assessment that would be in February. When I saw the date in the letter, I wasn’t exactly sure what it was for because as I said earlier, my understanding was that waiting lists were years long and I was only 3 months into the process. As I read on, it was apparent this would be an appointment to actually diagnose me (or not). I did worry at this stage that such an important thing could be decided in a meeting lasting an hour or so with someone I hadn’t met before. What if I over or under compensated on the day? What if they thought I was making things up? What if they thought I was wasting their time?

I decided at this point that I would try not to worry about the diagnosis itself, I wanted answers to why I was the way I was, why I struggled with some things and excelled at others, why my tone was misread etc etc. My plan therefore was to go through the process and if I was autistic, fine, I would then explore more coping strategies and at least know why. If I wasn’t, it would be ruled out and I could look into what else it could be…