Autism and Maladaptive Coping

(when we learn to defend ourselves against life in unhealthy ways)

Ok, so first, what does “maladaptive” mean?
Maladaptive is a description which means “bad adaptive” and it refers to the unhealthy ways we may learn to cope with our life situations.

Maladaptive behaviors are those which might have worked at one time to help us escape some of our struggles.
We develop poor coping skills in self defense, especially when we must find ways ourselves with no guidance, input, insights or role modeling from others to help us.

Maladaptive thoughts or beliefs may be ones that we used to explain our struggles and reasons for the conflicts, misunderstandings, or other troubles in our lives.

Most of these behaviors, thoughts, and beliefs are learned when we are quite young.

Maladaptive thoughts and behaviors are not exclusive to autism, anybody can develop them, but perhaps because of autism’s struggles with social interactions and communication, we may tend to develop such self protective thoughts and behaviors more frequently.

I just read a paper which polled psychologists working with autistic individuals and all of them said they had never met an autistic that did not have some degree of maladaptive behavior and/ or thinking.

This would especially be true for those who did not have positive role models, explanations, and emotional support in our lives, or those of us who grew up in unhealthy situations where poor coping or unhealthy behavior was present to begin with.

Examples of maladaptive behavior would be fearful or aggressive behaviors (meeting every life challenge with fear or anger), belief that we must always please others, that it is our job to see that everybody is happy, that we must strive to please, to make sure nobody gets angry with us, that we are always wrong.

We might think that others are always wrong or “against us”, that nobody is responding to us when we want them to or in ways we want them to, so therefore nobody cares!
The list goes on.
Maladaptive behavior can be self injury or addictive behavior/substance abuse, enforcing and insisting on rituals or certain other ways to comfort or “protect” us.
We might believe that certain people or groups of people are out to get us, hate us, or are otherwise the cause of our problems.
We might think that if only we found a love partner, lived in a certain place, had a certain job or a certain possession, won the lottery, our lives would be changed and everything would be the way it is “supposed to be”.

You can see how complex and varied these maladaptive thoughts and behaviors can be.
With nobody to advise, explain, guide, mentor, we have been left on our own to figure it all out and most of us simply did the best we could to survive. Most of us got some of it wrong!

The good news is that once we are aware of our unhealthy thought and behavior patterns, we can work to replace our old thought and responses with newer and healthier ways.
Like any habit, we can learn new ways to do it!

I had a number of maladaptive thought patterns and behaviors that I had learned and used over my early life time.
The family I grew up in had many poor coping skills and patterns of manipulative, shaming and blaming behaviors and thoughts.

With the help of a counselor I learned to recognize unhealthy manipulative and coercive communication and replace it with healthy self assertive communication , and how to defend myself against such behavior and communication from others.

I learned that many of my beliefs about my self, my life, the way others treated me, the things that happened to me, were unhealthy and simply not true. I had to learn about the actual nature of healthy relationships, healthy behavior, healthy self care and setting boundaries, and so much more.
Many young people learn, or can see these things for themselves as they grow and mature, and many others may need help, guidance, explanations and coaching to find healthier and more productive, less emotionally painful ways to live life.

Looking back on my early years, I can see how absolutely desolate of life skills and insights I was, as autism, my unhealthy childhood ‘roots’, my unhealthy maladaptive beliefs and lack of the tools I needed to interact in healthy ways with the world around me was disabling and painful.
I could not find my way “out” without an outsider to help me understand and to see where the behaviors I relied on to survive were no longer working and that I could replace them with other more functional and effective tools which I could use every day to have a better life, better relationships, better understanding of my world.

If you are struggling constantly, are in emotional pain, if you can’t find a way out of your daily misery, anxiety, and emotional pain, I urge you to find a life coach/ therapist/ counselor or mentor to help you sort the coping tools you are using, discard the unhealthy, maladaptive ones, and replace them with better ways to move forward in life.

If I could do it, I believe almost anybody can. It is emotionally scary. for many of us, it is almost impossible to see or say “I was wrong” in my beliefs, in the way I tried to handle things, in the ways I learned to cope.
I was wrong ,as in mistaken.. yes, not bad or shamefully wicked, not to blame : I had used the only tools I had available, that was not my fault, it is not yours if you are not coping well, either!
I got a new box of tools, and I haven’t regretted it for one moment. Life has been so much better!
Join me, won’t you?

Autism history (my own)

Thinking about what I have learned. Random thoughts and insights .

It has been about 7 years now since I began to suspect my autism diagnosis; the blog here just celebrated its 5th birthday, and I got a professional autism diagnosis two days before I turned 68 years old, that would be 4 years ago.

I have had time to sort my autism, understand autism’s history and my own personal history.

I have been able to finally understand how autism worked in me and my family situation and my young adulthood right through middle age and retirement. Yes, that is right, I never knew about my autism until after I was retired.

All that happened , I had spent most of my life in struggles related to my autism before I understood I am autistic, and have been from the moment of my birth. Nobody knew!

It has taken me a long time to recognize and realize how difficult things are for me, compared to those all around me. I am truly impaired, truly disabled as a part of my autism. I had no idea!

Things others do with ease requires a great deal of effort for me to perform, and in a lot of cases, my neurology is simply not up to the job.
It has been humbling, humiliating, fills me with dismay when I remember all the social struggles with others and see how I “didn’t get it” in almost all cases.
I understand now, how I caused others pain, anger, and annoyance all of my life without ever knowing; feeling helpless, hopeless, abused and rejected but never understanding all the “whys” behind it. Nobody knew!
All my life I was told I was not trying hard enough, not doing enough, being a jerk, being deliberately malicious, cruel, thoughtless, I could do better, I should snap out of it, shape up, get with the program, change my ways. I was the problem in all cases and I should stop it right now!!!!

I had no idea how to do this, nor did I understand what they meant by those things, except that it was all my fault, and I was doing it deliberately, They thought I was evil and wrong, a bad person, and was told repeatedly I knew exactly what I was doing and I should stop it!

I still remember (and always will ) weeping with sorrow and helplessness through these times of blaming, punishment and shaming, and my wailing “but I don’t know how”
Every time these things happened being told “you know perfectly well what you are doing”.
Truly, I didn’t.

After a long life filled with misunderstanding, helplessness, hopelessness, emotional pain and damage, depression, suicidality and despair, I finally learned in my autism diagnostic process that I had sensory processing disorder- that I only understood 25 percent of what I saw in “real time” and only understood 35 percent of what I heard.

After having had my vision corrected in early childhood (around age 7 or 8) and having been tested as having an exceptional range of hearing from very high to very low registers, I was told I had no excuse for my multiple failures in every situation in my life, from social struggles, communication and understanding others or myself, following instructions, never being able to complete or learn any task without asking for loads of explanations and asking a hundred “whys”. Shaming, blaming and punishment were almost daily things for much of my life.

I found out there was a true neurological reason for my multiple failures.!!
That was stunning, and took a lot of time to sort.
I did not at first understand what these inabilities to process almost anything in ‘real time’ meant regarding what I was capable of, what I was asking of myself , what others expected of me.
My inability to perform as expected in almost every case was tied deeply to my autism and my neurological failings, not my personal ones! Nobody knew!

Maladjustment in coping with my struggles where nobody, including me, understood my neurological shortcomings, meant emotional suffering for me and most people who associated with me on almost any level. Nobody knew! everybody, including me, misunderstood almost everything !!! Amazing!!!

Ah, how freeing it has been to understand that my sordid, painful past was not all due to my moral and personal failures, but that my neurology was simply not set up to live life the way I was expected to, or to perform as I was expected to.

It has been Such a huge relief to know and finally understand all those painful “whys” of the past.

I have been able to forgive myself and others over all of the past. Nobody knew. Nobody understood!

Healing is taking place as I understand and adapt.

I realized the other day that I deserve huge credit for being a survivor!
How did I go through all of those things, and still manage to find sanity and be able to heal from that past?
It is amazing to me that I did not end up dead in a gutter long ago. I have been lucky and blessed in so many ways.

How many people in my age group will go to the grave blaming themselves and others and feeling pain with no escape, never knowing the answer to so may of their struggles is that one word, ”autism”. ???? My heart goes out to every single one , we all deserve to know the truth about our life long struggles.

Give yourself huge credit for finding ways to make it this far in life, even with maladaptive behavior and all the problems living without knowing our diagnosis can bring to life.
You are a true survivor!!!!

There is hope for a better future. Knowing about my autism now has been a really powerful tool, something of monumental importance – a key that opened up the insights and perspective I had lacked to understand my world. I can not begin to describe the importance this has had for me personally, and my world!

I have learned that for us, our autism diagnosis is stimulus to explore our personal experiences and traits, and at this old age, its a lot to sort!

I think I am still having those wonderful “aha “ moments of insight and understanding, and that satisfying opportunity to say “so that’s why” about still another part of my past or even my present life.

I have learned that nobody else is as fascinated or interested in my autism discoveries and insights, except other autistic individuals.

Even people who have children or partners, or other family members with autism are not as interested in the autism itself as in finding ways to work around its worst struggles. (the ones that are the worst for them, even, maybe instead of the experiences of the autistic individual in their lives).

Blogs, articles, chats, autism support groups both in person, online and using all of the features of today’s best technologies are the perfect way to share information and support each other in a world where nobody else wonders much about autism and how it affects 2 to 3 percent of the world’s population. I am so grateful for the internet!

The reason I started the blog was to explain for others my experiences in searching for diagnosis as an old lady here in the USA, my insights and the things I have been learning along the way.

In the past 5 years, much has been learned by science, with the general consensus being that autism is mostly genetic and it is developmental. The ways we struggle with autism is due to uneven growth and development of our neurology. Each of us will be different because no two neurologies develop equally . Performance on sensory tests and neurological tests show uneven performance, with amazing highs sometimes to really low performances in other sections of testing. The so called “autistic behaviors” are the direct result of our uneven neurology.

I wanted to show everything I was learning here in the blog to help others who have just begun to suspect they might be autistic as older adults, who are seeking diagnosis, who are recently diagnosed and looking for ways to make their every day lives better with self accommodation and seeking self understanding.
Everything looks different when we discover our autism.
Wishing all a Happy New Year. May the new year be your best yet!

Positive Thinking

“gratitude is an attitude”

Of course the impending holiday of Thanksgiving inspired this! As a child with trauma and anxiety, I learned to watch and be vigilant for anything that could be scary, dangerous, possible trouble impending, etc.
The term for this is “hypervigilant”, if you want to look it up.
I also had so many negative experiences with misunderstandings and punishments, bullying, etc that I became wary of others and mistrusted everybody’s motives nearly all the time.
The term for this condition is “rejection sensitive dysphoria”.
You watch everything and suspect everybody’s motives, worry that any interaction is going to be either emotionally painful, a trap to foil you and embarrass you, or to be used to cause distress or discomfort.

I had an overwhelmingly negative attitude, and overwhelmingly sad and distorted view of my world, and an overwhelming expectation of no good to come my way.

In therapy at the age of 30, the therapist pointed out that I had developed a “negative attitude” and that it was not normal or healthy, and it was unnecessary to my life.

I had to be taught to look for positive things. I learned to look for positives in any and every situation.
The best I could find for a lot of my experiences was that they taught me “what not to do”.

Thinking negatively was a ‘self defense” habit that I had developed because I had no other skills or “tools” to use to comfort and protect myself as a child.
I had to learn how to be positive, how to be healthily self assertive in a positive and open manner. I had to be taught that I had a choice in almost everything in life. I could choose the way I responded to others, to events, to random things that happened in my life. I could change my attitude! I struggled hard with this idea for quite a while and “disbelieved” it for the most part, even as I attempted to perform exercises assigned to me around positive thinking. It was a really hard concept to grasp and put into practice. Habits of any sort are notoriously difficult to break.

It has been a huge learning curve, but I can say at the age of 72, I have been able to develop a positive outlook on life and I face each day with a less fearful and anxious attitude. Life has become better. I see the goodness in it now. Even if I have to look very very hard to find the positive in some situations or circumstances beyond my control.

How to do it? Each time you catch yourself in a negative thought, (and you will have plenty of opportunities to do that!) try to look at whatever is happening at the moment that makes you think badly about it.

Turn it around and look for something positive instead.

Instead of “I have to do grocery shopping, I hate the crowds, I hate the noise, it is going to be so difficult to get there, I hate to put away the groceries” ,
Try looking at it from positive angles.
You are able to shop for yourself, you are able to buy groceries and get what you need, you have the means to get there and the ability to do the things you need to do to get good food and bring it home.
Your cupboards will be full, you will have what you need to be healthy and strong and independent.
Some people must fight for each of those things. OK, maybe you are one of them. Even those struggles can be put into perspective, alternatives can be found, things can be done and steps can be taken to help.

Looking for alternative viewpoints in any situation can be helpful in having a healthier life, building better foundations to live in a healthy and positive way, having better mental health and finding ways to enjoy life instead of fearing it.

If you have overwhelmingly negative friends, family members, or input such as news, whether newspapers, tv, radio, internet showing life full of tragedies, sorrow, pain, suffering, it does no good to fill yourself with these things.
They are beyond your control. But you can control your exposure to them and the time you allow them to occupy your mind!
The skill of separating those things in life that you can’t control from those you can, and deciding to react in a positive way instead of a negative way can be very helpful to living a better and more balanced life.

If it distresses you and you have no control over it, put it on a shelf mentally or lock the metaphorical door on allowing it into your life and dwelling on the pain, the distress, the sorrow.

It is somebody else’s struggle and there are others “out there” working on it, trying to help it, doing something from their own ability to have control over it. You can rest and you don’t have to solve the problem, you are not responsible, others in power to help those issues are working on it!

You can choose to focus on things closer to home that you can control for yourself.

It is OK to have moments of peace or joy when others in the world are suffering, it is OK to make time for yourself to heal and to find comfort and a quiet refuge among the horror that is brought into our homes every day via media we can control.

We can say no to habitual pain, discomfort, distress, anxiety by controlling our own behavior and attitudes and our environments, the input we choose to allow into our lives every day.
Yes, that is OK.

Choose to find peace and positivity where you can and to practice self examination and learn the skills of positive thinking.

Gratitude is an attitude, it is a habit that can be developed.
You can do what is in your power to help , then let others take care of it, find the patch of sunshine, look at the beautiful scenery, read a book , enjoy a painting, listen to music, you are aware there is suffering and pain in the world. Do what you can, (maybe donate to a cause or share information ) and look for something positive in your life. Focus on finding peace and looking for good in the little things that surround us all.
I have so much to be Thankful for. Have a wonderful, peaceful and grateful Thanksgiving.

Get READY now

What if there is an emergency?

Recent events have been on my mind lately. A good friend spent hours watching firefighters battle a huge blaze in an apartment complex across the street. An area the size of a city block was lost. All the people who lived there lost their homes and belongings. Certain surrounding areas had to be evacuated as well. Others were put on “standby” alerts.

People in the state where I live lost everything when an old dam burst and allowed water from the recreational lake it had created to inundate the subdivision and part of the large sized city just downstream from that location.
People who lived there lost their homes and belongings. Somebody I knew there was without utilities, including water and sewer for several days as the area began to recover.

There are chemical spills, forest and urban fires, floods, earthquakes, violent damaging storms, civil unrest, and many other reasons why people must suddenly leave their homes , evacuate certain areas, and try to begin new lives in places that are strange to them.

Do you have plans for such an emergency? Now is the best time to think about it, as terrifying as it might be.
Emergencies do happen in every part of the world, every day.

Our autistic inflexibility can be an extra problem for us in emergency situations. We can be so shocked by rapidly threatening events that we become ‘frozen’ and unable to act for ourselves. We may not be able to do the things that need to be done quickly in such an emergency if we have not planned and thought about what we would do and made certain things ready “just in case”.

The flood issue struck close to home. We live in an area close to one of the Great Lakes in the USA, and there is a river through the heart of town, much beloved, tamed by no less than 4 dams in regions above town and in the middle of town as well. If one of those dams broke, would/could the others follow? The government agency that inspects the dams says they are reaching the end of their span of usefulness and they are not completely stable. I have been thinking about what we would do here, if there was a flood situation and we had to be evacuated.
We have important papers we would need to take with us. We do not have a trailer or access to one to bring large items with us. By the time we got our files, our pets, our clothing and medications, food and water for 3 days, sleeping bags, etc. we still would have to find a safe place to go, figure out a safe route to get there, and figure out how to proceed to live our lives from there.
I am making a check list and gathering things we might need into one area of our home, and packing up what I can ahead of time.

Something that might help you think about emergency preparedness is the usa government website ready.gov What possible threats are most likely to cause emergency evacuations near you?

I began to prepare for emergencies even before I knew of my autism. I lived in an earthquake prone area in the south of my home state and there had been a lot of publicity about “the big one” – a huge earthquake being possible on a nearby extended-area fault zone which had been inactive for well over a hundred years. I had small children and the stories of possible damage worried me. So I began preparations.

I packed an emergency bag for each family member, one complete change of clothing plus a couple extra socks and underwear, and shoes. Shoes are so important in case of night time evacuations and possibilities of having to walk in areas with broken glass, damaged buildings, down trees, etc..

I remembered to pack clothing that could be used as night clothes in a public sleeping situation. I packed a towel, washcloth, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc in the emergency bags (these were backpacks). I packed a comfort toy and non perishable snacks in the kids’ bags.

I packed a bag for the pets with collars/ harnesses/ leads, dishes, food enough for 3 days. I packed the contact number for the vet and included letters for “permission for emergency treatment” as well as all health records for the critters.

I packed food and water for 3 days for each family member as well.
I made sure we had copies of our birth certificates, our social security numbers, emergency phone numbers (family, friends, etc we would need to contact in case of emergencies , doctors numbers, health records, records of all the places we paid our household bills, so we could terminate service, ask for extensions or help restoring services, tax records, etc.
Insurance cards and copies of plans plus contact numbers went into the bags, as well as all the contact numbers and account numbers for the bank, credit cards, etc etc.
I got extra prescription drugs for family members and put those in the bags too. I had a little first aid kit and a small radio that ran on batteries, flashlights and extra batteries. I had sleeping bags and blankets and pillows stacked and ready to pick up and put in the car.

I began to be very conscious about the level of gas in my car’s tank.
If we had to evacuate I had seen the television and news articles showing long lines with waits for gas and people’s cars abandoned by the side of the road due to running out of fuel.

Especially if you live in areas that are prone to ‘weather events’ or known hazards, please consider giving yourself a huge advantage by insuring you are ready ahead of time as well as you can be.
Emergencies can happen at any time. They happen to everybody.
Being older and autistic does not mean we can not give ourselves the accommodation of being ready to react and save precious time and perhaps our own and /or our loved ones’ lives.
I do not dwell on scary thoughts surrounding these “what if” scenarios, but I have peace of mind knowing I will know what to do if the time ever comes that I am called on to act and react quickly for safety and well being of my household.
Do you need an emergency plan? How will you respond?

Autism Self Love

Autistic negative feedback” baggage” and learning to love ourselves.

Self love is a very difficult concept for me.

I think it is difficult for many other elder autistic people too. The very idea that we deserve anything as an individual has been driven out of our thoughts by negative feedback for too long.

From my earliest memories I recall feedback from others about my selfishness, laziness, thoughtlessness, worthlessness, my failures and my seemingly deliberate wickedness.

Those negative statements about me and my behavior, plus early and continual childhood training as a Christian (where everything is about taking care of others, service to others, selflessness, giving and humbleness) were absorbed early and taken to heart. Having no other guidance and trying to understand the rules for living life, it is no wonder I got so much of it wrong.

In a recent online discussion and subsequent blog ( Was there Love?) wrote thoughts about how most of us in my autistic forums on line felt unloved and unlovable. This is sort of continuing the theme and enlarging on it. What do we do with all of those negative feelings about ourselves and our lack of worthiness?

I got therapy at age 30 due to suicide attempts and depression/anxiety I could no longer control by my willpower alone. The therapist probably had his worst problems in me with my self worth and my inability to stand up for myself.
I did not understand that my thoughts and opinions or preferences had any value. I had to learn that I had worth as an individual, and then I had to learn how to express my thoughts and preferences, set healthy boundaries and above all, learn to take positive actions to keep the boundaries and to take care of myself instead of sacrificing my self in response to other’s demands and desires. I had learned to appease others when I was very small, to avoid punishment and anger. I had to be taught that I was a person in my own right and that it was OK to want things, to ask for things, to have my own beliefs and ideas. Autistic rigid thinking was at work, and I had no idea that I had alternatives. It was terrifying to suddenly be responsible for my self.. I had to take responsibility for my thoughts, my behavior, my ideas, and above all to take action to enforce boundaries to declare myself a person and not a servant, slave, or accessory. ( among other roles I was expected to play )

I was not able to get past the idea that I was at all worthy of being more than a puppet for others to use as they chose.
I ended up having to look hard to find the time in my childhood when I began to learn the negative things and believe them.

I ended up seeing myself between ages of 5 and 8, and being able to find the little girl who was so afraid and who felt so unloved and unwanted. When I was able to do this, ( and remember I can not picture a thing in my mind, so I need visual aids such as photos, models, maps, or drawings to “see” things), I purchased a sad looking child-doll (not a baby!) and put her near my bed so I could see her and think about that child and how I was now able to give her what she had need and not got. I took care of her in my mind and heart. I took pleasure in giving her new clothing, imagining her being cherished, supported, fed and cared for, helped with struggles and given love. I was able to transfer those feelings first to my childhood self, who had missed it all, then to my middle school and teen years and the years of my early 20s.

Breaking though that initial barrier of feeling unworthy took a lot of time, though, and emotional homework. I cried for that little girls a couple of times, but not for long. I had been trained to believe my feelings were not worthy of being recognized and taught to hide them deep within myself. That was yet another skill to learn, to identify my own emotions and to recognize them properly, and to learn to respond to them properly.

Autistic people have many struggles identifying emotions and sorting them out as it is,
our proprioception/ interoception neurological issues being common to most of us.

I was taught to deny my emotions or to redirect them until my whole idea of self was buried deep in what I hid, and never thought or understood that there were other ways and that other people handled these things differently.

It has taken a very long time and lots of hard work to develop new behaviors and to find new ways of thinking. I am certain that many of us, especially older people who have never considered they might be autistic, grew up with similar training… and with similar results.

Years and years of negative feedback from family, neighbors, schoolmates, co workers, spouse and other contacts in our experience have led to our deep self hatred. How could we get things so wrong? How could we fail over and over to perform as expected? How could we mess things up so badly. It was our fault! We were useless, stupid, worthless. Years of negative feedback is a lot to overcome.

When I learned about my autism, suddenly things began to make sense. No wonder I could not do what they wanted me to! I have neurological struggles which they do not have! They expected me to behave as they do never knowing, any more than I did, that I simply was give a different “tool box” from which to do what they expected of me. So amazing!
No wonder I failed! No wonder I could not work to expectations ! No wonder everything was so hard!

Diagnosis changed everything for me, even though the therapy 38 years ago helped me survive and do better in the world, it was not then that I discovered how much my autistic struggles contributed to the difficulty and distress in so many parts of my life.

Here is my message.

You are worthy of respect. You are worthy of caring, you are worthy of love and friendship.

You are an amazing survivor of so many things that were so hard to understand and so difficult to live through, never knowing about autism and about how it has worked in your life to cause so many struggles that others simply do not have.

There are so many new ways to live and to care for yourself, to assure your needs are met and to give your life a richness and fullness you might never have thought you could have.
Please take the time to explore the options, to feed the needs inside of you for so many things you have been missing all these years. Take time to find self care, self comfort, self accommodation, self interest!

If you struggle with self care, I suggest that you think about a stranger you might come across, who has had a very hard life and is full of hurt and feeling un-cared for and misunderstood.
How would you help that person?
Would you punish, shame and chastise them?
Would you be constantly angry at them when they struggled to do things that were difficult for them?
No, I doubt you would.
Instead you might try to help and encourage them, wouldn’t you?

I hope you can look at the lost stranger inside yourself and be at least as good to them as you would be to any other person .

Random musings from autistic old lady

Not my usual single topic page

There seems to be more interest in stress as related to Autism.
It seems there are tests showing that autistic people generally have more stress hormones such as cortisol in their systems. I am beginning to dig into the reports and studies. One thought is in my mind. Chicken/egg??? Is it reactions to dealing with autism symptoms which the cause of the stress, thereby causing release of hormones or are the hormones that are being found somehow controlled by the autism itself ( and therefore a symptom in its presence alone, even without stressful circumstances which usually cause release of the hormones) and might cortisol and other stress hormones in certain proportions or quantities be found to be a biological marker for autism?
So far all the tests seem to have been done under what might be stressful conditions to any autistic person, enough to cause the release of all those hormones they measured. Much remains to be seen. Watching with interest.

I want to report a great experience with the medical community regarding autism diagnosis. I have reported throughout this blog some of the struggles and miscommunications in my attempts to gain “official medical” diagnosis.
This time was different.
I have been referred to an adult autism diagnostic clinic in another state. My GP’s office had prepared me to expect an appointment next year (proof of the high demand for adult autism diagnosis) and I was duly contacted on the telephone by a clinic representative.
The phone interview was conducted by a person who spoke clearly and enunciated precisely.
She stated clearly her name and her title, and the name of the clinic she represents. She gave me time to respond without feeling pressured.
Most of the questions asked were to confirm the usual facts about birth date, insurance coverage, etc. Those questions were posed so that I could respond with yes or no. No open ended questions!
Even the final question regarding my problem (the reason I wanted the appointment) was set up to give me a choice of answer so I could choose a correct response rather than try to figure out exactly what information was wanted and then have to produce it under pressure of the caller awaiting response. I was given a choice of A, B, or C . Wonderful!
The caller explained the next steps and told me exactly what I could expect to happen. It only took a couple of minutes but it was handled perfectly, and in an autism friendly manner. I feel as if progress is being made!

I called the doctor who had offered to complete my diagnosis on Monday, as he requested. Today is Saturday. No response so far. His website says he retired in July of this year. I am feeling a bit confused. But perhaps I am just too anxious. Time will tell.