Autism Diagnosis Journal Thread
I was like, well there is no edge, I guess. And that was my brain's way of being like, there is no end. There is no beginning. When you die, you're just giving birth. It's okay. Trying to make me feel better about going to sleep that night. And that's how I fell asleep that night and the next night and the next night until I felt better
And then this fear concept came in, and it became a comfort and understanding in those fevers when I had nothing else to do I'm sorry if ticks. I had nothing else to do but sit there and analyze s***, right? And I was diagnosed with bipolar when I was 20 maybe, I don't know. Yeah. And had been on medications for that since then. So for X money years. Lady never gives her it
I should preface this, but I'm not an expert. I'm not an expert, but yet my therapist uses the information that I give her to give advice to other patients, which is cool, which is great. That makes me feel really good. Also makes me really scared because I don't think I should know more about autism in adults than anybody at a counseling center. But that's just me. But it does make me feel good. Very, very good
But I was like, holding my hands up about a foot apart, and I said, here's the probability of getting an autism diagnosis as an adult. A foot apart. My hands are you're already this far apart because you're an adult. It's going to be harder because of your coping mechanisms, all of that that you've learned on your own for them to see through. Right. You're already at a disadvantage. You're already a foot apart
You could possibly get very sick from any kind of infection, so you should be really careful and be like, well, why is that? Well, right? Can you imagine them just being able we can't give you the diagnosis. Can you imagine having to pay $4,000 for a cancer diagnosis? That's the reason my HIV medication is $5,000 a month. A month. $5,000 a month. Thank God. I don't f****** pay for it
And that's what I'm hoping I can show in this, is that it's okay if you're also struggling to find a diagnosis. It's okay if you feel worthless. I'm here. Talk to me. Let's do this. I love you. Have the date
So as soon as I run into obstacles of what I'm trying to do, my brain immediately attacks itself and says, well, you're too stupid to figure this out. And then you run into your abandonment issues from your parents and you snowball. And before you know it, by the time your husband gets home in an hour, you're curled up on the couch sobbing into a pillow. And he's like, great feeling going to be a great weekend, right?
And I was like, that yeah, that's me. That's me. That's how my autism presents itself is I'll sit there for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours all day wondering how the universe is working and why these things happen, right? Meanwhile, not be able to take care of myself and lose motor skills because of, you know but that didn't work after a Wiley. Stupid didn't work. Worthless. I did worthless as well
You're not living in your car anymore. You're happily married with your fur babies. So life is going to get better. It's going to be okay. I love you
And still those are typically done by people who are neurotypical. So they're trying to shoehorn us into a stereotype which is going to miss a good portion of the population. They're like true unicorn which there are growing number now of neurodivergent researchers, neuro divergent, therapists who actually understand the lived experience and it's almost like once you get that diagnosis or understanding and you do more research then everybody has a different term for this
All of this rambling to say you are not alone either. We will find our way through somehow or another, and not just to survive, but to thrive. We may define that differently than Neurotypicals, but we will. Throw. Drive
So then as I was chopping them up, I was talking to my friend, telling her what I was going to do, and I said, I'm putting them in the microwave. I know you said a friend of yours made potatoes in the microwave one time, and it didn't go well. That's the guy that you let penetrate you, right, Jason? And she's like, no, Jason did not. So then we started debating which Jason it was that she slept with
But yeah, finding someone to put it on paper so I can actually get help to live would be great. So I called my insurance company just to make sure that the evaluation would be covered, knowing that most likely it's probably not. But I've never gotten a direct answer as to why it's not really covered
So what is your thought that after you do get an official diagnosis, then what? I mean, because you mentioned that you can't even buy a pack of gum right now. What are you expecting is going to be different? Would you then apply for Social Security disability? I'm curious. I've been down that road before. An invisible diagnoses can be very hard to navigate through that system. I've been through that twice and I got f***** over
But I think I'll bring that up to her today about if there's a great number of people that come here that are in the same situation, we should probably have a group and there should be a peer advocate for that group. Clearly I'll do it. But yeah, the goal is just trying to keep the lights on and anything over that maybe like some understanding if can eventually work for a little bit
Oh, I'm glad that's an option at least. Isn't it ironic? You know have to have thousands of dollars to fork out to get the diagnosis in order to get less than that. Of course, when you add it up over time, it wiley be more. But it's just ridiculous how difficult they make it while other diagnoses can be done in minutes. But anyway, I hope your day gets better and that you feel some better after your therapy appointment
So I sent them all of the self diagnostic material that I've done and the Rads and all those things just for extra information. Took all their tests, all their quizzes, all those fun things, and now it just comes down to billing. Which is why I'm hesitantly happy because they said they don't schedule the assessment until billing has contacted your insurance
We're talking about how to go about autism diagnosis and why you would do one if you need to. Christina and I talked a little bit here, and I think we talked a bit on the clubhouse as well about it, about how getting a diagnosis has pros and cons, for sure. Why you would need one if you're managing it yourself relatively well. And of course, the whole disability blind illness thing, you know, those are things that you just have to weigh all that yourself
But it's definitely of us reflecting this morning affected my life in a good way, in that although I see more ups and downs with respect to my experience of the world, that's better than the long periods of downs because I didn't know how to manage myself. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what was, quote unquote, wrong with me or why I experienced the world so differently
And when I took the other ones to my doctors and that they were like, self direction, that one's kind of important and that's kind of everything that my report states. So I took that, paid all my notes. I killed about ten trees, as you can hear, sadly printing out all of my notes. Because today is my appeal to basically my informal appeal to basically take all of these notes and justify the changing of the scores