Recent Evaluation for Autism

 After a rough year with many changes, some good, some not good, I had come to point that I realized I needed to be tested for Autism. While I feel I had become self-realized years ago, it wasn't until this year that I really needed the official diagnosis due to a lack of understanding from some in my family and some other reasons. I had originally made an appointment with a psychologist in Missouri who didn't know of me. I make a lot of referrals to psychologists around here and I wasn't sure if I could get an unbiased evaluation. Plus I wanted someone that knew about high masking autism, particularly in adult females. The one in Missouri would have been a great fit but she was 7 hours away, didn't take my insurance, and had a 6-month wait. I still made the appointment. I was that ready. A couple of months prior to my appointment another psychologist had just started a practice in NWA and she was female and neurodivergent. I had one client scheduled with her and felt her assessment was spot on so I went ahead and made an appointment. She took my insurance and I was able to get in within a month. I told her to go ahead and test for ADHD as well because I needed to know if my symptoms were overlapped, both, or just one or the other. It was ruled out. 

These were my results and the instruments she used. 

One aspect of worry I had was actually put to rest with the IQ testing. I always had this fear that my struggles with understanding certain concepts were due to some overcompensated lack of intelligence. Surprisingly my IQ was actually above average and consistent throughout all areas tested. I still realize I have to find workarounds in some things because certain things are hard for me to grasp and my learning style is different than most. But my capability is there. 

The GAD is not a surprise and I find it rare that autistic individuals have no anxiety. It is a comorbidity in most. My anxiety pushes me to be overly functional, staying ahead of the demand of anyone and making me be early for just about everything. I should have realized I didn't have ADHD because most of those individuals procrastinate and I "precrastinate" and do things ahead of schedule to try and prevent the anxiety of the task. 

I will say the mild portion is something they put in clinical settings but frankly functioning labels are crap. Here is a little bit of my thoughts on functioning labels from my upcoming trainings on the topic. 

I hear Aspergers thrown around on a daily basis, even from professionals in the field. Something to keep in mind about Asperger’s is that it is not typically seen as a neurodiverse-affirming label. The idea of functioning labels is often looked down on in general due to the fact that a so-called “high-functioning” individual could actually be struggling more internally than a supposed “low-functioning” individual. Even the term Asperger's is named after the Austrian Physician who coined the term, who actually was found to have worked alongside the Nazi regime. The purpose of his torturous research was eugenics. We do not need to have a label named after such a person.

You are free to look into that more on your time, the information is all there. But something to remember is the term itself is no longer in the DSM and all diagnoses of autism and pervasive developmental disorder are under one Autism diagnosis. But they do put levels to it 1-3, mild, moderate, and severe. Just remember that even if you get a Level 1 diagnosed individual, they can still internally struggle and their daily functioning can still be very difficult, often more than a level 2 or 3. Generally, the best way to address functioning is “with support needs”. I don't even like to use levels in a clinical setting, but I understand why many do. But I won't. On any given day I myself can vacillate between those levels and my own ability to function. Dysregulation can affect me tremendously.

So, I am telling people here and there about my diagnosis. My family knows. I am pretty sure there are others in my family on my mom's side that are also autistic. There is peace that comes with knowing something that didn't feel right growing up but you had no idea on what it was. I have always masked to fit in with the patterns of behaviors I noted at an early age. I just didn't understand why people did what they did. I just knew that apparently I was supposed to know these things and didn't. Like the time in Kindergarten, the teacher asked the class a question and everyone raised their hand. I had no idea what she asked, or why they raised their hand but realized I needed to as well. I have tons of stories like this. So if you have an inkling to mention to me I don't appear autistic, please don't. I know I am. My husband knows. He also took part in the testing and was interviewed for one of them. He actually scored me less than I did so that says something. I still overcompensate for things. His was probably more accurate. So now I advocate! And I infodump on the topic. Because now I can take my mask off.