The Autistic Spectrum Service haas again been in touch. My efforts to achieve a diagnosis continue. This time with the help (we'll see how far that goes) of Fedcap Employment. Unfortunately these organisations just cannot help with things like this. The government is content to fund them (when it could fund clients, the unemployed, directly) yet they really have no power to do much at all. You exist, as the client, to be exploited by them, in the Marxist sense. That is, from you they derive their profit. When it comes to dealing with, for example, mental health, they are ill equipped and inadequate. Access to things like Diamond Travelcards, which require a doctor sign off, could be really useful but these people aren't doctors. They are also not autism specialists. So what the client is left with is very little.
In the case of neuro divergent conditions, states that alter your relationship with society as it exists, recognition and thus verification are vital. I feel that I am constantly being denied access to who I am. I cannot validate my experience, except ad hoc, through reading or hearing other people's experiences who are diagnosed. But that is not the same. It isn't authentication. I struggle to find an identity and it is not helped by the fact that, I believe, without independent official diagnosis, I can never be sure. It feels somewhat fraudulent to self diagnose. Increasingly this feels the only option.
Sadly the diagnostic people are useless. The test I was given, known as ADOS, was not suitable. I believe it is intended for children, not adults. I certainly don't feel it spoke to, nor was revealing, of my circumstances. I was not asked nor invited to discuss that as is the case with the DSM 5 test, nor any of the tests I've seen online, official or otherwise.
I guess it is down to the diagnostician which test they use. I have had no luck pursuing this and it is compound by their equivocation. In fact I would call it downright lying. The doctor assured me she would speak to the Attention Deficit Disorder specialists (it was flagged up by a DWP Work Psychologist, of whom I've spoken before, equally useless). This didn't happen and when I chased it up I was told no such promise had been made. They also said that they couldn't diagnose me because of the lack of an 'informant'; someone that can verify your experience from childhood. Of course not everyone will have that capacity but they lack any contingency so if that's you, as it was me, you're out of luck. However they also said that providing one wouldn't have made any difference anyway so doing so would have not changed the outcome. Recently they are saying the former: you didn't provide an informant. Their position, now, is that if you provide one we will look again. Or if 'new evidence' (presumably that) comes to light you can get back to us. I don't know what that could encompass other than digging out someone who's known you all your life. Such things would be difficult for the neuro diverse anyway.
So that's that I guess. At least for now. It's Christmas Eve, not the time for chasing up errant diagnosis. Then, of course, this is all happening in the shadow of the plague and so diagnosis would be remote and I'm not sure that's sufficient for the task at hand, which really is too bad, but no one's fault (except that . clown in Downing Street). I'm not willing to compromise getting a diagnosis. If I have to wait longer, so be it. It's been 47 years so far.
And Boris has a trade deal. To be fair, he had one that was oven ready last year. It's just he left the oven on for 354 days and set fire to the country before concluding that the oven needed replacing but no one was allowed to read the warranty or the instructions. Now we have a less secure replacement to cook our food with and the smell of gas has contributed to the deaths of thousands. Meanwhile the lunatics that live in the kitchen don't want an oven at all, they want to set fire to the house and cook their Beef Wellingtons on the flames while wearing petrol trousers.
Merry Christmas.
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