Yeah, I’m still not fully clued up on everything autism, but even before I was diagnosed I was aware of the fact that it’s not something people pick up or that goes away like a cold x3 I can only assume they asked those daft questions because they’re following a script and they have to ask that for every diagnosis you’ve listed, but still, it’s a waste of time and you would’ve thought they’d just use common sense and not ask it in relation to ASD >.<
Psychology is such a cool thing to study though! :3 I tried to do A-level psychology at college and on the course I was doing, that was the one that I genuinely loved every lesson! I dropped out of college though cos of my personal situation at the time and my mental health. I had a breakdown in the library and ran out never to return >.< I do wish I could’ve finished the course though cos it was so interesting. I would go back as an adult student if I had more confidence or someone to accompany me, but I wouldn’t be able to handle it without.
But yeah, it is indeed disheartening to come up against attitudes like that, especially considering that the company undertaking those assessments has a government contract! They should be more clued up really >.< But then again, it says that the person assessing you will be either a registered general nurse, occupational therapist, physiotherapist, or paramedic. You don’t get to choose, and they don’t assign someone to you who might have more relevant knowledge of your conditions, you just get who you get. I mean no disrespect at all to any of those professions, but it’s unlikely that they have much in the way of knowledge or experience in speaking to individuals on the autistic spectrum >.< I think if the company knows they’re gonna have to assess people with ASD and actually understand how it impacts their lives, they should have an ASD specialist to do it.
The lady who did my assessment wrote in her report that I did not ‘appear’ anxious (therefore I must be fine!) But it was a phone appointment for starters, so how on earth would she even know? But more than that, I TOLD her how anxious I was. I TOLD her about the physical symptoms that I had. Aaaand, I made her aware that because of my ASD, my voice and way of interacting might not reflect how I'm actually feeling inside, so it's important to listen to my words more than analyse my behaviour >.<
Oh, I'm terrible with my reply time to messages usually >.< For me it's more just badly losing track of time than procrastinating and the fact that my executive functioning is terrible xD I do like speaking to you and others though :3 I'm just not very good at it, haha. Especially when I start rambling because then there are no short exchanges anymore, just giant walls of text because I can't stop myself xD but because they're so giant, it ends up taking me months to actually respond to stuff and I end up feeling really bad that I was so slow T_T haha.
I hope you're able to get out of stress and survival mode soon so that you can have a chance to relax a bit at least!! :3