Correspondence with the Aspergers service

Lounge
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I had correspondence with a psychologist from the Aspergers team at my local trust and she said that they accept referrals from a psychiatrist.
Therein lies the problem. Although the word autistic has been bandied about a few times over the years there has never been any move to push for an assessment.
I think this is because mental health services seem to think everything including the the social difficulties/awkwardness is explained by the psychiatric symptoms. My belief is that the psychiatric symptoms stem from the effect and reactions to the social awkwardness/difficulties and learning difficulties.

At 60 most of the damage through inadequate treatment and support has been done and can’t be repaired unless one could go back in a time machine and change things.
It would be good though to get an accurate and intelligent view on my difficulties and problems and that I wasn’t just the ‘very dependent narcissist’’, “awkward, demanding and troublesome” ,“illness Machiavellian in its complexity” that was described in my notes over a decade ago. The abusers who said that deserved to be repeatedly kicked in the head.

It’s very difficult as the reason I got those labels was due to seeking more help and support. I’m now very wary of pressing the point for fear of the return to previous abuses. I occasionally make tentative comments but when it falls on deaf/daft ears I don’t press the point. I just give an inner weary sigh.

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Can you ask your pdoc to refer you to the Aspergers team for an assessment? Tell your pdoc it would be very helpful for you to have this done so that you would know one way or the other if you’re on the autistic spectrum. Tell him you’ve already done your homework and corresponded with a psychologist from that team but that you need a referral to get the actual assessment.

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@Moonbeam I think if I could be certain of not being abused for seeking more help ,as I was in the past, I would be more confident on doing what you suggest.

For a number of years now I have been under the nurse practitioner rather than a pdoc. The idea being only to involve a pdoc if there is a crisis/emergency. I thin kit’s standard practice for chronic, long term,non acute patients.

If my nurse practitioner had seen it as an issue worth chasing up officially she would have done so.
Instead she said it wasn’t an area services get involved in which I’ve since found out to be a lie.