My ASD Diagnosis
By: Lucy Hodgkinson
Tags: Mental Illness, Autism, Mental Health

(Trigger warning: mentions of eating disorders and suicide) I was diagnosed with ASD at 15 and this is my story of my road to diagnosis and acceptance.

I’ve always felt different, from not understanding how others felt to finding niche interests nobody else found exciting. It has been at the back of my mind all my life. And it only grew worse as I grew older and became more self-aware. Why did I feel different to everyone else when nothing looked, on surface level, to be different?

I suppose it was this isolation that made me feel lonely, like I was watching everyone else lead normal lives through a movie. This feeling of disconnection, in turn, led me to feeling depressed. It is always the classic case of ‘no-one understands me’ teenage angst that is so common in coming-of-age movies and stories. Except, no-one really did understand me, and it wasn’t the cool, edgy experience that these stories had prepared me for.

I had my first panic attack at school one day when I was thirteen and this event marked what I believe to be the start of a downwards spiral. We were watching a documentary of anorexia and, at the time, my struggle with food was only just beginning (although that is a story for another day). From that day, I had more panic attacks, sometimes ones that kept me off school. It didn’t help in the slightest that I didn’t understand what was happening to me.

After a few months of struggling with awful panic attacks, my mum arranged for me to see a therapist to help me deal with my anxiety. It was meant to be for my anxiety, but I ended up describing what turned out to depression (alongside my anxiety), and, from this, I spent months with her discussing my problems.

I won’t go into much detail — perhaps in another post — but, in about a week, my life spiralled out of my control and I was hospitalised for what was my first attempt.

I was put into a psychiatric ward for children and teenagers under CAMHS. They kept me as an inpatient there for ten weeks before they let me go. But whilst I was there, I expressed my issues of not understanding people easily to my psychiatrist and he made me take this test called the ADOS test (Autism Diagnostic Observation Screening).

The test was very strange and, for anyone who has also taken this test, you know what I mean. I felt patronised, being asked to describe a story about flying frogs, build a tower from building blocks, and so forth. But nonetheless, I completed the test and the next week I was officially given my diagnosis of ASD. The whole process happened very quickly.

Now, I was fifteen and, unfortunately, that is not considered late for girls to receive this diagnosis. My case is similiar to most girls out there. Most boys get diagnosed for autism at an incredibly young age, usually from the age of two and up. However, in girls, autism can be harder to recognise and diagnose. This is partly due to the fact that research about ASD is primarily filled with data from boys and not girls. My therapist also told me that girls are more likely to be better at ‘masking’.

‘Masking’, for any neuro-typicals out there who don’t know what this is, is the concept of pretending to be ‘normal’ and acting like everyone surrounding you, as your true nature may not be as socially accepted. (There is probably a much definition than this if you google one). It turns out that I had been masking for my entire life without even knowing it.

There was a certain level of uncertainty with how I felt after learning about the diagnosis. On one level, I was scared because I was now labelled as ‘different’ from everyone around me and I was worried that people would treat me differently. But on another level, I was content because, finally, after years of feeling isolated and misunderstood, I had been understood.

Being diagnosed with a mental disorder or illness is always hard; it isn’t meant to be easy. Whilst I was in hospital, I watched the friends I had made be diagnosed with their own mental health issues and it was not easy for any of us. So to anyone who has been recently diagnosed with anything at all, you are not alone, and remember that things take time, a diagnosis doesn’t automatically lead to being ‘cured’.

I’m about to turn eighteen and looking back on the past few years has helped me realise something. My struggle with mental health was crucial for me as a person because it‘s allowed me to grow as a person. Without it, I would not have my ASD diagnosis and I would have just continued to suffer in silence. Now, this is not to say that I am happy that I have had such a turbulent journey with my mental health, because I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I just believe that it has been necessary for me.

I am not defined by my autism. But, instead, it has helped me to learn who I am and to accept myself. It is not a burden so much as it is a tool that helps me view the world in an original way.