Being diagnosed with autism can be a relief. For years, you may have struggled to understand why you feel different from other people and why you have trouble with social interactions, communication, and the sense of being exhausted or overwhelmed by everyday life. An autism assessment can help you to explore these difficulties and work out how to improve the quality of your life.
Receiving an autism diagnosis can help you to understand your experiences.
The knowledge that your experiences are an innate part of how your brain functions and that there are many other people who experience similar difficulties, can make you feel less alone.
Many adults who receive a diagnosis later in life at first feel shocked. But then they go through a process of re-evaluating their lives in light of this new filter and as a result, get a fresh understanding of why things were the way they were.
If you’re struggling with making sense of your life, an autism assessment might bring some clarity.
With an autism diagnosis, you may finally have an explanation for why you have always felt “different.” The people in your life will hopefully also understand why you do (or don’t do) what you do, and they can help and support you.
An autism assessment can give you a clearer sense of your strengths and challenges. This can help you to focus on your strengths and provide you with a greater sense of self-worth. A conversation that people often have following diagnosis, is around moving from the sense of feeling the need to change, to a position of self-acceptance.
Additionally, understanding why certain things may be different, or more difficult for you than others, can be the beginning of developing supportive strategies to make these difficulties more manageable, for example in the workplace.
Being assessed for autism can be a very emotional process. You may go through a range of conflicting emotions, from relief to sadness or anger.
For some, the outcome is not as they had expected, and they need time to process this.
Others report feeling a sense of regret or pain associated about not being diagnosed earlier and feeling that their life experiences may have been more manageable with this understanding.
The label autism itself can be a source of stress and anxiety. For some, there is difficulty in sharing the diagnosis, or experience of a dismissive response. For others, there is a struggle to accept the diagnosis themselves.
It is important to consider these different possible outcomes before making the decision to proceed with an assessment; and this is something we can support you with as part of a pre- assessment screening process.
