Autism Assessment Tomorrow

I was in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, trying to wake up properly and dreaming about living in a dystopia with an even worse pandemic than ours, when I got woken by my phone ringing. It was the autism hospital, phoning me back from yesterday. They wanted to give me an appointment for tomorrow. I was not keen as (a) it was sudden and I didn’t have time to adjust and (b) tomorrow Shabbat (the Sabbath) starts just after 4.30pm, so it will be tight to get done on time. Nevertheless, I accepted the appointment, as there didn’t seem much choice – they didn’t have any appointments next week, so I’m guessing I’ve been given someone else’s cancellation.

I feel really anxious and upset about it, and I’m already catastrophising. I feel I don’t have time to prepare. Twenty-four hours notice is not good for someone on the spectrum! We don’t like sudden changes of plan at the best of times. Dad said maybe this will play to my favour and show how anxious I get when things happen at short notice, but I’m not sure it will come out.

Some of the panic is that I’m currently reading a memoir by a woman with high functioning autism in the hope this would help me understand and present my symptoms better and get diagnosed (I feel my symptoms are closer to the female model of autism, with better masking and use of social scripts to function in social situations as well as special interests that can be more imaginative than mechanical), but I obviously won’t finish that in time now. Also, over the past few years I have also prepared a ten or so page list of my symptoms and why I feel I’m on the spectrum to give them in the assessment meeting. That was immediately scuppered by COVID and not having an in-person assessment; now I can’t easily send it to them in advance. My parents said just to mention it in the meeting and see if they want me to email it, but I worry they won’t.

I worry that I can’t summarise an understanding of myself that I have built up slowly over the last three years in ninety minutes, with limited preparation time, and over Microsoft Teams – I’m not great on video conference technology at the best of times, and I know teams less well than Zoom or Skype, plus the internet connection trouble I’ve been having lately means I have to use my Dad’s computer, and I’ll have to load Teams onto it today.

I just feel negative about the whole experience already, which is not the best mindset to go into it. I can see it’s probably mostly catastrophising and that having more time wouldn’t necessarily help me, but it’s hard to feel that emotionally.

Oh, and it wouldn’t be complete without an NHS admin mess up. I was told on the phone the appointment was at 10.30am, but when I got the confirmation email, it said 9.30am. I emailed to confirm, but haven’t received a reply yet, and I the phone number was withheld…

I’m going really slowly today because of this, feeling quite depressed without really knowing why, aside from catastrophising. I finished my devar Torah for the week and went for a walk, but I haven’t really done anything else. I had a brief text conversation with PIMOJ (she generally can’t message at work) and she said being seen quickly is what I wanted, which is true, but somehow it seems too quick and I seem too unprepared. I’m not sure what I could/should do today, both in terms of autism assessment preparation and other things, hence posting this early in case anyone has any suggestions – by the time I check emails tomorrow, it will probably be too late.