I’m paying for the low deductible insurance at my company (higher cost, supposed to be better benefits). I made an appointment for diagnostic assessment at the beginning of the year, their next available appointment was SEPTEMBER 30. They called me yesterday with the estimated cost to me after insurance (I mean nice that they do that but you’ll see why…) It’s going to cost me $800.
Yeah ok. Guess I’ll just remain self-diagnosed.
I am in Australia, which is generally considered to have a much better health care system than the USA. I even pay for extra “ultimate cover” health insurance, because my wife has a bevy of chronic conditions. I got a quote earlier this year for Autistic spectrum diagnosis, and it came out to around AU$1200 total, which if converted is around the same price you were quoted. So I suppose it is just a costly thing to do, wherever you are.
I sold some of my employee owned stock from my retirement plan to pay for mine. $3,000 out of pocket. I thought doing it and therapy would fix my marriage, but she left before we got to the therapy part. What a waste. Aspie forever alone I guess.
Relationships are really hard. I’m impressed you got to the marriage part… I’ve never gotten that far. Almost once. I felt similarly when that relationship ended. I think the journey to truly understanding yourself is the key to being able to have relationships that work well and are fulfilling. I hope one day you will view that relationship ending as a blessing, as I now view that one for me…I think about if my ex hadn’t been brave enough to be honest about our incompatibility (which I also felt but was too rigid to acknowledge fully)…I might have been stuck in that relationship for years longer not fully able to be myself and neither of us truly able to be as happy as we deserve. It took that pain for me to begin the journey that I’m on now, and honestly, I’m truly ok with the idea of never getting married or even having a romantic relationship “last forever”. Letting go of that need has given me freedom to explore all my relationships from a different perspective. Anyway, sorry you probably don’t want to read all this, I’m waxing philosophical.
Thank you. Yeah we were together 13 years, married for 3. We struggled with our incompatibility for a long time. Especially with my asexuality and distance. The Shame was that I didn’t know it was all because I was autistic for most of the relationship.
But I like your prospective. It’s really honest and calming. While losing a relationship is difficult, I still look forward to figuring out who I truly am and becoming comfortable in this new life I have.
❤️
Insurers moved just about everything outside of x-rays to higher deductible categories, as “special imaging”. In our case that includes sono FFS.
Pays to read those yearly updates they send, even though they’re like printed sodium barbital. At least you’ll know the train that’s inbound.
Yeah, it’s frustrating how expensive those evals can be. I couldn’t even get them to give me a price when I was looking into it. Because I couldn’t agree without knowing the cost, they suggested someone else who wouldn’t do a full psych eval, but would bill it (mostly) as a normal psychiatrist visit and give a more general “yes or no” answer. Maybe that’s an option? Insurance might be more willing to cover that too.
Yeah I’m still moving forward with my search for a specialist in adult late diagnosed high masking twice exceptional AuDHD in women… ** Laughs sardonically **
(This turned into a bit of a wall of text, so I hid the longer paragraphs in spoiler tags with a “TL;DR” as the label)
Definitely sounds like a tough one to find, unfortunately. The one I found was willing to assess me as an adult white man for AuDHD, and I believe he had some adult women as patients, but I don’t know if he would know how to approach an adult diagnosis for a high masking woman.
TL;DR: if you can find anyone who diagnoses adults, consider checking them out and bringing thorough cross-sectional notes with yours/others experiences and the DSM-V.
All I can offer in suggestion is from my own experience, which will hopefully be close enough to yours to be of use. See if you can find anyone at all who has experience with adult diagnosis and seems credible, and if you do, consider bringing thorough notes. Comparisons between your experience and the DSM-V criteria. Comparisons between your experience and other AuDHD women. Comparisons other AuDHD women share between their experience and the diagnostic criteria. If you’re prepared enough, even if it’s outside of their explicit area of expertise, they’ll hopefully be open to seeing your perspective and broaden their understanding of presentations of autism and ADHD. It sucks that you’d have to do that, but if anyone is equipped to accurately describe their own psychological profile.
TL;DR: I didn't bring many notes but did mention comparisons to others' experiences. Bringing more notes would have been authentic. Authenticity theoretically improves assessment results, and thorough notes gives more to go on.
I didn’t bring notes for all of this (I did for comparison between my experience and the DSM-V though), but IIRC I did talk about comparisons between my experience and those of autistic/ADHD individuals who shared their stories. I mentioned that I associate with other neurodivergent folks and other indirect clues towards neurodivergence. I think I was concerned that bringing too much in the way of preparation could affect their assessment, but in retrospect, it’s one of those situations where you just sort of have to trust they’ll take your fully authentic self seriously, even if that means bringing a stack of reference material thicker than a doctoral candidate’s thesis.
On a related note, if you haven’t seen this list of resources linked in the sidebar yet, there’s some interesting stuff in there. I know that Yo Samdy Sam, the last YouTube channel linked there, is an adult-diagnosed AuDHD woman. Her experience might be relatable/a useful reference point.
For what it’s worth, you seem genuine to me. And from my understanding, the vast majority of people who seek a diagnosis in good faith and put forth the effort to understand the condition well enough to tentatively self-diagnose are correct in their assessment. With or without diagnosis, if you have done the legwork and feel it’s a strong possibility, you’re welcome to consider yourself included.
Thanks! I love a good wall of text from a genuine person. I go back and forth on whether a diagnosis is the right choice for me. I’m concerned about the ADHD diagnosis bc I do rely on my medication and worry that might be at risk without it. I’m really not concerned about if I do or don’t have the conditions - it’s clear and obvious to me now that I know about them both and I live my life as such, in the sense that I provide myself accommodations where I can. I’m not convinced it’s safe to be “out” at work, although I imagine a large percentage of my coworkers are likely spectrumed themselves being in engineering. I drop my little hints about “my brain prefers” this or that by way of explaining my quirks and especially now that I work remotely I am easily able to mask sufficiently for the corporate environment as just a quirky independent thinker.
Learning about ADHD and autism is definitely one of my main special interests so I spend a huge amount of time thinking about this and will definitely bring notes. I like your suggestions about relating to others and mentioning all my friends are ND as well haha.
I had not found Sam yet, so thanks for that suggestion. Ultimately I’m going to try being very choosey at finding providers bc being able to trust someone enough to be vulnerable is really freaking hard and if they don’t understand these Neuro types well enough they aren’t going to be able to help me anyway, even if they are well meaning. My last therapist was a really great lady who I liked a lot but she kept sending me worksheets meant for 9 year olds and had suggestions like using a planner so ┐(‘～`;)┌
I’ve found more help and perspective listening to lectures on YouTube and even freaking therapy Instagram than any of my real therapy experiences and I’m a huge proponent of therapy for all. It’s just hard to find someone in my small state.
Anyway thanks for the comment! Have a great day
