The Misdiagnosed Female With Autism
How Hard is it to Get an Autism Diagnosis if you are Female?
This is a story of one Autistic woman's disastrous experience of trying to get a Formal Diagnosis of Autism.
Sally felt certain she was Autistic. Several of her friends had mentioned that she may be “…on the Spectrum”, and prompted by these recurrent comments, she searched and studied intensely every source of information, in every form of media she could find. With relentless, hyper-focused detail, she consumes possibly every available current and past data that exists about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Initially, she wanted to exclude herself from this possible diagnosis — she had always heard nothing but negative connotations associated with Autism — from children in corners, flapping hands and disoriented, to self-centered Sheldon with hints of Savantism, to visions of Rain Man that danced in her head, this Autism seemed but something to dread.
But, instead what she found in her search was that of a community of good very intelligent people who just happen to have a different way of thinking, and a different way of experiencing the world than others. Autistic — not weird. In her search for exclusion she found a new world of…
