Well I don't know - something about it didn't ring true - you can't just pitch up at ARC and get a diagnosis.
And then "Autism is officially a disability..." does this mean anything? it doesn't mean that you can automatically get DLA, for example. Far from it...
When the author went on to say that he was now giving meditation classes to autistics I thought I saw the first steps of a glittering new career in the autism industry.
Let's hope I'm wrong,
Stella
If he was diagnosed with high-functioning autism, which is aspergers, then its not officially classed as a disability anyway, and its a real struggle to get benefits and services.
If he was diagnosed with high-functioning autism, which is aspergers, then its not officially classed as a disability anyway, and its a real struggle to get benefits and services.
I was under the impression DLA didn't depend as much on diagnosis buit on the problems someone has (and how far they are willing to go in exaggerating them to get cash 
). I certainly know of several parents with ASD/ADHD kids who got DLA before the kids were diagnosed. (Mainly based on behaviours such as ripping wallpaper, needing supervision 24/7, anxiety attacks and so forth)
Its supposed to depend on how much help someone needs, but the practicality is very different.
I could really identify with this. He could've been describing me here (except now that I'm exhausted from years of doing this and am not bothering anymore) >>
I have mastered the art of being a simulacrum, a fake "neurotypical". I can appear to be listening when my mind is racing with boredom. I might seem to hesitate before answering, but I will have had my reply ready for some time.
People think I relate well socially. I can be funny, and I have held down jobs, had relationships, maintained long-term friendships.
:|
Well I don't know - something about it didn't ring true - you can't just pitch up at ARC and get a diagnosis.
The detail was likely edited out for journalistic purposes. We all know how difficult it is, generally speaking, to get taken seriously by medics and referred for a diagnosis. He *may* have had a particularly sympathetic GP who made the whole process as painless and easy as possible, but if he had similar experiences to some of us, then he probably didn't "just pitch up at ARC and get a diagnosis", it's just that the detail of that struggle wouldn't have been important/relevant to that particular feature. The theme of the feature is about experiences, feelings, emotions, *not* what a pain in the posterior it is to deal with bureaucracy and the NHS postcode lottery - a complete separate issue.
The emphasis of the article was the diagnosis and how that made him feel about himself, how he felt about his life, looking back with hindsight at the difficulties he'd had. The article wasn't intended to be about the process of getting a diagnosis. If that had been the intention, then it would no doubt have featured those details and difficulties most of us have faced/are facing.
For journalistic purposes, the article would also have been edited in terms of length of the article, the number of words, to fit into the available/allocated space in the magazine. So, for example, when an editor asks a journalist to write 2,000 words on a man's experiences of being diagnosed as autistic in middle-age, then that's what the editor wants, *not* 2,000 words on his experiences, thoughts and feelings, *plus* another 1,000 extra words on how much of a pain in the arse it is to actually get the diagnosis.
Hope that helps you understand the journalistic process and why information about the process of him getting his diagnosis was *probably* omitted/not elaborated upon in the feature.
Don't forget, it was for a general Guardian reading audience, most of whom probably wouldn't be interested in how to get a diagnosis, here on AFF we're a different audience, or a sub-category of the Guardian readership who *are* interested in knowing those details.