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Out and About

Story by

Anonymous

Date published

7 January 2019

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How it all started

Everything went bad for me when at my request, I was assessed for Asperger's syndrome by my local NHS clinic. They failed to diagnose me and deliberately mislabelled my autism traits (such as sensory issues) as anxiety. When I tried to get this remedied after finding out they had not conducted the assessments properly and asking for a reassessment they refused and started a cover-up. They coerced me onto anxiety medication that I didn't need and they knew I didn't, as my private Asperger's report they had a copy of stated I had none, following much testing. So began a cabal of so-called professionals involved in the cover-up. My GP refused to accept my private diagnosis of Asperger's and contacted the clinician to try to talk him out of it because of what the NHS Trust said. The NHS Trust told more and more lies about me in the background, which I later discovered under Subject Access Request and they lied to PHSO when I complained after they shut down the complaint I raised locally. The same Trust that failed to diagnose my Asperger's also failed to diagnose my eldest child's Asperger's and we had to get a 2nd opinion at another NHS hospital where she was diagnosed. They failed to diagnose our other autistic child's ADHD also. The CAMHS service were in communication with the adult service and they were saying the most nasty and unprofessional things about me (breaching the Data Protection Act), which again I discovered from copies of internal staff emails under SAR. All these clinicians who were supposedly experts in autism, criticised my communication, when I have autism which affects communication so it's a protected characteristic. In dealings with CAMHS I had disability discrimination from various CAMHS staff. As a result of the Trust's failings towards me including documented false labelling of anxiety and further disability discrimination I suffered from the council, who I had to communicate with because our children had EHCPs, the lies they put on file about anxiety were used against me. When I won SEN tribunals against the council, a malicious child protection referral was made by a group of education/SEN professional in revenge and they used the lies on file about me to build a false case. They said I was anxious because this was on file and claimed I was therefore emotionally harming our children due to this non-existent anxiety. Even when I told them I was proven not to have anxiety they ignored me. The social workers repeatedly criticised my communication, which was yet more disability discrimination. So what was wrong with my communication? Precisely nothing. I am detailed being autistic and I check my facts/know my rights and the rights of my children, as I research. I do all my communication with professionals by email and it is polite and factual. I believe in justice and especially where my children are concerned, I assert their rights. Because like me they are autistic and they have a right to be happy, meet their potential and not be discriminated against. Everything these awful so-called professionals have put me through has seriously affected my health and I developed other disabilities as a result.

What I did to try to overcome it

Complained, took advice, researched legal rights, got advocacy, went to PHSO. Depending on which issue it was.

How it made me feel

Devastated. Invalidated. Under immense stress. Oppressed. Traumatised.

The outcome

I'm still battling for justice over my diagnosis. After mammoth effort and work I resolved most of the other issues. But it took it's toll on me. The discrimination, I face regularly during my communication with professionals, due to the autism ignorance that abounds.

Final thoughts

This type of thing has to stop. I'm not alone in being targeted as an autistic parent. The issue of my diagnosis however is quite unbelievable and the nastiness of people who would rather not admit they are wrong, is staggering.

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