This challenge does not only exist in the US; it exists in Canada also.
My parents were told by a psychiatrist over 40 years that I had a borderline personality disorder. It was & still is a Kiss of Death carrying horrendous stigma & very little help. Even at 18 I knew this label was incorrect.
Last year, at 58 years of age, I received an ASD assessment & an ASD diagnosis; it put my life into a perspective that makes 100% logic & sense; it fits me. However, the assessment was at CAMH, at the Azreila Neurodevelopmental Clinic conducted by a burnt out psychiatrist. He did not give me any resources or follow-up. All I received was a consult report which seems mostly cut-and-paste. It is heinously full of grammatical errors & repeated information, some of which was incorrect or blatently not true.
CAMH is the largest mental health facility in Canada and funded by our provincial & federal governments. Therefore the assessment was without cost and I waited over a year to get it (don't ask what I had to do to get on the waitlist). In our free health care system, when one pays nothing one receives nothing in return. This is called Socialized medicine. It doesn't work.
The 40 years between being labeled as Borderline until my ASD assessment? My brain and body have amassed unconsionable amount of trauma & severe CPTS, both diagnosed, primarily from mistreatment (read ABUSE) in our mental heath system.
Even today Autism in girls & women still goes highly unrecognized & if recognized, goes without help, fee-for-service or no cost. If one adds trauma & PTSD to the mix (comorbidities often occuring with ASD), up here in Canada, in the biggest city in the country? Well, there is absolutely no help to be found.
Tonight I can't sleep, my brain is busy with flashbacks, my body is sweating, my mind is exhausted. I utterly, utterly do not know where to get help, it's scary. All I know emphatically is I will NOT try to go back into the system, NEVER AGAIN. There are lots, LOTS, of Round Pegs like me who don't fit into the Square Pegged system. I am only one of them. Tonight, tonight I speak for all of us. Thank you/merci beaucoup.
This challenge does not only exist in the US; it exists in Canada also.
My parents were told by a psychiatrist over 40 years that I had a borderline personality disorder. It was & still is a Kiss of Death carrying horrendous stigma & very little help. Even at 18 I knew this label was incorrect.
Last year, at 58 years of age, I received an ASD assessment & an ASD diagnosis; it put my life into a perspective that makes 100% logic & sense; it fits me. However, the assessment was at CAMH, at the Azreila Neurodevelopmental Clinic conducted by a burnt out psychiatrist. He did not give me any resources or follow-up. All I received was a consult report which seems mostly cut-and-paste. It is heinously full of grammatical errors & repeated information, some of which was incorrect or blatently not true.
CAMH is the largest mental health facility in Canada and funded by our provincial & federal governments. Therefore the assessment was without cost and I waited over a year to get it (don't ask what I had to do to get on the waitlist). In our free health care system, when one pays nothing one receives nothing in return. This is called Socialized medicine. It doesn't work.
The 40 years between being labeled as Borderline until my ASD assessment? My brain and body have amassed unconsionable amount of trauma & severe CPTS, both diagnosed, primarily from mistreatment (read ABUSE) in our mental heath system.
Even today Autism in girls & women still goes highly unrecognized & if recognized, goes without help, fee-for-service or no cost. If one adds trauma & PTSD to the mix (comorbidities often occuring with ASD), up here in Canada, in the biggest city in the country? Well, there is absolutely no help to be found.
Tonight I can't sleep, my brain is busy with flashbacks, my body is sweating, my mind is exhausted. I utterly, utterly do not know where to get help, it's scary. All I know emphatically is I will NOT try to go back into the system, NEVER AGAIN. There are lots, LOTS, of Round Pegs like me who don't fit into the Square Pegged system. I am only one of them. Tonight, tonight I speak for all of us. Thank you/merci beaucoup.
Important discussion. So much of this rings true, and not just in Title IX matters, but in the custody proceedings I fought.
Thanks. Biden himself was accused of inappropriate touching in 2019.
Very interesting piece! I had no idea what challenges accused students on the spectrum faced. Thank you.