How to tell family you're seeking a diagnosis

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I have an appointment with a psychologist on Monday, and I'm trying to figure out how to tell my parents. I still live with them, so they're going to have to know. They do already know that I'm having issues with anxiety and have been wanting to seek professional help, but they don't know about me suspecting I have ASD and wanting to seek a diagnosis. A couple months ago, I was going to bring it up with my mom, but I never actually got to the point of mentioning ASD. I just started talking about some of the issues I think I have (social skills, exessive daydreaming, etc.) but she immediately assured me that everything I was talking about was "normal", and how I've always been "fine with people" since I was little. Then I started to wonder if she was right...I know she thinks that I overthink things and am too hard on myself, and I just thought, what if I am? And I knew at that point that if I said I thought I had ASD, she wouldn't take it seriously at all and would say the same thing, that I'm just being too hard on myself, and that the issues I feel like I'm having are more "normal" than I think. I didn't have the courage to keep pushing the subject.

Anyway, this appointment is just a one-hour consultation, and I'm definitely not going to walk in there just expecting to get a diagnosis. I'll just discuss my concerns with the psychologist and she'll determine if she thinks any testing or therapies are needed and let me schedule another appointment if so. This psychologist specializes in ASD, but the facility also offers services for other things like depression, anxiety, ADD, etc. for anyone (whether they're on the spectrum or not), so I figure it's a win-win situation since I could possibly still go to this place for further help if I don't get a diagnosis. Or, if at the initial appointment, she doesn't even think it's worth it to be tested for ASD, I could just find some other place to go to get my anxiety treated. But I'm sure my parents are still going to ask what place I'm going to if I tell them I have an appointment. And I'd feel dishonest if I just didn't even tell them that it's a psychologist who specializes in ASD and I'm seeking a diagnosis.

I know this all sounds silly, but this is part of what has really made me wonder if I'm on the spectrum. The way that I just agonize for days/weeks over how I'm going to talk to someone (even my own parents) and how I'm going to find the right words to express myself the way I want to. I just don't know HOW to sit down and really talk to them about all this stuff. And again, I feel like they won't take me seriously and will insist that I'm "fine". The other issue is money. When I talked about getting help for anxiety but being worried about the cost (because my insurace basically won't cover anything), they said they'd be more than willing to help me pay for treatment/therapy if needed. I don't know how much more expensive testing might be, and if it is, I'm worried I won't be able to afford it, and I don't want to ask them to help me pay for it, if they're not even going to believe that it's worth me doing.

I do not know your parents so I can not fathom a guess about how they are going to react. That they are willing to pay for treatments is a good indication for the future.

As this is a preliminary consultation I do not think you need to say anything yet. You are 26 years old, as an adult, you should not need permission from your parents for everything you do. I am not saying ignore them, you are living under their roof and you have to respect that. If the result of the consultation is suspicion of ASD and a recommendation to explore this further that would be the time to disclose it I would think.

Good luck, let us know.

It's not that I feel like I need their permission to do something. It's really just that since I still live with them, they do like to know where I am and it would be a little weird for me to just leave the house without saying anything and telling them where I'm going. I'm hoping I'll be scheduled to work Monday, because then I could go straight to my appointment from there and they'd just assume that I decided to do something after work. Otherwise, it would be awkward because of course I don't want to lie about where I'm going, but again, I never just leave the house without telling them and mentioning where I'm going. And while I don't think my dad would really care, I do feel like my mom would take it personally if I told her after the fact that I had seen a psychologist because I was concerned I might have ASD. She'd wonder why I didn't even mention anything about it to her, and would wonder why I felt like I had to hide it from her and couldn't talk to her about it.

Thank you, and I will definitely keep you all updated.

Do you have to specifically say it's about ASD? The fact that you suspect it's ASD related, honestly, doesn't at this point seem all that relevant to me. You're going to talk to a psychologist about the issues you've been experiencing and to see what the psychologist thinks. Nothing more, nothing less.

If the psychologist thinks you might have ASD, then you've got a little bit more backing to talk to your parents later. If the psychologist thinks it's something else, you presumably still want to be looking into advice and/or treatment for whatever it is.

If they specifically ask you whether you're going to talk about ASD, be honest: You've got issues that you need help with. Yes, ASD is one of the possibilities that you're going to talk about, but if the psychologist thinks it's something else, you'll look into whatever she suggests. Presumably, if the psychologist says you don't likely have ASD but you do have anxiety issues, then you'll look into that.

One more thing: If money is an issue, be prepared for the psychologist to tell you that she thinks you are on the spectrum, but testing isn't worth it.

In my case, I was told on the first visit that testing is expensive and that, given my functioning level, all it would do for me is give official confirmation to what he already knew (that I do have Asperger's) just by talking to me for a single session. My insurance did cover testing, so I went ahead with it anyway, but if I were looking at paying out of pocket for it, it certainly would have given me pause and I might have seriously considered skipping the testing and jumping straight to treatment.

Lying is something whioch is often hard for us, and it is generally something which ends badly in the long term.

The judgement call we struggle with is how much of the truth and how much detail we should share.

The judgement becomes more difficult if we worry that if we give a very basic minimal amount of information the other person is not satisfied with this and quizzes us further and extracts information we Don't want to share at that point.

I would not recommend mentioning autism at this point. That is very personal information, and also it is not yet definite information.

"I have an appointment with a professional to help me with the anxiety issues I am having" occurs to be as enough of the truth to be appropriate at this stage. That those anxiety issues may be a result of being on the spectrum is your private information, and it is Your call entirely as to whom you reveal this. At this stage the professional is an appropriate person; you beleive they have the competence to investigate this with you.

Now if the professional wants to investigate for autism, then matters can be more delicate, as they would need accounts of you from early stages of your life as well as their observations of you as you are now. Parents are often in a very good position to supply this information. The professional is needing to make a judgement call on the traits you exhibit and whether they lie in the range associated with the autism spectrum, and whether these have been lifelong (autism is a lifelong condition) a further judgement call is whether the traits have been there, but only become apparent when the social or organisational demands of life have exceeded your intuitive abilities to meet those demands.

One observation is that autism spectrum often only becomes apparent in boys at primary school age, autism in girls often only becomes apparent at secondary (high) school age. More subtle presentations only become apparent when moving to adulthood, the workplace, living independently etc, while some of the very severe presentations such as those in Kanner's papers are obvious enough to be apparent at the age of three or earlier.