The Double Dismissal
Two refusals that hold each other up. Too young for perimenopause. Too capable for ADHD or autism. Neither has to stand on its own, because each one is used to rule out the other.
Raise the hormones and the answer is that you are too young, which leaves the cognitive symptoms unexplained. Raise ADHD or autism and the answer is your degree, your job, your children, which turns the compensating you did into evidence against the support you never had. Raise both and it becomes stress.
The pattern is documented. In an international survey of 508 autistic adults, one 47-year-old described a GP who refused to believe her perimenopausal symptoms and refused to believe her about the autism, in the same appointment.
Both refusals are predictable, which means both can be answered before they arrive.
Read the full article, with the script and a letter template