Share review of Isebrook Hospital

Isebrook Hospital 2023-01-20 Person 1 5 0

I imagine you’re not even aware of the existence of Autistic culture, therefore you’re not equipped to ensure you’re adequately respecting it or taking it into consideration. It’s not a faith, but it is a distinct culture that encompasses values, customs, language use and communication style, norms - as any other culture. Particularly vital consideration in the context of mental health where things are largely determined by use of outside observations, because Autistic body language is very often viewed as representing shiftiness or disingenuousness or mental ‘impairment’ or meaningless pathological compulsion, etc. on the basis of what non-autistic body language represents. It’s like determining meaning of a cat’s behaviour by use of a dog owner’s manual.

Having Autistic practitioners because someone without lived experience of what you’re describing re: mental health or neurodivergent experience is difficult enough and creates huge chasms in receiving adequate care (so you also need to hire practitioners with lived experience of those things too, that should be bare minimum), but the Double Empathy Problem on top is a MASSIVE barrier to communication. I come out of every appointment feeling like we were having two different conversations. Well, we were really. There’s a mismatch of salience in my communication vs. what meaning they’re taking from it, plus they have no frame of reference to guide them towards being on same page as me because they don’t have the same internal processing style as me so they have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m tired of being told that I need to [insert executive function I am unable to do because that’s what adhd is] in order to ‘help myself’ and improve the ways it affects me. Absurd, have you listened to yourselves? Do you tell wheelchair users to take up running to improve their mobility? I will say actually, I highly suspect my practitioner actually does have adhd - but it’s still no use to me if they’re not aware of that themselves and that unawareness is due to a medical model/deficit based/pathology mindset. They might have lived experience of what I’m talking about but they don’t realise because they see their processing as Normal™️ and my processing as Defective™️ and Other, so they won’t entertain the thought of relating to it, that couldn’t possibly be how they process as well