Debbie - Interview 19- Life on the autism spectrum

Age at interview: 44

Age at diagnosis: 35

Brief Outline:

Debbie was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome when she was 35 years old after experiencing bullying in the workplace. She now does voluntary work and looks after the home for her father.

Background:

Debbie, a full time homemaker, lives with her father and is 44 years old. Ethnic background/nationality' White British.

Debbie, who has Asperger's, explained her needs to her service providers but was told that they could not meet her requirement for a service carer who was kind and patient (which she thought was rather ironic).

I told the man in charge, you know the type of difficulties that I had and the kind of support that I needed, but it just seemed, he just wouldn’t listen you know. I felt as though it all fell on deaf ears, which was very distressing for me.

 

Anyway after a while this other lady started coming on her own but it didn’t work out. And I told this lady how, I wrote some things on, some information about how I needed her to relate to me but she got rather defensive and upset, you know, and I didn’t like that. And so I sort of told the man in charge and things like that and he said, “Well actually she has got family troubles she is not coming back.” And then I thought of emailing the chap and said this is what I want to see in a support worker. I need somebody that is patient and kind and have a high level of understanding of Aspergers syndrome. He said, “Well I know that you want this, but we can’t guarantee it” which I thought was a bit strange and so I decided I just can’t cope with this. You know. So I rang my friend up and said, “Look I am not happy with this. I don’t want the service any more. Could you ring up the man to explain that.” And she did and all the man said, was that I was asking too much, you know, you know asking for somebody who was patient, but I thought that was a bit ironic because that is what people like me need, you know, and I felt as though I had been treated very unprofessionally and because of that I just don’t think I could cope with having any outside support because I have lost my faith in them.