A small warning about the Assessment B with a companion
Hello everyone!
I very recently received my diagnosis through a 3rd party contracted with the NHS after 3 years of waiting!
I just wanted to give those still waiting for their assessments a little heads up about something that happened during my Assessment B, when my mother attended with me to answer the "childhood" questions.
In the Assessment A appointment, one of the questions I was asked was around any previous self harm. I had in fact had a period of self harm at the age of 15. Only my husband and a few close friends know about this - I kept it from my parents because a) I managed through it without the need of medical intervention and b) I knew it would break my mum's heart. Anyway...
Assessment B with my mother attending, the clinician (a different person to who did my Assessment A assessment) starts to read out all of the notes from the previous one without warning. All of them - including the bit about self harm.
My mother didn't seem to react or say anything afterwards, so I am not sure if she heard it properly or not. But still... it was not something I wanted her to find out about, and especially not in this manner of reading through a bunch of notes!
I suppose my warning is: if there is anything you say in your Assessment A appointment that you would not like your companion in Assessment B to know/hear - make this clear when they make notes in that first appointment. I didn't know they would read them all out loud in the next one, so didn't think to request that information be left out when it was read out in front of my mother aswell as myself.
Hopefully I can save someone else from any awkwardness resulting in this kind of thing!