C?r Doyle:

Coexisting conditions are huge within the community. While we brought up ADHD, I have yet to meet an autistic person who is not otherly neurodivergent. I am sure they exist, but I have yet to meet one. We also have a lot of physical health conditions to take into consideration. There is a huge overlap between autistic people and migraine sufferers, for example. While people need to be diagnosed properly, it is also important to think about how people access care. All of our healthcare is very siloed and we come into big problems where I know a lot of our members have expressed fear of disclosing that they are autistic while in an emergency room, because of previous treatment and dismissal of symptoms. There tends to be an opinion that we are exaggerating symptoms, or things like that.

It is a question of balancing what one feels safe to disclose to this healthcare professional with what is going to impact one's healthcare. Those two things should not coexist but they do and, if I say I am autistic, there is a fine line between trying to figure out if it is going to negatively impact my healthcare or if it is going to be the key to unlocking what they need to discover what is going on.