i still hate the way i was treated at my access-a-ride evaluation

for context, i’m 19 and was 18 at the time of this evaluation. i applied for access-a-ride bc i live in nyc and public transportation can be extremely overwhelming (as well as chronic pain when walking/standing for long periods). my mom came with me to the appointment because i still live with her and wanted support/help getting there. that said, i fully intended on speaking for myself.

when it was time for the psych eval part of the appointment, we were taken into a room with a computer and the doctor was on a video call with us. right away, i noticed her blatantly ignoring me and only speaking to my mom. i thought that was really weird given i’m legally an adult so i tried to speak for myself, but was immediately and firmly told that she was only speaking to my mom. she wasn’t even asking questions pertaining to my childhood development or anything, they were all questions i could’ve answered with more detail and accuracy than my mom. she actually shushed me at one point and said multiple times “im only speaking to mom” like i was 3 years old.

she referred to me with he/him pronouns the entire appointment which i feel like shows how little attention she was paying to her actual patient, and how she just made a bunch of assumptions in her head based on me being autistic. it was so dehumanizing and humiliating to be treated like that in a medical setting. the only time she ever actually talked to me was to ask me “what’s the day of the week, who’s the president, etc”. she actually asked my mom at one point “is he verbal?” (again, he??) which made me want to scream because i’d literally been trying to talk to her the entire time. even if i was nonverbal, you cannot treat any patient like that.

it makes me sad that her whole job is seeing disabled people all day because i’m sure i’m not the first person to see her and feel less than human afterwards. my mom agreed that it was an awful experience and i wrote a detailed email to access-a-ride but never got any response :/ thank you for reading this far, had to vent bc i still think abt this.