Any Problems Getting Diagnosis?

[TheAgnosticOne]

Just curious about how many individuals here fit into each category. Thanks for answering!

 

[King_Oni]

Determine you were AS on your own and not have trouble getting a official diagnosis.

While I wasn't a clear cut case that it was AS, something was wrong apparently. Through a process of seeing a therapist for depression, he figured that a lot of stuff that makes up how I think, and how I act, that wasn't right. And in some way those things affected how my life was coming along at that time. He figured I was on the autism spectrum, and as such got forwarded to a specialist for my diagnosis.

 

[Arashi222]

For me I always knew something wasn't right but I just didn't know what it was. I had an internship for my field (social work) and my supervisor told me that he felt I had AS. He suggested I get tested because he already knew the answer. So I didn't have any trouble getting a diagnosis. I was glad I had a name for what my whole life had been like. It made things make sense that I never would have realized.

 

[TheAgnosticOne]

Well that's great that both of you managed to get a diagnosis without much difficulty.

I think the problem with me is that after being picked on for years I just became extremely withdrawn. Meaning when I'm around people I keep to myself and try to do nothing that would get anyones attention such as stimming and talking to myself which I use to do because I think it was a good way to practice expressing myself in words. But now I don't even talk to myself when I'm alone because I have just got so use to not doing so. Same with stimming in a way, I don't do it often because I have got so conscious of the fact that doing it gets peoples attention. Although I do still stim when my mind is otherwise occupied (and I am around few people, more specifically ones I know well) or when I get frustrated.

Basically I feel that I fit into the diagnosis, but because of how I have always been (which is different than NT) I was picked on a lot and it was easier to hold everything in and go more unnoticed so I would not be picked on. This is why I may seem to fit better under the diagnosis of 'Social Anxiety/Phobia', even though I feel that the social anxiety was a result of the huge difference between me and the majority.

I really feel that I am not good with words, does this make any sense?

 

[rsdntbplr]

I had a huge problem getting diagnosed.
They wanted to diagnose me with AS, I didn't want them to.

RB.

 

[King_Oni]

I had a huge problem getting diagnosed.
They wanted to diagnose me with AS, I didn't want them to.

RB.

Just wondering, as my diagnosis was pretty much done with my consent and not pushed upon me by anyone. Who wanted to diagnose you? And furthermore why didn't you want to?

I mean, if you don't have a lot of daily struggles with it, you don't have to. If you have issues in daily life, being diagnosed might be an option to get additional services you might like/require.

 

[gailt915]

diagnosed myself. Saw p-doc, a new one, as had been dx'd with so many different things that were not 'quite right'. She was kinda creepy, to begin with. I think I looked in her face 3 times only. I brought my Aspie quiz with me and still had to almost talk her into agreeing with me being an Aspie. Then she tells me: 'You know, they are doing away with that diagnosis next year. It will be called Pervasive Developmental Disorder'. Kinda like when Manic Depression started being called Bipolar. She just really rubbed me the wrong way. But she's free, so I will probably keep seeing her for the meds I'm on, as some of them are actually helping me! Them I asked her if there were any therapists in our area who work with Asperger's patients and she said she had no one to recommend! WTF!!!!! Dang good thing she's free, I guess you really do get what you pay for. ::

 

[Undiagnosed]

I want to be diagnosed. I am in a very rural area and will have to travel to see any type of specialist and really don't know where to start. I don't want to go to anyone around here. i had a similar experiance GAILT. I was convinced I had Bordorline Personality Disorder (still beleive I do) and I saw a local therapist. She didnt seem to want to idagnose me with it and over time seemed that she didn't want to tell me if she wanted to (or had) diagnose me at all. She wanted me to focus on daily problems and solutions. I understand where she was comeing from,,, I mean I guess she sees her job as to help pople with there daily issues but when I first whent in to see her she asked me what I was looking for and I told her there has been something about me all my life that has been "different" and I have always avoided deeling with it or faceing that face and I wanted to bring it out and face it. I wanted for once in my life to be "labeled" so to speek. I saw it as a way to sort of face it as opposed to all my life i have abeen trying to "act" as if I am normal and I felt like a diagnosis would be the way for me to push myself into faceing the way I really am becouse after 40 years I had gotten so tired of hideing anything about myself that dosn't seem "normal". Anyway I eventually stop going tosee her and son't know if she ever came to a conclusion for a diagnosis for me or not. So now I think about that experience when I think of trying to get a diagnosis for aspurgers. I want to to to a specialist in that area abecouse I really beleive if the person I had seen about Borderline Personality Disorder would have been a specialist in the area she would have been able to see that I have it.

O yea... she did diagnose me as haveing Avoidant personality disorder.... and bi polar...... I'm not sure about that either.... ....
Anyway I am on SSI becouse I am close to leagally blind and had just been retrained to drive with a special system which used a binacular type device that straps to your head. I was telling her the frustration I was haveing with not haveing a vehicle. I was going to have a drivers licence again after 6 years of not being able to drive. My ex husband (who had moved in with me again) had told me that he was going to get me a car and I was going to pay him back. I was frustraited that he wasn't even trying to look for me a vehicle.......He was claiming that he wanted to be back together with me and he was makeing a lot of money bui once again as before it seemed that my needs were second or not important at all to him.

.This woman tells me "well u need to get over your fear of people and get a job and start sockin some money back to buy yourself a car". Firsto of all I never claimed to have a "feer of people". I just don't like being around people much. And furthermore , I'm not saing it's impossable for a half blind, avoidant, bi polar cronic depression 40 year old woman with no vehicle in a small town rural area on ssi to "get over it get a job". but if she would for a second think of the reallity of my financial situation she would know that it would be minum wage and part time.... becouse tht's what jobs are around here........ and once that would happen my SSI would go down in corelation to my wages ,,, and my food stamps would go down and In all reality it would still take everything I would be makeing to pay my bills and eat and there trulely would be nothing left to "Sock Back" as she put it. I meen I have a lot of problems but intelegence is not one of them and all it takes is the facts and simple math for me to figure out how my financial situation would come out.

 

[Cruella]

Actually, friends figured it out before I did. They couldn't diagnose me, however. This was in the '90s before Pop Culture Asperger's became a cliche. I was officially diagnosed, but that came later. I may owe my diagnosis to having an autistic nephew and a horribly excellent memory.

 

[Biblio-Love]

Determine you were AS on your own and have yet to get a official diagnosis.

This is a fairly new discovery for me. I knew nothing about it until recently. I have sense been reading about it, and it has helped a lot to discover this is terms of understanding my own difficulties. I don't need an official diagnosis though, as I would refuse any meds. I've organized my life in such a way as to minimize stress and anxiety. Although I'm sure I could get a diagnosis if I went to a doc, there is nothing it could do for me at this point.

 

[Bay]

I had long suspected that I might be autistic. When reading about autism, it all felt very familiar. However, I was not profoundly disabled, so I chalked it up to an active imagination. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling.

It wasn't until years later that I heard about Asperger Syndrome, and I knew almost instantly that I had solved the puzzle. Still, I read everything I could get my hands on, and became convinced that either I had Aspergers or I was crazy. I sought the diagnosis, in part to ease my own mind (I don't want to be crazier than I have to be!) and in part to prove it to my family, who suspected me of believing that I had the "malady of the moment." For me, being diagnosed was the right thing to do.

 

[Biblio-Love]

I had long suspected that I might be autistic. When reading about autism, it all felt very familiar. However, I was not profoundly disabled, so I chalked it up to an active imagination. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling. It wasn't until years later that I heard about Asperger Syndrome, and I knew almost instantly that I had solved the puzzle. Still, I read everything I could get my hands on, and became convinced that either I had Aspergers or I was crazy. I sought the diagnosis, in part to ease my own mind (I don't want to be crazier than I have to be!) and in part to prove it to my family, who suspected me of believing that I had the "malady of the moment." For me, being diagnosed was the right thing to do.

Like you I had previously heard of autism, and felt an affinity but since I did not have the same level of disability I thought all autistics had, I blew it off. I never heard of aspbergers until recently. And I knew nothing about an autism spectrum. It all makes sense now. I've been reading a lot on it now, and it is nice to find a place like AC, to talk with other aspies who go through similar sensory and social issues.