what was your pre-ASD diagnosis?

[King_Oni]

I talked to a friend of mine, who I hadn't spoken in a while and they labeled him an aspie in the months in between we didn't have contact. I told him about my therapist, he told me about his, and also, what his therapist thought it was before sending him to specialists.

That had an eerie coincidence with my situation. Because apparently with him, just as well as me, they at first thought we both had some kind of narcisstic personality disorder with comorbid autism (somewhere on the spectrum at least) and/or pdd-nos. The reason for the narcisstic part was because he thought I just didn't care for people (and in result only care for myself)... I do tend to call it "lack of empathy", which to some extent does fall in place with autism in general to my information.

I should actually look at the files my therapist gave me to pass on to the specialist to see what else he threw at me (and ask if my friend wants me to let me read his papers, to see if there's more similarities in his and my case, to where possible aspergers might come from)

But yeah, I'm actually curious if anyone would be willing to share what their pre-ASD diagnosis was, before the therapists figured "oh.. hey, there's also the possibility of autism (or more specificly aspergers)"

 

[2010Dolby]

It was a hazy grey area between a social anxiety disorder and a general anxiety disorder. Then after a couple of years that "social anxiety" went away and I was left with the general over-worrying and stress so I was re-diagnosed by someone else who said something along the lines of, "I dont see how Dr.______ missed your obvious high-functioning Asperger's. Its clear as day!" Since the re-diagnosis it's been a huge relief seeing why and where the other minor odd traits and symptoms come from. Obsessive interests, physical awkwardness, inability to read body language and facial cues, and a majority of the time rely on thoughts rather then emotions.

 

[HelloDizzy]

I have several.

- Bipolar Disorder
- Major Depression
- Schizoaffective Disorder
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- ADD

 

[kasmanaft08]

A psychiatrist once suggested that I may have borderline a long time ago, but it was only after one session. I stuck with that for a while because I really didn't know much about what else it could be, but it never really made sense to me. I'm not even fully sure why it was suggested, because I don't think I fit the description, even as a teenager. Another point it was vaguely suggested that it could be some form of depression or anxiety. Probably partly true, but didn't quite help anything either.

 

[IContainMultitudes]

In my case, ADD when I was about 11 or 12 and social anxiety disorder a bit later on. I don't think the latter one is really true, unsure about the ADD but I sort of doubt it even though having both AS and ADD isn't unheard of.

Probably one of the big reasons that I didn't get the AS diagnosis until I was nearly 31 is that AS wasn't really all that well-known yet when I was growing up (I was born in 1979).

 

[jayraytee]

Originally my therapist thought I had an anxiety disorder of some kind. Which, I was suprised by since I generally don't feel much of anything most of the time. I suspected I had aspergers and said as much. She kept bringing up anxiety and said she wished she had met me before I suspected the aspergers. Which made me think that she didn't think it really was aspergers, but I had been influenced by things I had read. Eventually she diagnosed me as having both aspergers and an anxiety disorder and clarified the diagnosis by saying some therapists would think I had aspergers and some would not. So I was diagnosed with both, I stopped going to see her and would really rather find someone who wouldn't leave me with any doubts. I find therapy annoying really because while they are analyzing me I am analyzing them and every word they say. The social aspects of sitting in a room one on one and trying to talk about this stuff I find horrible. I chose to go to the therapy sessions originally because I wanted a definitive diagnosis so I know where to start in understanding myself. I don't trust self diagnosis at all. :nah:

 

[Acetic]

For the longest time i used to think i had antisocial personality disorder with a bit of social anxiety. Even though i had some characteristics of those two (i like to be alone, i'm nervous in public, shy) i didn't quite fit the description. I have never had ANY violent tendencies or wanted to break rules or have been a criminal or rebel. A couple of years ago i was looking up how to be more social and interact with people and i found out about autism and how it affects people. After reading a description describing many of my personality traits and quirks i knew i had a type of high functioning autism.

I still feel reluctant "officially" getting this diagnosed; i know i have it but i don't want it to be "official".

 

[s4ndm4n2006]

I have yet to be officially diagnosed. So for me, my current diagnosis is Borderline Personality Disorder. I tend to fit a lot of the traits so I never even considered AS until I found out two of my children are AS. My son, 12, has been having trouble in school for years, yet he is extremely intelligent and tested at the gifted level, if I remember correctly, IQ of around 130 something. My daughter, too, who's 20 is an aspie, which she didn't find out til recently. She too is a brilliant child but also struggled for years in school. My other son is not like the other two at all and gets pretty close to straight A's and is very social with the other kids, so I don't even consider it with him. Anyway enough detail about them. When I looked at the information on Aspergers, I found myself looking at a lot of things I thought were very much like me. My son reminds me very much of me when I was his age. So I took an online test recently and so, here I am. I am going to talk to a doctor about a diagnosis but my current pdoc won't test me for whatever reason. She's the one that gave me the bpd (and bipolar) dx.

 

[smith2267]

AS was my first diagnosis

 

[Geordie]

My first diagnosis was mental retardation, followed by AD/HD.

 

[Arashi222]

I was considered to have OCD tendencies in my teens, and social anxiety, with mild developmental delays but that I think is due to my vision problems not my ASD. Then when I hit my masters degree during my internship was I diagnosed with AS.

 

[Mr Faramoose]

when i was about nine or ten, we saw this family counsellor lady, she had no idea what was wrong with me and just said i was hyper active and needed to be forced to socialise with other children more often. Aged 12/ 13 and 14, I was a real boffin/ nerd/ geek in school, started to get bullied even by one of the teachers as well as the students [think he recognised I was weird so made me be the guy who shouts out ''in'' or ''out'' in a game of indoor tennis. I had no idea of the rules, so i just said either of them quietly, and everyone said I was wrong, being an idiot or was thick for not being able to understand the game. So when we packed away the massive trampolines i waited until the teacher had his hands in the gap between the springs and let go too early [by accident i promise, i hadnt been shown how to close it together safely]. But everyone said id done it on purpose, so i had to see the school anger management lady. She was allright, couldn't diagnose me with anything except having [anger issues] and difficulty communicating. She did note a peculiar lack of social engagement on my part and said it was odd how I could do so well in my english lessons and with my writing yet i struggled to hold a conversation with someone my own age. I got on better with my teachers! Age 18 i broke down properly, got sent to a psychiatrist who finally said I had aspergers traits. He was confused between that and my borderline personality traits. He did say I definitely had a form of autism but I also had some odd possibly deluded ideas. I believe he wrote [He has some delusional ideas outside the social norm. These are of a slightly psychotic nature and are possibly due to the fact he was bullied in school''. Plus he said I scored high on the verbal IQ test but very low on the others, meaning I could speak very fluently and hold a conversation almost hiding my problems, but I struggled to work out basic tasks and equations which didn't add up, how could my IQ be so different in two areas?

 

[WildCat]

I was taken to a child psychologist at around the age of 3, around 1990 or so. All I remember from the papers is that the initial impression was "developmental delay", and that I was afterwards given a diagnosis of autism and PDD (makes no sense to me, since both are pretty much one and the same, more or less). I remember some aspects of the place I was in, sure, but don't ask me how the rest of that went because I cannot remember.

In my sophomore year of high school I was rediagnosed (or misdiagnosed, I really don't know) with Asperger's, then a couple of months afterwards I was "officially" diagnosed as "autistic disorder, high functioning". I don't know how or why they came to that conclusion, but from what I was told it had something to do with my IQ scores being in the average to above average range (except for social comprehension, which was below average), a couple of questionnaires, and overall behavior and presentation. Had several counseling sessions which did little to no good at the time, took a couple of meds that literally screwed my mind up, all that good stuff. I'd known that I had some quirks and differences and was self aware of it to some extent, I'd just never guessed that I was autistic, even if it was mild.

 

[Cinnamon]

In the seventies, when I was seven years old, I was also taken to a child psychologist. According to my mother the psychologist told my parent that I was eccentric, and a 'einzelganger' and that they could try to cautiously let me socialize a bit more, but they shouldn't push it. My mother says that he kind of insinuated that it wouldn't help much anyway. Good psychologist!

As an adult I was regularly diagnosed with depression, and those were very correct diagnosis. The closets I have come to a proper diagnosis of anything other than depression was about ten years ago, when they concluded that I had 'aspects of borderline personality disorder.' Guess that was because I was self-harming, because I don't think I displayed any of the other symptoms of that particular disorder.

 

[Cerulean]

"Weird"

 

[Scaramouche]

In the early childhood I took 4 diagnoses: perinatal encephalopathy, episyndrome, paroxysmal syndrome and Da Costa's syndrome. When being 6 years old took ADHD. About 3 months ago took Obsessive-Compulsive personality disorder.

 

[Kelly]

AS was my first diagnosis at the age of 28, unless you count being signed off work with depression for a few months? My family (specifically my dad) was very much "you're fine get on with it" kind of attitude so I never thought of going to see a doctor about my mental health etc until I met my husband.

 

[Butterfly_Lady]

well for me the only thing i was ever diagnosed with was a learning disability. no one thought i was odd enough to refer me to someone else for further diagnosis. It wasn't until my cousin was diagnosed that my mom and aunt thought i might also be on the spectrum. after doing some reading on my own i believe they are correct but i can't afford to go to someone for an official diagnosis if they will even diagnose me.

 

[smith2267]

well for me the only thing i was ever diagnosed with was a learning disability. no one thought i was odd enough to refer me to someone else for further diagnosis. It wasn't until my cousin was diagnosed that my mom and aunt thought i might also be on the spectrum. after doing some reading on my own i believe they are correct but i can't afford to go to someone for an official diagnosis if they will even diagnose me.

an official diagnosis can open up some services to you, especially if you are in school. I'm applying for disability, and I have medicaid pending the decision. Maybe you could do the same

 

[Grubby]

I had a few labels attached to me before Aspergers stuck, the most prominent one being "depression."