Is there any point in getting a diagnosis?

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Hellos all round. I'm newish on here.

I've done some web based tests which come out in favour of me being an aspie. I haven't told anyone about it, not even my gf of long standing though she has her suspicions about me. I've been secretive. I've kept her life exciting over the years, (if nothing else), there's hardly been a dull month! Why she wants to be with me still I can't figure.

Should I tell anyone about my web tests? Should I go see my doctor to ask? I've had so many troubles they've seen me about (general insanity ) I've been trying to keep away from them.

I have lived so many years without a diagnosis and I am more stable now than maybe I've ever been. I'm getting so much better at playing the game of life. It's been hard though. I do feel it's a game with obscure rules and rather hollow too. I have this veneer of coolness, an exterior calm, a clam of a shell, but inside I'm in torment a lot, especially when I have to be with people. I like to spend a lot of time on my own but never get quite enough of it.

So what are the benefits of an official diagnosis? If any?

please... (you see, I can play the game)

If you're curious and want to know, then I would pursue a diagnosis. If it doesn't matter to you, or if you think it's pointless, then perhaps it's not necessary?

Last edited by goodwitchy on 01 Jan 2012, 7:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A quick word on my "diagnosis": I'm 49 and wasn't diagnosed until I was 46. Back in the late eighties and earl nineties, before there was any such diagnosis as AS, I couldn't put up with the way my life was going, so I saw a bunch of shrinks. The most I can say is it was money well wasted.

My life started coming together on my own in my late thirties--still undiagnosed--and I am very aspie. The reason it came together was I had figured out my own strengths and limitations, and abided by them. There was one psychiatrist in town, and I had to go to her for Valium--not something I take regularly, but do take in social situations. So, I wasn't her regular patient. During one visit, I happened to ask her if she had a diagnosis for me. Without missing a beat, she said Asperger Syndrome, and went right on with what she was saying like it was no big deal.

I forgot all about it, as I had been diagnosed so many times, and the only reason I was seeing this quack was for permission to buy Valium. Anyway, maybe a year after that, I was reading a political essay by a psychologist I respect very much, and he mentioned AS. Then, I went to look it up on Wiki. My first reaction was to be stunned as I read it. Then, I burst out in laughter in my office-not something I'm prone to do. My employees must've thought I'd lost my mind.

This was without doubt the happiest day of my life. Years before, in desperation, a psychiatrist had given me a copy of the DSM and asked me to read it to see if anything described me. It didn't, and I thought I was simply a very unlucky, inadequate freak of nature.

Anyway, I'm satisfied I have AS, and that's all that matters for me. I think the only reason one would have to go for an official diagnosis is if they have a lot of comorbidities, or if they need one to keep bureaucrats happy. But since I take nothing from the government and don't ask for any special accommodations, the way I see it it's absolutely none of their business.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, eats and swims like a duck, chances are it is a duck. That's good enough for me.

Thank you Dunnyveg. Your reply is really interesting. You saw the psychiatrist for valium; the same reason I took so many illegal drugs when I was a teenager and into twenties... to cope with social situations.

In fact eventually I took up the life of a heroin addict for a while because on heroin I felt completely normal, but also it gave me an excuse for being different from normal people. I was never a very successful heroin addict though... I was always running out of heroin because I was so hopeless at getting enough money together to buy it. If I had been diagnosed aspergery as a child I may not have had the problems I did in always trying to be 'normal'. I felt like all my communication with the world was subterfuge, this attempt at hiding the fact that I wasn't normal, and I found this drug world of people who tolerated me. I survived my teens and in mid twenties I gave up heroin and all illegal drugs.

Since then being an artist has been my excuse for many years. (I went to art school). Now I am self employed and get by.
Counselors, psychiatrists, doctors, are fond of asking me - what is normal? when I have said that's what I want to be, knowing that I wasn't, and that I didn't fit in. It always annoyed me that question, because I didn't know what it was, only that I wasn't it.

Anyway I'm rambling, but thank you for your reply, it means a lot-- the contact.

I read the wiki pages too and they hit the spot and led me here and the online tests. I think it's a gradual realization for me and the memories of so many things I've done and the ways I've been seem to fit now, like a giant jigsaw that's had me confused all my life. Diagnosis or not I'm still the same person I suppose.

Thanks

Welcome to WP!

It sounds like you've already gotten some really good feedback, but I wanted to add my two cents (because I can't help myself)

I wondered if I should get one too. I was 29 when I finally got diagnosed. All I can say is that for me, it was worth it. You know how some people say marriage changes you, but can't explain exactly why? Well, getting your Asperger's Diagnosis is a similar experience.

After I was diagnosed I felt like a weight had been taken off my shoulders. I was finally able to deal with the anxiety and shame I'd carried for years, even from elementary school. I was able to finally pinpoint a direction to channel my efforts to "better" myself in this foreign world. I finally felt that I fit into my skin.

Things have fallen in to place ever since. I've worked with my supervisor to limit the customer service aspect of my job- and when it's too much I have the green card to say so and work solo for awhile without interruption. My relationships with my friends is better because I was finally able to tell the difference between trying to be someone's friend and actually enjoying those who really were (and still are) my true friends. I've whittled my close friends down to two people- everyone else I can hang out with, but I give myself permission to say no without being guilty. My romantic life also fell into place and I am now married to the man of my dreams, who happens to be another aspie.

With my diagnosis communication has gotten easier, dealing with the stress/anxiety/guilt has gotten easier, and I have grown as a person because I stopped fighting with who I thought I should be and just accepted myself for who I am.

So, apologies for the long mushy reply, but honestly knowing 100% that I have Asperger's has been the best thing that has every happened to me- and that's not a hyperbole.

Good luck! I hope you find what you are looking for.

Welkome to WP

Mick

Thanks everybody... thanks

Welcome.