Hi! I am new here and wanted to say hello. I find it hard not to ramble on so please excuse me if this is a bit of a long winded hello!
I was diagnosed with having A.S. in 2014 when I was 38, I was also diagnosed with Dyspraxia, Dyslexia and Dyscalcullia, which in my opinion have caused me more problems than the A.S, particularly in my childhood years and seriously affected my education. Previously I was told by my psychiatrist at the time that I displayed signs of A.D.D and possibly Borderline Personality Disorder, I was also being treated for depression which I suffered regular depressive periods. I was registered as a disabled person although there was no name given to my disability, it was listed as a learning disability.
I became curious about why I am the way I am, and started looking up stuff on the internet and I found out about Asperger syndrome, the more I read about it the more convinced I became that I have it, there was so much I could relate to, also my best friends son had just been diagnosed with it and I discovered we shared quite a few traits. I did a few of those online tests and they all indicated I have A.S.
However I wanted to be sure, there are so many people that have diagnosed themselves based on online tests, I wanted to be diagnosed properly, so I spoke to my G.P. but he did not show much interest and couldn't even understand why it was so important for me to be able to put a name to my so called learning disability, to cut it short he told me that they would not assess me for A.S. on the N.H.S. although it seems they will if you are a child. The only way I could get diagnosed is to go private, which could be quite costly.
I discovered the National Autistic Society and contacted them, the lady I spoke to was very good and understanding and she sent me some info, including their own test, which was rather similar to the ones I did online, and once again I had a score that indicated I have A.S. It also had a list of local professionals who could assess and diagnose ASD's one of the people on the list was very local, an educational psychologist and she specialised in diagnosing ASD's in adults.
My lovely mum, who, for my entire life has tried so hard to get somneone to accept I had some condition but being as I was born in the 70's, I really do not think much was known about Asperger syndrome back then and so she was always told she was an over anxious mother and that I was just a bit "behind" but would catch up.
The head teacher of my primary school was the first to notice some things about me , my mum had purposely not mentioned anything about my problems, in the hope that if they were picked up by someone else it would not come down to her being over anxious, and it worked because for the first time it was someone else who noticed it. I was given extra help then, such as a special needs teacher who would for certain lessons tutor me on a one to one level, I was also issued with special knife and fork with grips designed to help me hold them properly and also a purple translucent rubber grip which went on my pens and pencils for the same purpose of helping me hold them correctly.
I am not sure why but I was taken out of the school for a while and I went to some kind of hospital for children with similar problems, it was like a hospital where we slept in a ward but then during the day it had a school. I had some kind of brain scan when I was there and although nothing showed up they told mum I could have slight brain damage, which I think nowadays they would not call it that, I think that was mainly down to the Dyspraxia.
So back to the present time, My mum offered to pay for me to see the educational psychologist and we had a few sessions where I was given all kinds of tests, one was similar to the online test and the one I did from the National Autistic Society and there was lots of others as well.
And so, now I have been officially diagnosed with these conditions, and I have a much better understanding of who I am now.
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Diagnosed with Asperger syndrome Nov 2014
also diagnosed with Dyspraxia (developmental coordination disorder)
Dyslexia and Dyscalculia
08 Nov 2015, 11:03 am
