Hello from Kentucky!

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Well, here it goes.... Hi, my name is Noah. After much research I have recently come to the realization that I am a case study of undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome!! This realization has been an epiphany. It makes so much sense of my experience in life. The power of knowing this about myself cannot be overstated. It is only due to sheer ignorance of Asperger's syndrome that I did not diagnose myself years ago. I feel like my life is just beginning. The implications are fascinating and my brain is on fire!! ! For thee first few days i could hardly sleep with all of my neurons making the connections it was a truly mind manifesting experience. I think its amazing how little awareness there is about this... it is staggering that I made it to my 26th year without ever having learned about Asperger's, or really what the autism spectrum disorder is. I think the scale of ignorance may be because of the stigma associated with the negative symptoms... but I am excited about all of my positive symptoms. For my situation, the thing is, and without going into literally my entire life's story (which I could do now that I know about this because it explains so much about every single aspect of my life...) I have known I am different for a long time, and I had diagnosed myself with an extreme case of social anxiety disorder SAD. However, I had failed to research AS. And as it turns out, the symptoms for the two disorders vastly overlap. So much so that the symptoms can manifest in the exact same way. So if you look at the symptoms of social anxiety disorder those will warrant a diagnosis for SAD, unless* they are better explained by Asperger's or one of the other autism spectrum disorders.(As you all know...). I had gone for years now thinking it was an extreme case of SAD... and that did nothing for me. At this point in my life the explanatory scope of thee diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome is healing for me. Its definitely a blessing and a curse, but being able to understand what it is has changed my life. I am able to talk about it.

Although, as I say, I am a "case study" in undiagnosed Asperger's, I am hesitant to get a formal diagnosis at this point, because I am afraid of being misdiagnosed... and I feel like I am intelligent enough, and know myself well enough to supersede their judgement anyway (although I am aware that some cognitive behavioral therapy could probably do me a world of good.) Also there is the fact that whether I "officially" have AS matters not. Look up aspergers... read about it... listen to accounts... that is me. Call it what you will... Aspergers is the most all encompassing word for what I am that I have come across... maybe in 25 years there will be Dr Genubili's Syndrome that actually better explains what I am.. but for the time being... Asperger's is the best fit I have come across in my years of research.

Its also a great real life example of where you can use a reductio ad absurdum...

Let us assume I do not have Aspergers
Now we will list as assumptions all of thee symptoms of Aspergers that I exhibit.
Those assumptions entail Aspergers.
At this point in the argument we see that I both have and do not have Aspergers... which is a contradiction. So the burden is on the person who wants to say that i do not have Asperger's to explain how the entire list is merely coincidental.

Well... anyway... I am so exhilarated. Today is the 1 week anniversary of my self discovery... I am already thinking about going back to school to get my master gardener certification! This whole thing is such a game changer. I know we are probably not supposed to bring up religion but I will say this has been a spiritual event in my life... its a brain wave (Poul Anderson reference).

Nice to meet you all!

Welcome to WP! Glad to have you here.

Welcome Noah,

I know just what you mean about the "epiphany" feeling. I wasn't diagnosed until a few weeks ago, aged 45. Like you, I knew there was something going on, but I believed so many of the common misconceptions about autism that it stopped me from considering it seriously until my CBT counsellor suggested it to me about a year ago.

I do have formal diagnosis, but I have circumstances in my life that made it appropriate for me - that's not the case for many people, and not having formal confirmation is no impediment at all to understanding ourselves better, and finding better coping strategies for life. And this is just the place to discover those things.

Yeah, I really do think that the popular negative stigma and misunderstanding/ignorance about the autism spectrum disorders made me purposefully ignore that possibility in the past.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Hey Noah welcome.

I just took the test I keep seeing referenced.


Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 183 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 37 of 200
You are very likely neurodiverse (Aspie)