YOU DONT HAVE ASPERGERS

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I hate when people say stuff like that. It doesn't matter what you want to call it, we all have something that makes us different, they can call it whatever they want.

Ahh the wonderful world of the superficial judgement...often perpetrated by both 'qualified' and 'unqualified' folks alike.
Obviously AS/ASD is only possible for those people who appear to be low-functioning, whilst everyone else who don't look abnormal are just 'being whiny'.

It would be amusing to practice some analagous comments in return :

"Oh, you can't possibly ride a bicycle, your legs aren't long enough"

"You can't possibly speak a foreign language, your lips aren't shaped appropriately"

"You can't be right about your liking sci-fi, everyone I know who likes that is orange-coloured and you're not"

"No, you must be mistaken about your birthday, everyone knows April birthdays produce much taller people than you - here's a study looking it"
2nd person:"But they only looked at participants of unusual height."
1st person : "Exactly. So that proves it."
2nd person : "WTF ?!"

etc.

A friend of mine - well, not so much a friend as the girlfriend of a friend - has AS, and copped a fair bit of abuse on Formspring for it. Someone was basically telling her off for saying she did have it. She doesn't know that we share AS, but I was pretty offended. I suspected that she might have it based on the way she deals with people, and as such I wasn't too happy about some anonymous f**kwit having a go at her when she was diagnosed by two doctors and goes to therapy once a week.

One thing I do find annoying is people who use AS as an excuse for their behaviour, or people who use it to excuse the behaviour of others (for example "Oh, he can't help it, he has Asperger's). You can deal with it, learn to overcome what's troubling you. Of course, that leads to the "YOU DON'T HAVE ASPERGER'S" thing, so maybe this whole post is begging its own bleedin' question.

I have to disagree with the suggestion that self-diagnosis lacks merit. Where and when I grew up, no therapist, psychiatrist, or doctor would consider the idea that a little girl who did well academically in school might have any form of autism. Only boys were considered for AS. That combined with the fact that I am lucky enough to be good at acting and mimicking people meant that while most people considered me "weird" and I was bullied and friendless throughout my young life, it never occurred to anyone that my strangeness had a simple medical explanation. To make matters worse, my mother, with whom I lived growing up, and with whom I have many other problems that I won't go into right now, made a point of constantly accusing me of acting inappropriately on purpose, just to make her life difficult. She always accompanied me to the doctor, even after I turned 18 (it never occurred to me that there was anything unusual about this), and whenever I complained of my problems to a doctor, she jumped in and explained it all away by insisting I had always been an attention whore and I was just making it up because I was a hypochondriac and wanted some kind of diagnosis.

I never knew anything about autism until I moved away from my family at age 23. I came to Europe, discovered new cultures and very different groups of people from anyone I had ever known, and many people noting my good intentions but poor social skills pointed me towards some literature on autism. It was immediately clear that I had AS. Not only do I have problems with social skills, body languages and other such cues, but I also feel constantly overwhelmed by all the sensory stimuli around me (when they reorganize my local supermarket it can take me hours to do my shopping until I learn where everything is), I can never see the "big picture" in things (so many pictures I always thought were just abstract shapes and lines later turned out to be normal paintings/drawings/etc.), I have always had narrow, obsessive interests (like my collections of old video games I have no interest in playing) and from time to time I get so overwhelmed that I need to close my eyes, plug my ears, and rock back and forth until it goes away.

For most of my life I had assumed that, to some degree, my mother must be right and I must somehow be responsible for my own problems. It was an incredible relief to know that I had been right from the start and it wasn't my fault. I immediately began getting help from some of my new friends to learn social skills. I worked very hard for years and now very few people notice anything more than slightly odd about me. I suppose I could go to a doctor now and get an official diagnosis, but what would be the point?

Sadly, I don't think my story is particularly exceptional. I've heard that AS is "overdiagnosed," but in my experience very few doctors or even psychiatrists (many of whom I was forced to see on a regular basis as a child) are willing to consider autism in any child, especially female, who is able to function to any degree. As a result, I never knew what was wrong or how to fix it, and I never got the help that could have saved me all that pain.

More to the point of this thread, I now have another problem, that people don't believe that I have AS. Most of the time I keep it to myself, proud of how well I blend in. I'm an English teacher and thanks to my acting skills and obsession with grammar, my students love my lessons and I'm very successful in my job (I know how lucky I am there). I'm perfectly happy to have it be my little secret that there's anything strange about me, but there are still times when I inadvertently do something inappropriate, or get overwhelmed and need to be left alone for a while. At these times I try to explain to people that I have AS and ask them to please be patient with me and just explain to me if I do something wrong, not to be offended or annoyed at anything I do. But when I tell people, even my friends, they roll their eyes, demand to see an official diagnosis, and when I say I don’t have or need one, they give me that “Yep, that’s what I thought” look and tell me I’m full of it. I do so well in most situations, that when I do mess up, no one believes that it’s not intentional. Sometimes I consider just going and getting diagnosed just to shut them up, but I don’t want to be seen as “the girl with aspergers.” I just want people to know that when I do something strange, it’s not intentional, and for them to understand the reasons why when I need to be alone for a while. I get punished for being strange because people think it’s on purpose.

Sorry this post is so long. I guess I haven’t spilled this all out in a good long while, and I’ve never had an audience who actually understood how this feels.

Yeah - when I was 10 and having meltdowns my family all just told my parents I was spoiled because I was an only child. They were too lenient. I needed more dicipline. Apparently, a lack of money and constantly fluctuating income from a father in and out of jobs constantly still lends itself to a 'spoiled' environment. My parents were considered 'too lenient' because I was never punished - made to go to my room, grounded, etc... because no one beleived that when my mother set down the rules I actually followed them and when or if I broke them I came to her to explain why and apologize. No one believed that. I got straight A's easily, even in math although that in particular was an epic struggle - no one though anything was 'wrong' with me. Just a bit immature.

There was no dx in the 70's. There still is no official dx criteria for adults even now. And finding a specialist that knows and understands adult autism is beyond difficult. How exactly is everyone older than 30 supposed to get a dx? Is a self dx somehow desirable or does it come with some sort of perks that makes everyone WANT to be autistic? Am I missing what the appeal of figuring out that you are autistic is? Other than some personal relief that, indeed, you have been struggling in your life for a reason and not just because god, the cosmos, fate or karma has it out for you is more than reason enough. And just maybe, you might be able to get some help with the things that are treatable - like depression, anxiety, and any number of comorbids that may exist.

just last week, i went postal on a former workmate who doubted my diagnosis (official one is almost complete, psychologist is 95% confident that i am aspie, just putting together the paperwork). i posted that news on a status update, and she had the audacity to say (can't remember exact wording as she deleted it):

Hmmmm... I doubt it. My son was referred for testing and you don't seem like you have it. Maybe get blood tests done.

so, i replied with something like:

ok, so the limited contact you had with me at work several months ago does not qualify you to undiagnose me, nor does having your son referred for testing make you an expert on asperger syndrome. did you misplace your PhD? that is seriously offensive.

she apologized and deleted it, so i also deleted my rant.

... like blood tests would somehow help clear things up...

Congratulations! As an adult woman, your Asperger's does not resemble that of a prepubescent boy!

Once again - stupid should hurt. There would be alot less stupid in the world if it did...

Please note with my current mood and state of mind I feel like venting my rage over this issue as it involves both my mother and biological 'father' (that sick evil abusive and twisted sperm donor that tw@ has no right to the title of father) plus its still going now and I lest thing I want is for people to know in public how f****d up I am thanks to them two people. so am censoring myself.
Sylvia Plath's poem Daddy and Philip Larkin's This Be The Verse will give you cues into my feeling about my parents; my mother, 'father' and step-father.

I had that twice in my life, the first time when I was two years with my first diagnosis, the professionals that did that diagnosis denied that there was no such thing as the ASD. Also to add that around the last time I seen my 'father' as he tried to kidnap me plus his sick behaviour before and after my birth (I will not going into what he did to my mother expect this fact he physical abused my mother while she was pregnant carrying me!).

29 to 30 years (lots of personal s**t, a suicide attempt & professional attitude change to ASD) later I get my second diagnosis, finally its official I have AS. Another suicide attempt was the reason this diagnosis, the sodding professionals never learn that anti-depressants and me don't mix it only makes me feel suicidal & attempt suicide. A psychiatric nurse from a specialist AS team did the diagnosis, the nurse need to interview my mother fro the diagnosis. My mum at first was supportive & welcomed the idea that I'll finial get an official diagnosis, thos she did voice her disgust about the nurse and the interview.

After a long delay on the nurse's part I get my diagnosis report (on a Friday, back in March of this year) just a few days before I needed to see my psychiatrist with both my mother and step-sister (on a Monday). I spent the weekend at my mother's is was f*****g hell after I shown her the report as there was a miss take it about her and that bastard 'father' of mine (BTW I am a bastard in the literal sense) she then started ranting for 30 mins about AS is a figment of the imagination, called the nurse incompetent and detained a second opinion from my psychiatrist (note my psychiatrist is not trained to do AS diagnoses).

her and & the rest of the family had lot of fights that weekend then comes the psychiatrist appointment my mother & sister start fight with be just before it put on act for the psychiatrist then had a fight with just after the appointment. To this day am still waiting for my mother to apologize for her behaviour.

I've heard that before too. I always tell people who don't believe I'm autistic to talk to someone I went to elementary school with. I sure showed that I had autism.