I'm having a problem with my best friend/diagnosis debate

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Firstly, I'd like to apologise for the monologue, so I'm grateful for anyone who takes their time to read this.

I'm just wondering if anyone can provide me with any advice or any extra perspective that might prove useful to me.

To set the scene, I told my best friend I had AS just over a year ago. I am unofficially diagnosed, and I made her aware of this from the beginning. Up until that point we had experienced frequent arguments, and telling her and explaining everything really helped to thaw relations between us. For the past year I have felt able to confide in her about my AS because I felt she understood, and when we had arguments I had an explanation ready which she could understand. Over the past year arguments between us have continued, and have gotten more intense since we both started university in September.

I decided recently it would be best to go to counselling to help me with the issues that I have. I went for a preliminary assessment last week, and she asked me how it was. After I explained, she asked me when I was going to get a diagnosis. Then the problems started, because basically I said I didn't want to get one, because I am convinced I have it because of how my thinking works and how I behave.

I have other concrete reasons for not feeling I need a diagnosis. My mother conducted extensive research when I was a young child, and in watching me grow up over the years has never had a single doubt I have AS, especially as my behaviours over the years have shifted to visible and physical, to invisible and internal. She has seen me migrate across the spectrum. Teachers in my first couple of years in school (with extensive experience in the field of AS/HFA) helped to validate my mother's beliefs. But most importantly of all is my own recognition of my actions, and there is no way I would ever tell myself I have a condition if I honestly felt I didn't, because how irrational would that be?

And soon, debate raged between me and my best friend, and soon became a long-running argument. In effect, her point is simple. She thinks I have a self-fulfilling prophecy, that I live in denial (how? Surely I live in acceptance, if anything) and has suggested I use my AS as a shield. She thinks I am unnecessarily burdening/handicapping myself when it may be that I don't have to, and strongly suggests this behaviour is 'daft and irrational.'

Eventually, she came to the point where, despite saying earlier it was not a case of not believing things I had said, she basically said she saw no reason to behave as if I had AS if I didn't get a diagnosis, and as a result she was no longer prepared to hear 'excuses for my behaviour.' Her reasoning for this she described as 'I'm hurting because you are hurting, and you are hurting because you are burdening yourself with something you may not have, and a diagnosis would prove so beneficial to you.' This is something of a climb-down from her previous attitude, which was to accept the points laid out on the table at face value, and she attributes this to 'always thinking you were going to get a diagnosis.'

Now, at this point I'd like to make an admission. It's not a question of disagreeing with her overall opinion. The things that have hurt me are her criticisms of the current arrangement (i.e. me being undiagnosed), and her taking away my opportunity to confide in her. Overall, I think getting a diagnosis would be of use, but not necessarily beneficial. I have so much more to lose. I feel like I can fit in with the rest of society rather well (and I thank for upbringing for this, my mother deliberately avoided taking me for diagnosis so I didn't feel labelled or different). This apparent normality sometimes makes me doubt slightly. Getting a diagnosis would only be of extremely slight benefit. It would only serve to quash the tiny 2% doubt, and other that nothing would change. If it comes back negative, my head is going to be absolutely torn apart. I don't want to risk that.

From my side of this dispute, I feel my best friend is being unfair. I recognise she has become fraught with me on this issue because she cares about me deeply (even if she'd never ever admit that), and her actions are well-intended. However, I feel she has this idealistic idea that getting a diagnosis will radically change the way I behave, regardless of the result. She always talks of how people will be able to help me better if I get it confirmed, but she never specifies who these people are, and how is this exactly? I feel her attitude is naive, because ultimately, regardless of diagnosis, how I behave is a direct consequence who I am as a person/individual.

I accept her opinion and to an extent agree, but at the same time I just don't want the diagnosis. She is rigidly and stubbornly refusing to accept my opinion. It appears to me that the love (and the types of reinforcement of that) she gives me is entirely conditional, and that is not the basis of being a good friend, or even a friend at all, no? Only if I do what she bossily suggests will I get anything from her. I don't feel that is fair.

I would say this issue is something of a cliff-edge moment for our friendship. We both have become sick of our frequent arguments in a more general sense, but yet we both still want to remain friends. It is a large possibility our friendship could end over this issue because it is so fundamental.

I apologise for the length of this post, and I appreciate any response I get to my problem.

Well, at the end of the day, it is your brain, not hers. If you and your counsellor agree that diagnosis is not necessary, then she is in no position to gainsay that.

If she is engaging in withholding behaviours in order to manouever you into doing something that you do not want to do, then that behaviour is manipulative and offensive. If she wants to remain friends with you that means remaining friends with the person that you want to be, not the person that she wants you to be.

Of course, the proof of the pudding is whether you are able to deliver that message to her. I wish you the best of luck with it, and I wish you and your counsellor every success in your work together.

<deleted> (had two windows open; posted wrong reply)

Last edited by Lene on 06 Nov 2009, 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm just wondering; you say that you have already gone for preliminary assessment but have now decided you don't want a diagnosis... are you scared that the psychologist may turn around and say that you're normal?

It's quite normal to have cold feet, or to change your mind, about getting a diagnosis, but I got the impression from your post that you have been so sure of your aspergers and have been using it to explain yourself to others for so long, that a negative diagnosis may feel like a huge blow.

I can imagine your friend's frustration; you have been using this condition as an explanation (I won't say excuse) for so much of your behaviour and now, and up until now she's only had your word to go on that you have it. Now, when you have a chance to make it official, you seem to be shirking away. She might wonder if you ahve been making it up all along.

My suggestion would be to bite the bullet and go for assessment if the only reason you don't want one is because you are 'certain'. If you had other reasons, such as cost or fear of employement, that would be another matter.

That said, at the end of the day, it is completely your decision and your friend should not be allowed bully you into doing anything you don't want to. I would suggest however, that in future, that you don't use asperger's as an explanation for your behaviour around this friend as she may think you are just making excuses.

I don't know what exactly to say about this but I'll do my best.

Your friends behaviour seems to me to be a bit on the mean side and manipulative. Personally, if you're not wanting to be diagnosed, it's your choice and you shouldn't be forced. Although, if the only reason that you're not being diagnosed officially is because you're afraid you don't have AS, it may be a good idea to think more on it. Though, think on the people in the know who said you did and do as you were growing up as well.

About your friend, I'd be thinking about how you indicated that she thinks you'll change who you are if you get a diagnosis or not. This to me seems like she's not being accepting of you as you are, the full package of who you are. Your behaviour patterns and reactions to things are part of you, and one of the reasons to try to change them are if they are harmful to you (an example; biting, scraping or otherwise harming self) or others (an example; biting, scraping or otherwise harming others).

It's all up to you, you've got to do what you think is best for you.

How big of a percentage of your conversation time with her is about AS?

Has AS and figuring yourself out been an intense special interest since discovery?

If you answered yes to it being a special interest with high talk time, proceed to 2nd half of post.

If not, [insert some random pick me up line... I'm following a duel positive train of thought], and I hope you are able to keep your friend and stay in a comfortable place regarding diagnosis.


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Part 2

Possible options: (purely hypothetical cause I don't know you... so no offense)

1. You've been giving a friend frequent monologues about something serious, and she wants to know if you are correct. Like... you might SFTU about it if you don't have it. Or maybe you will discover more about yourself and yourself with AS to get some new material.

2. Maybe she thinks the amount you are talking about AS makes her think you are still not positive. She may think that having an official answer will help you. Let you move on in a good way... with or without an AS label... maybe even with a different label that clicks to you like AS does at the moment.

3. Maybe you are talking about it allot, cause it's all you can think about, cause there is still some little bit of doubt, and you're scared you were wrong. The worst thing a shink could tell you is that you are normal, then you'd go back to blaming yourself instead of something that makes allot of bad stuff not your fault.

Again, I don't know you at all. Number 3 was from my playbook for filler. Two items just seems like a slacker list.

This is pretty much the position I have taken. I don't feel her behaviour is fair and I don't feel she has the right to base her behaviour with me on how she reacts to my wishes. I think she is trying to boss me around (admittedly she wants whats best for me but it's still not right, in my opinion, to approach it in that manner). She wouldn't admit it but I do feel she has a very idealistic view of who she thinks I should be, and I don't really understand why this is the case. I would say getting this message through to her would be extremely difficult (lol), because she is so rigid and stubborn it's unbelievable. The only way to compromise with her is to fit her ideals and her wants.



I'd like to clarify something. The preliminary assessment was for non-AS specific, generic counselling, like any person has the opportunity to take part in. Yes, I admit I am afraid the results will come back negative. I detected a very suspicious attitude in my counsellor.



You are quite right. The blow would be massive, because it would blow nearly 20 years of belief, belief which has been the most fundamental basis of my life, completely out of the water. I would predict that would be an enormously difficult time where I would have to adjust all my reasoning for my actions. Beyond that, I can see myself questioning the results if they were negative, for years. Although I suppose counselling could help me deal with the result, either positive or negative. But still, it's not something I've wished to contemplate.



She has assured me that she didn't think I was making everything up, because it's not a question of me acting like I have as some kind of a weird joke, or just for a laugh. She has said she has given my explanations credibility, but feels getting positive confirmation would give my problems more credibility.



It's that attitude she's suddenly changed into that has upset me most. It's taken away a key source of support (she's my best friend, at the end of the day)... but I guess sometimes you find out who your true friends are.



Exactly. I guess this is why I said our friendship is kind of on the brink. Because at the end of the day, if she only wants ''me'' ('' '' meaning her ideal view of me), not me as I come, then what is the point. What is she really friends with?



I have to admit, rather a large percentage, maybe 75%? We argue so frequently that it has to come up when she wants to know why we argued. And yes, the last couple of years have made me learn so much about myself. Before I was 16 I always felt it was a small and rather insignificant part of me. Since I was 16 this has not been the case. I have had so many lightbulb moments about my behaviour.

I'd suggest options 1 and 3 and most likely. However, for option 1, I think she's always been understanding and supportive and treated things with seriousness and respect. She's definitely not the kind of b***h who isn't really interested, and wouldn't tell me to STFU even if I didn't have it, because problems are problems still. As for option 3, I only talk about it a lot because we argue so often, and that's the only explanation I can give her that makes sense to me too. I'm not constantly talking about it because I'm unsure. I think you're right, I would go into a phase of just thinking I'm a terrible person, if it comes back negative (that is in no way suggesting people with AS are horrible people, quite the opposite, in fact.