Women and Diagnosis

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Kind of B, I think.

Our 10yo son has just been diagnosed moderate aspie and I started reading up on it and realised I was reading about me. I've been seeing a psychiatrist for depression and bipolar for the last 2-3 years. I can't recall being asked anything that would lead to an AS dx and I'm not sure that I said anything that would've set up some flags. I don't think I'll meet any resistance - I've made an appointment, I'll chat to my psych and I presume that either my treatment program will be modified if necessary or I'll be referred to an AS specialist for additional therapy.

Although I've known about AS in a general kind of way, I never knew enough to identify my behaviour with it. It explains lots now

Do you remember, or can you find out, the name of this documentary? I would like to share it with someone. Thanks.

Here´s the link to that documentary, for anyone who wants to see it:

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Story?id=4177353&page=1

Hope it works- let me know if it doesn´t.

D - I suspect it, am relatively high functioning (again, after years of low function) and just decided against trying to get diagnosis because ...
... because I am afraid of going to the doctors and telling them I think I know what is wrong with me, and that all my previous diagnoses were wrong
... because I can't imagine that there will any kind of help in the two main areas I still have a lot of trouble with: structure, organizing my own day/work schedule + social interaction (I think I'm not really bad, just ignorant of unspoken communication, it exhausts me and so I avoid it)
... because I believe I have to figure out a way to cope with my problems on my own

mine falls about c) I would reckon, I was once when I was 5 at a visit of a psychologue, because My foster mother wanted to know if I have tendencies, and the doctor just said if she happens to have you can't do anything about . Anyway at 18 I was at an assessment for 4 weeks in a teenage psychiatric ward, not because I felt the need, but rather afore mentioned foster mother(who is technically my aunt too) So I just went with the flow, and at the end talk with the psychiatric doctor, she told me to be NT and also the result of my IQ etc., but my mother (fostermother) demanded a report and since she is a nurse, she could do thaat, and I had a look in there and read it and the it says that the suspicion would be on HFA(which is here the same as aspergers, Ithink only the US treats it as different).
So I don't really now whether I am or not

Before by the way, I was reading a book by an autist, and to find more about what he is doing toda,y I stumbled across the website of an aspie, and I could find quite some points on me as well too but not all so I left it at that.)

I'm B.....

I decided to seek my diagnosis after I was initially referred to local counselling services due to having severe depression at the time....my therapist told me she felt that I had AS, though mild, and I decided I had to get it confirmed or denied either way, so I sought a referral from my GP.

I saw a clinical psychologist about 6 weeks or so after the referral was made. Had 3 appointments, was diagnosed with mild AS on the second visit, but like outlier's situation, the psych said she could not tell where my AS began and my turbulent childhood ended, she also said I was not like any other person she had seen before with AS, but I strongly suspect this is due to both my age at diagnosis (31) and my gender.

What made my experience with the therapists even worse was that I had a decent childhood. They would not accept this and would dig around to find trauma where there was none.

Thanks for your input, outlier. Yes, with women I think they often try to find some *other* reason rather than Asperger´s Syndrome, illogical as it may be.

By the way, I have fond memories of you from my "AS Women and Relationships" thread, awhile back. Good to "see you" again!

I was diagnosed a few weeks before I turned 21, last year. It didn't take long for me to receive a diagnosis once I was actually seeing a professional; she suggested it after a few weeks of talking to me, and asked me to buy a book about it and read it. I looked in vain for a book written for women, but there wasn't one, so I picked up "Asperger's From the Inside Out" instead.

The other day I found a book about girls and women with AS, and I cried when I read it. It would have helped me so much when I was growing up homeschooled if I'd had that book. When I finally went off to college at 19, every day felt like a goddamn sucker punch, and I had no idea why.

I am D. I have no prospects of getting diagnosed (because of lack of money and health insurance) and a wariness about diagnoses in general based on past history. I know that I have improved in areas that probably make me present as mild now, like eye contact and voice and having learned scripts for conversations. I really don't know if it is worth the effort and it feels like possibly giving someone ammo to use against me at some point,

Outlier - I agree that the NHS can be clueless, but this problems seems to crop up the US, too. A lot f it is to do with the utter arrogance of some mental health professionals. Some idiot psychiatrist told me I did not have AS, after a five-minute consultation: he said he could tell just be looking at me. However last year an NHS therapist gave me a proper test and diagnosed me with AS traits (I think it goes deeper than that, personally, since the test was somewhat superficial). So the NHS can diagnose you at least, if you're persistent - and lucky.

Help? 6 sessions of CBT. Nice while it lasted.

Still, the diagnosis has helped enormously, on a personal level. Once you are "permitted" to give yourself this label, you feel better about researching it and find out more, The internet has been such a help with this.

I was 47 when I was diagnosed. Looking back, it was plain all along - but of course in the 1960s the term wasn't even coined.

I think we do suffer a lot from the wider awareness of the male model of AS - Rainman and trainspotting and all that. Education is needed, especially for the supposed experts in mental health.

I agree. I felt exactly the same way once I received the diagnosis.


Acknowledging that women can have Asperger's Syndrome is quite a recent development. As more is written about it there will be more awareness generally.

I wish that more would be written about it, or at least that it would be studied more by the so-called experts. The few books I´ve found about women and AS are so thin, and not detailed at all. Why does no one seem interested in this subject?

Me and Aspergers..... crap

Well when I was a kid I was different. I needed up in occupational therapy, speech therapy, and a school social skills group. My mother was insane though and was lying to all my therapists and saying i was better than i was. My my teenage years I was completely isolated (i was as a child too), angry, depressed, and giving up on life.

In college it was the same deal. I was different, hypersensitive, not accepted, something wrong. I had my obsessions, my weird quirks, but everyone just though of me as odd. I had a lot of abuse issues to and so for a while my psychologists tried to say I didnt make friends in college and had so many issues due to abuse.

A few months in to this i was frustrated. Trauma was NOT what was causing all this. I went back to my dad and asked him what I was like as a small child. From his information coupled with what I said my counselor said I have Asperger's. I fit the criteria basically perfectly. I am moving in the fall and they are going to do some more testing then. So i was diagnosed really late. Partly because my parents did not give me the resources I needed and partly i think just because I was a girl and no one expected to see it in a girl.

OMG, PLEASE! the world needs this book. It is so crippling to be unable to understand other people well enough to establish and maintain nurturing relationships with them when, as a woman, it is the foremost thing that is demanded of you. The feeling of failure is immense.

I don't believe there are necessarily fewer aspie women than men; i think it can present so differently in women that it eludes diagnosis.

I have read memoirs by autistic women and studied AS as a special interest for the past 8 or 10 years; despite all this, and having one diagnosed family member and several others with obvious traits, it didn't occur to me until recently that i likely have it too.

Since it eluded even me for so long, i haven't even considered whether or not to attempt diagnosis.

EDIT: I discussed the possibility of having AS with my therapist today, expecting that she might be initially baffled by my suspicions. Result: she already suspected it. So maybe diagnosis will not be that difficult, in my case.

Last edited by katzefrau on 15 Apr 2010, 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

what is it?



i don't see an interest in unstereotypical presentations of AS in general. from a clinical standpoint, maybe the subtleties aren't very interesting to write about. or maybe only women with AS care about women with AS ... and since they don't seem to be getting diagnosed ...