Self Diagnosis.

Post Reply New Topic

I like the idea of "personality type" too. If someone doesn't feel disordered, maybe they do have a personality type and it's misleading to say they have a disorder? Sometimes, I get the feeling people are talking about personalities when describing themselves and they don't want to be labeled as having a disorder. A personality isn't a disorder in itself but instead adaptive coping mechanisms one employs to meet the demands of life. If these coping strategies work, the person isn't exactly "disordered".

I didnt realize that people claim to have aspergers or autism without actually being diagnosed with it! Thats kind of ridiculous to me...

I agree it does minimize this disorder much like claiming ADHD for a misbehaving child. People are claiming aspergers for not having good social skills?

I have seen psychiartrists for depression. The depression came and went, overall I my appointments were about once every 3 weeks. Ten years between the two psychiartrist I have seen. The appointments were basically me talking about my special interests. Perhaps they were just monitioring me for stability. Anyway I would talk incessently about economics and the stock market which are interests of mine. Do you think maybe at this point that would be spotted as a tell tail sign of Aspergers?

When I tried to find answers on the internet I kept reading "common in Aspergers". Well I was glad I didnt have that, I said to myself. It was only after seeing people "self diagnosing" that I asked the question "Why were they self diagnosing?". Then it dawned on me. Their doctors are not diagnosing it.

Then I finally suggested to my current psychiartrist that I had Aspergers. And he agreed. Get it? A patient can rattle on about a single topic for ten years in a doctors office and the penny doesnt drop. Yes it seems kind of rediculous to me too.

Adults and children with Asperger's do not understand how to interact socially.

Most of the research focuses on children with ASDs; there is not nearly the information for those who have grown and adapted. I've spoken to a number of doctors who agree that it is the most likely, Occam's Diagnosis as it were, but none feel comfortable writing the diagnosis because they simply do not know enough. Some people have lived their lifetimes before ever hearing about these conditions, and adapted before they were formalized into the diagnostic structure. I discovered the spectrum when my son was diagnosed; it was through reading and trying to learn more about him that I discovered that my own childhood mirrored that which an AS child experiences, beyond a sense of coincidence. I researched online, took several of the surveys and questionnaires available, and asked for feedback from those who have known me since childhood to get an external observation. Please, consider that you risk dismissing those who have invested time in their understanding, and whether due to age, financial constraints, location, availability of experts and their own choice to pursue or self-identify when you trivialize their experiences.

And yes - people do claim ADD untested for their children at time. It doesn't make it right, but at the same time the drive to understand the distinction between the two has served a positive effect as the criteria is further refined and treatments developed and reconsidered.


M.

To the OP:

For myself, what qualifies me to self-diagnose is a lifetime of pain and confusion that no test could account for. I know myself better than any doctor ever could and I agree with those who've said that they KNOW they have ASD, no matter what you or anyone else might think. I don't see how those of us who choose to remain "undiagnosed" could make a mockery of a "true condition" (which, by the way, may or may not even be a "true" condition). I want proof from the OP that the undiagnosed Aspies are making life more difficult for the diagnosed Aspies. Or was this just a way to pit us against one another? Not like we get enough discrimination from NT society. Now we're picking on each other. Nice.

Anyone with ASD, anyone that has any sense, imo would never dream of "romanticizing" the disorder. Just because I haven't been to the dr. to confirm what I already know--indeed, what everyone closest to me already knows and wholeheartedly confirms-- does not mean I am prone to romanticizing my ASD. To me, there is NOTHING romantic about it. To me, it is still a tragedy which has all but ruined my life and which has caused me to fall into a deep depression since I became aware of what was wrong. This is a fate I can NEVER escape and I, for one, would give almost anything to be free of it. I would give away all my creativity, my intelligence and my "specialness" (or whatever we call ourselves to make ourselves feel better) up in a heartbeat if I could be a NT and understand what they do. I hate being this way, I can't say it enough. Don't you presume to tell me that I'm "romanticizing" it. Don't you dare think you can take this pain away from me just because I don't have some note on my medical chart. If it were that easy, reading your post would have opened my eyes and lifted a huge weight off of me. Unlucky for us both that was not the case.

Also, don't you even allow yourself to think that there might be valid reasons why some of us choose to remain undiagnosed? Have you never overheard or read what NT society thinks about us? The way they stand back and stereotype us? My reason for not getting a "real" diagnosis is that I'm truly afraid of being identified as an Aspie...it could keep me from getting a job, getting insurance, adopting children, holding public office. It could be made public and then get thrown in my face when I want to do something important. I have no criminal record, I'm a wife and mom, and I try to live as much like an NT as possible. What if everyone knew about my disorder and all the disadvantages that go along with it? About the sometimes severe depression, the difficulty with socializing, the lack of empathy, the way I have to force myself just to feel sometimes. People would assume the worst about me, they would misinterpret me more than they already do and I cannot have that. What if I make a mistake and the law judges me unfit to parent my child because I have this personality disorder or a neurological disorder? Maybe that's being paranoid, but that is who I am, like it or not.

How do you know what kind of research I've done before I "self-diagnosed"? How can you just assume that I just took some internet quiz and decided to call myself an Aspie? How do you know what my mother knows about me? What my son and husband know? Do you think I, or any of us, just thought it would be cute to have an excuse for being the way we are? I've done my homework. I've tried to think of something--anything else besides ASD. I know what is wrong with me and I don't give a damn if you can accept that or not. It's not your life. People can teach themselves social skills by reading books or by talking with others who have the knowledge they need. They can figure out whether they're aspie or not, for the most part, the same way.

I think YOU are full of it and if I wanted to scream all day long about getting special treatment for my "disorder" I would, and there's not a damn thing you could do about it but sit there and complain. NTs wouldn't differentiate between you and me anyway. Believe it. And btw, just so YOU know--I never EVER "scream about getting special treatment". I don't want special treatment. I desperately want to be like every other NT. I have finished school with honors, gone to college, held a job for many years, have dated, been married, am a parent and a contributing member of my community. I DON'T want a diagnosis because I DON'T want to be treated differently. I don't want people looking at me with pity or making things easier for me. I already feel like I'm damaged in some way, I don't want anyone else to think of me as damaged. Precisely why I am undiagnosed. Maybe you can think about that before you make such blanket statements about a whole group of people you don't understand. Ironic that on THIS forum I have to tell you that.

Well, as I am one of those self DXed, I will again recite my life history and leave it open to the readers speculation.

When I was in kindergarten the school administration wanted to hold me back for another year by virtue of the fact that I was unable to skip. My parents went to the school and successfuly pleaded that I be advanced. Durring the following year, (1968) was the presedential election between Nixon and Humphrey. For some reason it was vitaly important to me that Nixon won. I stayed up all that November night as Walter Cronkite reported the precinct returns as they came in. At about 6:00 AM my parents woke up and wondered wtf I was still doing up watching TV. After I gave the rundown on the status of the election, they must have thought: wow we have a strange six year old.

Durring the summer between first and second grade, my parents moved from the midwest to Texas. That year in school we watced a PBS book review on Walter Farley's "The Black Stallion". I was captivated, and requested my parents get that book for me for Christmas. My parents discussed this with my teacher, a kindly woman in her fifties with many years of teaching under her belt, and it was recomended that they not give me that book, as it was beyond my reading level and would cause me to get discouraged or disinterested in reading. None the less, my parents relented and I received that book for Christmas. By the end of the school year I had devowered the entire Black Stalion series. That same teacher, although not a clinician, asertained during that year that I was learning disabled, and should be placed in special education. Consequently, I was sent to a pediatric shrink, who after administering a battery of tests including a "Wisconson" IQ test which I scored 165, determined that I was "gifted" and recomended placement in advanced classes, a concept that was relatively new at the time. My parents felt that I already had an arrogant attitude, and that placing me in a class for "gifted" kids would merely serve to exacerbate that self image, thus demured. Therefore I remained in standard and ultimately remedial classes throughout my public school years.

Before I move on chronologicly, I'd like to note that I was playing chess at the age of four, I have many memories from what would seem impossable ages. I clearly remember when Kennedy was shot, although not with any meaning or context, just the event and the effect it had on my family. I was thirteen months old at the time. From grade school on through high school I would regail my Dads friends with economic theory, opinions on foreign relations, the latest developments in science, etc. His friends, amazed that this kid was talking way over their heads, would ask "where does he get this stuff from?". My Dad's stock answer was "I get my 'U.S. News & World Report' a week late, after he's done with them".

Another perhaps unusual patern of behavior I exhibited when young was; as an only child, and already shunned by most of my peers, I was very into G.I. Joes. I had a huge collection and would devise these huge adventures using every accessory in my collection. My collection was so large that it was impossable to complete the adventure in one day, so therefore I would start over again the next day. I also had a peculiar affinity for certain clothes. I would routinely wear a matching sweat shirt and Sears toughskin long pants in 100 degree plus Farenheight weather in Texas. I was often refered to as "having a memory like an elephant".

The next chapter is middle school. By this point my oddities had become strikingly apparrent to my peers. This was in no way helped by the fact that my mother did, indeed, dress me funny. I was not even aware of this fact untill nineth grade, while in a try out for a play, a tenth grade girl who I had the hots for, announced that I looked like I stepped out of the Sears catalog. These years were particularly brutal for me. I was beat up on a regular basis, and to add insult to injury, I was ALWAYS made out to be the villian. Not only did I get beat up, I got in trouble for getting beat up! If I fought back, I got in worse trouble. It had to be my fault I was told, people don't just beat people up for no reason. It was my attitude I was told. I asked what that meant, but of course no one could give me an answer. My parents even threatened me with military school. I, recognising that the structure and rigid discipline, (not to mention horseback riding and other extracuricular activities), was exactly what I needed was extatic. Unfortunately, my parents decided that the cost of military school was beyond their means so I remained to whither within the public prison, er..school system. Throughout much of middle school I did without lunch because it was much easier to give up my lunch money to the bully than to have to put up with the double humiliation of getting beat up physicaly by my peers and then getting beat up verbally by the adults.

I had been a very emotional child. Durring these years I began a lifelong habit of supressing my emotions as a survival tactic. I had to, the cry baby gets beat up all the more and then laughed at because of it. I began to quash my emotions as a means of maintaining self dignity. My assessment was emotion=pain and bad, logic=reason and good.

For a bit of lightness among this sordid tale, in the five part Youtube series on Kim Peek the real rainman, thre is a scene in which his father is dressing him for an event. Kim, at one point, is lying rigid on the bed while his father puts his socks on him. My mother did this very thing with me well into middle school. In all fairness however, I did sleep like the dead up untill well into my thirties, and it was the only way she could get me ready for school.

High school is where I came into my own. I had joined the drama club and found a eccentric clicque that was more or less accepting of my oddities, at least more so than I had experienced at the time. I rapidly learned that I had no particular gift for acting, so I became obsessed with stage craft. Lighting in particular was of great interest to me. I spent most of four years in one way or another devoting every waking moment to stage craft. I volenteered at every theatrical venue in town. I eventually worked at every theatre in the town to include gigs with the stage hands local. I knew I had found my nitch in life. Unfortunately, other things in my life were not faring too well at the time. I had started drinking regularly in nineth grade, and soon was known as the school drunk in a school of 4000 kids. Prety much everybody else was a pothead at the time, so it wasn't realy that big of a deal. This was the seventies. Also, my parents were having marital problems by this time, so I was largely free to do as I pleased. My school performance suffered greatly! I would routinely score close to 100% on tests, but daily work seemed to be such a waste of time. I reasoned that I was clearly meeting the intent of school, that is to learn, but the fact that I was still flunking proved that the system was stupid. During my second time in the eleventh grade, I was caught for the second time drunk on campus and caught for the second time with illegal copys of the keys to the school district. I was given the option of dropping out or expulsion. Well, I CAN take a hint. I dropped out, got drunk, and went to see the Navy recruiter. Yes, that day, and yes drunk.

Bear in mind that this was near the end of the Carter administration, post Vietnam, all volenteer service, and the military was not too popular at the time. Recruiters were finding it impossable to meet their quotas, pretty much anyone who could fog a mirror was fair game. I had scored a 97 out of a possable 99 on the ASVAB and was told that if I would get a GED I would be eligible for any program in the Navy except nuclear power. I easily passed the GED exams with high marks and was pressed into the advanced electronics field. I felt this would be useful in my carreer goal of stage lighting. I went through my schools with consistantly high marks although not with out disciplinary problems caused in large part by my drinking. I became a submarine missile technician working on the C-4 Trident ICBM. I went to five captains masts, all for minor infractions like ten minutes late. It was certainly not to my advantage that I had pissed off my captain by kicking him out of the missile compartment for jogging in a high radiation area. It was my job to do so, it just wasn't the politicly correct or smartest thing to do.

When I got out of the service, I was not exactly a sterling candidate for a professional position. Although I tried, I was routinely dismissed from those interviews I got with claims that they were looking for someone with experience on their particular equipment. By default, I ended up working as an electrician. I could easily fill a single spaced page with a list of jobs I have held in my life. I even lived in a labor hall for three months as a "rent a drunk".

Through my twentys and thirties, at approxamitly seven year intervals, my repressed emotions would well up and I would go through periods that I can only describe as psycotic. It was during one of these episodes when I was twentyfive that I met the lady who would become my wife. That she and I remained together for the fifteen years prior to marriage I can only attribute to Divine intervention.

I largely quit drinking at about the age of thirty and thus began the long ardous process of growing up. Today I earn a good, (although spotty), income, have been very hapily married for seven years come January, and should completely own my own very modest home within a few years, even though we only bought it six years ago. If you were to drive by my house, the only thing that would at all mitigate the assumption of poor white trash would be the two relatively new Hondas in the driveway. I have untold partialy completed projects all over. My house could well be declared a disaster area. I have no friends, or more acuratly, I don't know if I have any friends. No one outside of family calls, and I don't bother to call anyone either. I just don't know if the gesture would be wanted. When anyone tells me that I'm liked I'm generaly incredulous. I am told I have "space" problems. I have a strong tendency toward pacing and chain smoking. I find eye contact difficult and always have. I must have a procedure for everything, right down to taking a shower and yes, boiling water. I am inclined to count in my head. I can waste an entire day trying to decide what to have for breakfeast. I have two cats. I have webbed toes. Most of the "You might be an aspie if" statements ring true. On the aspie quiz I scored AS=126 of 200; NT=80 of 200; You are very likely an Aspie. People always misread what I say. I've been wrongfuly accused of all manor of misdeeds. I could go on and on and on.

I had never even heard of Aspergers syndrome untill about four years ago when my wife saw something on tv about it and said thats my husband. I poo pooed it as pop psycology untill about two years ago when I was having troubles at work with one of the nicest people I know. The things he accused me of are so ridiculous I was absolutely bewildered. It was then I started looking for wtf is wrong with me. When I came upon AS it was like I was hit with a ton of bricks. I kept reading my life story in someone elses words, people who do weird stuff that I thought only I did. When I thought of autisim, I thought of some moron screaming kid. I'm sorry, but that is what I thought. I would never have associated it with myself.

I see a shrink every two years for an unrelated reason. The clinician routinely notes my "good eye contact". What that person doesn't know is how much effort is required on my part to pull off that ruse. If I wanted a DX I'm quite sure I am intelligent enough to get one, or conversely to evade one.

I can tell you one thing I am definately not looking for is pity! I would be nice though, if every now and then I might get a little respect for what little success I have achieved and having come this far without eating a bullet. That someone might actually listen to what I have to say, and consider my opinion as having value would be wonderful.

Well, there it is dear reader. You may evaluate as you see fit. You are entiteled to your opinion as am I mine. As for as I am concerned I have AS.

Last edited by NOBS on 22 Aug 2009, 3:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

I now have a formal diagnosis, but I was self-diagnosed for several years, long before I was even referred for formal testing.

NOBS - from one Alaskan to another... well written, well said.


M.

That means a lot to me. Thank you.

It appears that this is a sore subject for most.

Unless you have a diagnosis, you have no confirmed psychological issues. No amount of long ranting posts about how you were bad in school, liked politics and got drunk alot will convince anyone you have AUTISM. The next time you make the excuse "sorry I dont have empathy because I have Asperger's, or "sorry please excuse me for being self centered, its the autism" follow that up with this: but Ive never been diagnosed. Im sure none of you would, because then you wouldnt get the attention you seek and might have to start taking responsibility for your life and failures with others instead of blaming a non-existant condition.

Get real. Get over it. Get a diagnosis or stop calling yourself Autistic to make excuses for your failiures in life.

If I ever met one of you and you treid to tell me this, I WOULD believe you had mental issues, but more of a dellusional type not Autism.

You know, I'm offended by this post. Talk about self centered? This post exemplifies that. Ironically, it's also a bit on the delusional side.
Not everyone who has AS is the super genius who starts their own multibillion dollar corporation because of their advanced programming skills and business sense. Not everyone has the "social skills" that opens up doors to a casting agent's office in Hollywood so they can act in movies and have careers as stars. Not all of us sparkle as comedians, either. We aren't all brilliant singer/songwriters. There was only one Einstein. after all.
People don't care about every special interest in existence. They don't want to hear about it. They don't clap their hands and praise each and every one of us as brilliant ETs that speak an evolved language and can save the earth. That's the reality. You can have an above average intelligence, be polite and STILL not be in demand and end up unwanted by other people.
Some of us have actually experienced secondary issues associated with AS and it's an actual condition and it's very real, not an "excuse".
Just because one person's autism is not an issue doesn't mean everyone's isn't. It's posts like yours that confuse people about what autism is.
If you have had an easy life, good for you. Remember, not everyone shares your good fortune.
Not everything is an "excuse".

Last edited by ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo on 22 Aug 2009, 10:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

<3 to Ana for that response.

Do you honestly believe that calling out the people who claim autism, but dont actually have it is celf centered? You are offended possibly because you are living your life behind a label of Autism to get sympathy when you dont even have it?

This would be like me telling people I have cancer because of a lump but I never get it biopsied and diagnosed. Its an attention ploy. It doesnt work in the real world, the minute you mention to anyone you are autistic by your own diagnostic expertise...you are deemed a dillusional idiot.

Autistic people simply would not be offended by this post. Its the ones who claim they are autistic but havent been deemd it by a medical professional who are.

Last edited by aspieconfirmed on 22 Aug 2009, 10:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

Assumptions are enraging. It would be very kind and considerate of you to stop assuming things that you have absolutely no evidence of. Thanks.

I've seen the perspective voiced by the OP here before by others officially diagnosed. I wonder why the OP feels so territorial about it? Try to be honest with yourself. People recognizing their aspieness after years of pain and confusion take nothing away from you. I don't know that I have Asperger's. It all depends on interpretation and degree. What I do know is I am on the spectrum somewhere. I am not the only one who felt overwhelmed emotionally upon realizing they weren't the only one who struggled and didn't know why. I see a psychiatrist on a sliding scale for meds management. I asked her about a diagnosis and she very honestly said she didn't feel she was qualified. My son is diagnosed and I know more about it than his psychiatrist.