Why Do So Many Desire An Aspergers Diagnosis?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm in the UK and new here. I read your initial post and haven't had time to read all the replies yet.

I would personally answer the question as asking my own. Have you ever lived through life not understanding why people get annoyed with you, dislike you, make you feel like a freak? Then one day a doctors sells you about apsergers and says he thinks you have it but he can't legally diagnose you with Aspergers, but will have to refer you. You then read up about Aspergers and it explains you whole childhood, your teenage life and then your adult life. Finally someone understands what you've been goig though. You then return to the doctor and he says that you local health authority is refusing to pay for a diagnosis. You realise you kids have it too, because they run round like mini mes! The doctors then tell you that your children don't have it because people with Aspergers don't have a life after diagnosis, they can't learn anything and apparently can't talk either.

You're left thinking that doctor we saw was an idiot. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

The question is which doctor do you pick????

I've chosen the doctor who changed my life for the better, even though he can't give me a diagnosis just help.

So yup I have to list myself as self diagnosed, and so do my chldren, until one day another doctor listens and helps.

Maybe I'm wrong maybe I'm right. All I know is my children and need help and no one seems to care. so we just struggle through life.

I have an autistic friend who is a social butterfly. He talks to lot of people, calls lot of people on the phone and just talks, contacts random people online and starts talking. He isn't shy at all and he always has the nerve to do it not even fearing about what if he comes off wrong or what if someone thinks he is harassing them. Yeah he has gotten crap from people so he is bitter about it but it doesn't stop him from talking to new people fearing what if the same thing happens again. He talks about different stuff not just his special interests. But I think basically everything he talks about is part of his special interests but he has a lot. So it never gets tiring to hear about it. He talks about different stuff a lot so even if he mentions the same stuff, it never gets old. He does not talk about one thing over and over.

Your problem, NotCrazy, is that you flew in here bearing a basket full of preconceived ideas about autism and threw out the same crap many of us have heard all of our lives. You further damaged your credibility by wondering why you were received with attitudes ranging from skepticism, contempt and even open hostility. Well DUH!

You came into OUR house talking trash and what you got is a lot of push back.

So now you have a choice. You can forget EVERYTHING you think you know about autism, take a seat at the table and learn what is is and what is does to people, or you can take your wounded pride, walk away and continue to live in ignorance.

Or he can continue to spout the same insulting garbage and continue to pretend not to understand why anyone might take offense ).

Based on his posts so far, my money is on the option I just gave.

OMG, you said it well!!

What you think everyone can afford to go get an official diagnosis? I already tried getting on SSI so I could maybe get that official diagnoses but the trouble is you kind of need to have already gotten the official diagnoses to be approved...and then comes the whole issue of not being able to afford it because healthcare is f*cking expensive. But yeah I kind decided to hell with all that.......I'll just do what I gotta do and hopefully that will work out. So yeah I am self diagnosed and a counseler I was going to agrees with it... though I am not 100 positive that it is AS I have and not something else.

Healthcare really seems unjustifiably expensive. Wait, what? Because the doctors want to drive a new BMW every year? Sorry, that's doesn't sound justifiable.

It's really not even the doctors themselves that are the problem a lot of the time......its the health insurance companies and pharmacutical companies who more or less own our healthcare system. Its set up horribly.....I mean if I should face a medical emergency then I would probably be screwed out of more money then I have ever even seen and have no way of coming up with all because I cannot even afford to pay for health insurance.

To me 4,000 dollars is a lot of money......yes that is how much is in my account left over from the loans/grants for college and it is all i have until at least august and that is the most money I have ever seen in my account.

. Same

I was quoted roughly $1200 for an adult diagnosis in Australia. Private health insurance pays about $50 out of a $180 consult.

But to me thats worth it, to get an explanation for why things have happened in my life, why I'm so different, and I've got to a point in my life where I just need answers. I've probably spent more than that seeing psychs for anxiety and depression over the years anyway. I can afford it as I have a good job, but for the unemployed\students - there aren't many options.

A diagnosis would be most comforting. First appointment is next week.

I was diagnosed with aspergers when I was 5 1/2 years old. I am now 27. Back then, autism/aspergers was not a very common diagnosis. My parents brought me to many clinicians. They fought very hard to keep me out of a special class because they didn't want me to be considered "different" from my peers. I am grateful for them for allowing me to just be a kid without any special services. I turned out just fine. Perhaps people are quick to make a "self-diagnosis" of aspergers because autism appears to be the new "in thing" to be diagnosied with now. Just like in the early 90's when ADD was the new "in thing" and all of a sudden people were saying they had it. It appears many of these diagnoses can overlap with eachother making a definitive diagnosis nowadys harder than before. Pretty soon the DSM will be full of so many disorders that every single person on this earth will qualify for some sort of diagnosis.

Not everyone turns out fine. What works for you may not work for others. My lack of services in school was not helpful to me at all. I don't know whether you are suggesting that what worked for you should be generally fine (you didn't explicitly say so) but many have, and of course we all have different severity and problems.

Incidentally, I am not saying that getting services in school would have helped me - I don't know, since I didn't get them (well, not for more than a year).



It seems to me that most of the people I've come across who diagnose themselves with either or both ADHD and Asperger's syndrome have a lifetime of problems they are trying to make sense of. I have yet to encounter anyone who does it because they think it's "the" thing to do. Most of the people I've come across who self-diagnose with AS don't even seem to be the kind of people to really care all that much about the "in" thing.

Yeah - the 'IN' thing... that's what lured me. The fame, the glamor, the perks...

The reality looks more like disbelief, derision, exclusion, bias, prejudice and bully, at any age. Someone please explain to me why someone would WANT a disability.

There you go again being reasonable. You really need to stop that, we don't like your kind around here. [/sarcasm]

30, 40 or more years ago there was no chance of diagnosis. No help. Nothing.

I feel bad bringing up the issue of age (and I don't mean to tar everyone with the same brush) but you never see anyone over 30 accusing others of being a fraud because it's "cool" or the "in thing".

I usually don't respond to these kind of threads but those kind of attitudes make me angry. Statistically speaking I'm over half-way done with my life and to finally understand why and what I am...words can't describe what that means. I haven't turned out fine. Every day has been so very hard.

People on the forum only "appear to desire having Aspergers" to fools who don't take the time to look properly at what's going on. There is no DESIRE to have Aspergers!! - there's a DESIRE to make sense of what is and has been going on in people's lives - and if that amounts to being AS then it is what it is - but that's not the same as having a desire to have Aspergers!

I think you have a fundamental and TOTAL lack of understanding what Aspergers is. Those who end up "latching on" to AS are doing so because they recognise explainations in it's descriptives and information for the REAL - not imagined - not desired - but REAL - things that have been going on in their lives.

Pretenders won't and don't go far - because if they attempt to join the AS "community" they stand out very quickly - and "professionals" are quite good at identifying NT's - tho unfortunately they're not necessarily so good at identifying people with AS... (which explains why so many are hesitant to seek diagnosis - and also explains "doctor shopping" ).

As far as SEEKING diagnosis, your comments about people having motives such as wanting to get benefits etc. and referring to "doctor shopping" are IGNORANT and RUDE. If "the professionals" were as good as you seem to imply they are, then no amount of "doctor shopping" should ever yield an incorrect AS diagnosis, should it?? If you agree with me that "the professionals" are not infallible then you've answered your own OP question haven't you???

IMO if there was ironclad guarantee of ACCURATE diagnosis (EITHER way) AND complete confidentiality if so desired, then the vast majority of those who are currently self diagnosed would be there tomorrow - I would!. There would be those who fear a contrary assessment - because it would take away something that they've found to make sense of their lives - but I think the vast majority of those people would be fearing unnecessarily - as I've said before, those who don't have AS will NOT be making the sort of genuine connections required to feel that they actually have AS. I guess if an associated guarantee could be given that if AS isn't what a subject has then the ACTUAL condition or dysfunction would be ACCURATELY identified, then that would probably mop up the stragglers...

Last edited by Wooster on 01 Jul 2011, 1:01 am, edited 1 time in total.