They won't diagnose me?

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Hi everyone, I'm an 18 year old male and just found this site today. For the past couple of years I've suspected that I had Asperger's, and I've recently been doing a lot of research which has further convinced me. Nobody believes that I have Asperger's and the doctors I've talked to will not diagnose me with it.

Ever since I was a little kid, everyone knew I was unusual and had "problems". I would constantly pace, fidget, doodle, twitch, say words and phrases over and over again, and make odd noises and movements. It was impossible for me to sit still. I would spend hours poring over dictionaries, road maps, phone books, and lists of information, memorizing, categorizing, organizing. I've always had very poor social skills and difficulty with nonverbal communication and interpreting what other people were saying. I would always slouch over and stand or sit in odd positions that looked uncomfortable but felt natural to me. I don't do this anymore, but I have to deliberately force myself to stand, sit and walk in the "correct" way.

I've had frequent episodes my whole life, which feel like my brain is being overloaded with stressful thoughts and emotions all piling up. When I was a kid I would kick, scream and throw things. Now, I just feel like my mind goes blank and feel every single negative emotion at once, and I am unable to talk or think clearly for a few minutes. Now that I read about aspie meltdowns, I'm pretty convinced that's what these episodes were.

My parents have taken me to see many specialists over the years. I've been labelled as just about everything BUT Asperger's. Sensory processing issues, anger management problems, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, Tourette's, depression, ADHD, OCD, you name it. A few months ago, I asked my therapist if he thought I had Asperger's and he said "no way". More recently, my parents took me to a psychiatrist for help with anxiety and depression. I asked her if I had Asperger's and she said the same thing. I think this is because most of my aspie behaviors aren't apparent in that setting. With a lot of effort, I've managed to stop my fidgeting, twitching and odd postures, at least in public. I'm fine when it comes to oral presentations, talking in a clinical setting, or having a one on one conversation about a specific topic. But I'm painfully awkward when it comes to casual group discussions, small talk, and worst of all, flirting, a concept which I just can't wrap my head around.

What do you guys think of this? Should I press this more and try to get a diagnosis? Am I just overthinking it? Does it even matter? Sorry if this post was too long. That's another problem I have: the inability to be concise, which I think is also common with Asperger's.

You have some autistic traits. Whether they mean autism is anybody's guess. I do think they will probably respond to some of the same strategies as autistic people use to cope with them. It's likely enough that you are either on the spectrum, or one of the people hovering around the borders between autism and other sorts of atypical neurology.

The critical question here is whether the labels you have now will fulfill the needs you have. If you can get what you need as "ADHD/OCD/social anxiety/sensory disintegration disorder" rather than "autism", then you might not need to worry about it, unless you really want official validation of you as "autistic". If there are things you need that you can only get if you're recognized as "autistic" or something close to it, then pursue a second opinion; if not, then don't bother, because the labels you do have are close enough to get what you need, even if they aren't strictly correct.

If you want help with your problems, go into the General Autism forum here at WP. There is at least one post article with links to online tests you can take. Take the tests and save the results. Print out copies to take with you next time you see a psych doc. That should help the doc make a more informed diagnosis. Also tell the doc that you do what you can to mask some of the symptoms when out in public, which is probably why the doc has been dismissive of the possibility that you may be on the Autism/Asperger's spectrum up to now.

Just took the Aspie test because that seems to be the most popular and comprehensive. There's a lot of interesting stuff there, I'll get around to taking more of those tests soon.

Your Aspie score: 161 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 36 of 200
You are very likely as Aspie

There is the "self-diagnosis" option... that's something people do when they can't get a doctor, or can't get a doctor to do a serious evaluation. In your case, it might be an option. You wouldn't be running a lot of the risks of doing your own research and coming to your own conclusions regarding suspected autism--you have access to treatment, so the dangers of missing something important because you labeled yourself the wrong way aren't nearly as bad. If you really can't get a qualified doctor to evaluate you, there's nothing wrong with saying, "Well, look at this list of diagnoses--all of them together look an awful lot like autism; so I'm just going to simplify things and call it autism."

You can also try to go to someone who specializes in Autism within your area or perhaps someone here could make a recommendation.

These days, an MRI can detect Asperger's with over 90% accuracy, it's a test which takes 15 minutes.

Wooohooo. I didn't even know this existed. Wow.

Just from the wording you used I get the idea that you very much would like to pursue a diagnosis, if not consciously than at least subconsciously!
So you should seek out an expert on autism.

I got treatment from a psychiatrist specialized in personality disorders because I got 4 of those wrongly attributed.
After he drove me to suicide he got a colleague from the autism center and I was diagnosed after 2 hourly sessions with my mother and we both filled in a looooong list of questions.
Now I have the proper diagnosis AND the help that comes with it.

If you are experiencing problems; get the diagnosis made by an actual expert and get the help you DESERVE!! !
If an expert on ASD's says NO, well... then you just don't have it. Which is lucky for you, since it's likely something else, that is not PERMANENT...

I find that hard to believe. Do you have a source to back up such a bold claim?

Statistics which appear to simply illustrate a point can be very misleading. This article addresses this exact scan and the "90%" accurate statistic you speak of: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/ ... statistics

Above and beyond that, as far as I'm aware the results haven't been replicated by other teams so on top of the crappy use of statistics it may still be BS.

I just found this: http://singularityhub.com/2010/08/18/au ... can-video/ it references the following article which shows some issues with the reported figures: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/ ... statistics

Boiling it down the claim in the Guardian article says that although the test is 90% effective at identifying autism in known autistics. When applied to the general population it'll misdiagnose 20% of the general population with autism. So further screening and analysis will still be required.

As there is still a 10% margin of error on the test, it's not even effective as a confirmation tool. As MRIs are so expensive, it seems that this test is not useful. That's not to say it couldn't lead to a lower tech cheaper way of performing the same screening.

Jason

Thanks both for the links!
With the small sample sizes I don't think those numbers are accurate to just scale up to the entire human population, but there does seem to be some use for this scan as an additional tool for diagnosis.
But IMHO it would be a bad thing to just use this to pass judgement and/or alter diagnoses either way (e.g. to give out a diagnosis based mostly on the scan, or revoke a prior clinical diagnosis because the scan didn't find what it's "supposed" to find). After all, each individual is unique and the need for a diagnosis is based on suffering from the effects. If someone with an "autistic scan" is happy in life I still see a risk that professionals would start "treating", just because the MRI said so...