Is it possible that I've been misdiagnosed?

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I really wan't an opinion from other people with my supposed disorder. I was diagnosed with aspergers syndrome, now called Autism spectrum disorder in high school, by a psychologist but I don't suffer from certain symptoms and it makes me wonder if I have a real disorder or am just a very weird socially challenged person. To start I feel I must list my symptoms which led to the disorder.

Unusual Symptoms

1. I have always been extremely socially challenged. I don't know exactly why this is, it seems like other human beings are somehow different from me. It's like a radio but their personalities, their way of thinking, their way of behaving is on a different station than I'm on. This forum is called wrong planet and I can honestly say that I've for the bulk of my life felt as if I was on the wrong planet. People by which I mean people my age have said of my social skills when I'm talking to them that I either act mean, "ret*d" or "creepy." When I was in school I could start a conversation with someone off pretty normal with them at first and then all of the sudden out of the blue they would start making fun of me for no reason. I did make some friends but they were usually social outcasts or people who did not treat me well in their friendship. As I have gotten older, gotten therapy, and medication for my problems I have improved in this regard though that may be because I only interact with my physiologists and people close to me. I've often found it easier through my life to get along with older people or people that are really young like children. It should be noted that my weirdness was tolerated by my peers in elementary school but the relentless torment and social ostracizing became horrible in middle and high school.

2. Before I got my medicine and therapy I use to have interests that while they were not unusual in focus, were unusual in intensity. My interests were normal interests that a child might have, comic book superheroes, animals, Pokemon, wrestling, they were normal but my intense and pervasive focus on these interests were unusual. These interests were literally followed to the exclusion of everything else. My conversations with people would always be one sided conversations which would get old to the other person very fast. I did as much research and consumed as much material on these subjects as humanly possible. I couldn't focus in the class room because I would constantly daydream about these things in class and really struggled in middle and high school because of this. These interests which were unhealthily obsessive would last about a year or three and my focus would shift to another all consuming interest. It got to the point that some people I hanged out with in elementary school stopped playing with me because all I would talk about was my interest. I don't get these obsessive interests anymore since I've been on my medicine which I suspect is a result of the OCD capsules I take.

The third major symptom I have which I don't know if it points to aspergers but has definitely caused me my share of issues is that I have this bad habit of pacing around my house even now in my adulthood and... this is really hard to describe if you've haven't seen it but I pace around my house and make weird movements like a maniac and for some reason throw a stick high in the air and catch it all the while talking to myself out loud. When my psychiatrist saw this on video he quickly diagnosed me with OCD on top of Autism Spectrum disorder. I usually pace around the house when theres hot weather outside but do the same thing in my house when theres cold weather. I don't know why I feel compelled to do this and though it has lessened a bit with my medication, I still do it, it just feels good. When I was really little I used to do the same thing in my closet jumping up and down from the counter in the closet holding my toy flamingo pacing. When I'm in a grocery store or am still to long I start pacing in circles and according to my mother I get weird looks from the people inside the store. I also did this weird thing where I'd flap my hands back in forth in a jerking motion without realizing it. I don't do that anymore since the medication but still it was weird. I think OCD is a good label for this disorder because I would get these really weird invasive thoughts that I couldn't really control and I'd repeat weird phrases that for one reason or another I'd taken to saying over in over again to feel right. If I didn't say those phrases like that over and over again I didn't feel right. I also funnily enough rocked back and forth without realizing it so there's that.

4. The small personality traits for which I have which are consistent with aspergers is definitely a rigid thought process. When I was younger and still now to a great extent I had an extremely rigid black and white logical freaky computer man. I had my opinions of politics, morality, religion, and ethics which were perfectionist, quite extreme in an unconventional in their beliefs and completely informed by my sense of logic. For example I took that black and white thing to a dogmatic level, I literally believed that morality was black and white and that there was no grey area in between, that the lesser of two evils by the laws of utilitarianism was in fact a good, I could have killed a man for the greater good back then and felt nothing and the many students who surrounded me in high school in fact believed I would and believed I was a literal psychotic. This wasn't the normal rigid thinking of a well person, my opinions were almost to me as the biblical word of God was to Christians (I should point out that I am a Christian and mean no disrespect to my brothers through the following statements). If someone challenged my logic or my way of thinking, it was to me like someone declaring the earth to be flat or the sun to be orbiting around the earth, it just wasn't possible. When someone would challenge my logic I would usually have a literal meltdown and argue and scream and lose my temper to the degree that I would be sent out of class for my actions. It became such a running joke to the people at my school that people would intentionally say things that clashed with my belief system just to watch me go crazy as a spectacle for their friend. This was not limited to my peers either as I directed these tantrums toward my teachers as well and got suspended a few times for it. It even, I'm sad to say extended to my mother who's the most irrational erratic person on earth and I've had terrible horrible spats with her that I'm not proud of.

4. I've always had a vocabulary which was way to far advanced than it ever had any business being and adults were always delighted and found it cute that I spoke in a manner resembling an encyclopedia article. When I was in forth grade no joke, I had a twelfth grade reading level and that was probably because twelfth grade was as high as the test would take it. My mother tells me that I literally started speaking at nine months old and I've always had an unusually high vocabulary. My voice they tell me is monotone, my brother compares my speaking patterns to Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang theory and the other kids used to mock me for my "Dale Gribble voice." Dale Gribble is the conspiracy theorist from King of the Hill.

5. Growing up I never hit all the milestones that other children hit and now am not reaching the milestones other adults reach. I can't ride a bike, I can't drive, I can't cook, I can't do my own banking, I've never worked, and I basically rely on my parents for everything though I can swim pretty well. I've also always had terrible coordination and have been clumsy never being able to balance myself on a bike (the reason I can't ride it). I'm always tripping and running over walls and things. My mother used to scold me as a child for for walking funny. I never swung my arms, sometimes it would appear clumsy the way I walked but I've since improved in these departments. On a weirder note I've always chewed on things since I was little eating my school IDs, eating wholesale my pencils, eating my toy flamingo, chewing my shirts to where they'd be ruined. I think the medical term for this is Peeko. I've always had sleeping problems never being able to get comfortable in my bed and staying up whole nights in pursuing my interests so I don't sleep well.My handwriting is absolutely horrible

If I listed everything about me that was abnormal, this would be very long so these are just the symptoms which stand out to me.

Symptoms of Aspergers I don't have

1. Alright so this is my problem. A lot of people with aspergers are not able to read peoples faces or their body language and miss sarcasm. I once saw a video for helping children with aspergers which showed pictures of people smiling and frowning and glaring and just the bare basic emotions and asking them to identify them correctly as "sad", "mad", and "happy". Yeah, needless to say I can recognize these and most if not all of the basic facial emotions and can do so quite easily. I can understand sarcasm, and I think I can understand body language pretty well. I don't know if I can read deeper more complex body language or facial expressions but I think I can. I also have empathy not in the sense that I can put myself in another shoes easily (because I literally can't) but I can feel sorry for someone who's had a bad time. I know that breakups are hard, I know that losing ones' job is bad, I know cancer is horrible and I feel very bad for the other person. I have empathy I can sense many social cues, and I can read faces and body language... these are very big and standard symptoms for autism spectrum disorder, they're probably in the top five. I also am not a stickler to routines. While I do prefer to eat the same thing at a restaurant or sit in the same place at a school I really don't care about routine and actually do enjoy doing spontaneous things as long as they're rational to do.

So, does the fact that I lack some of these basic symptoms mean that I could have been misdiagnosed?

Did you do any autism tests? Was it a autism specialist who diagnosed you?


I don't see how you can be misdiagnosed, you don't need every symptom and also AS and autism were both separate diagnoses then so it wouldn't have been a misdiagnoses if you don't fit the new ASD criteria. Times were different then.

As for reading body language, I can read simple ones and how do you know for sure you are good at it? I used to think I could read it well but several people around me have told me I have a hard time with it. Also lack of empathy has been debunked for autism in 2009.

But even if you don't have AS or autism, you do have something. OCD being one of them.

Here is one of the articles:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... heory.html


Do you experience too much empathy for someone? Can you feel other peoples emotions you feel overwhelmed by it?

Is your dad clearly on the spectrum too or do you wonder the same about him?

From the info you've shared it sounds to me like you are very much on the spectrum. I think the view that people with autism don't have empathy stops a lot of people from realising or seeking a diagnosis. As League_Girl mentioned this has been disproven but many people still think this is true.

I am quite good at reading body language and facial expressions, if they are conveying strong emotions. Though I'm not totally sure if I'm more picking up on the emotional atmosphere than the body language. I've done body language/face blindness tests and they all frustrated me because you could easily identify the emotion based on other things, like the actual words they were saying. Also I could recognise faces because they'd use the exact same photo and you could tell from the background/pose etc.

The only difficulty I had with these tests was when the emotions or facial expressions were subtle or in some group situations, then I didn't have a clue.

From skimming through your original post, I would think that you would be Autistic. I am decent at reading facial expressions and body language and I am Autistic. Many Autistic people can read basic facial expressions and know some body language.

You sound a lot like me. I'm sure you can tell I like pokemon. I have my own fantasy world revolving around pokemon. I don't see why you doubt it autism tends not to come completely the Autistics that tend to score higher on test like AQ and ASQ in theory would have the most symptoms, but there is a point in confusing what symptoms you have and don't have. I've always been thoroughly obsessed with one topic both unusual focus and intensity. My Interest I tend to know more about it then people who we're around when it started. I research for hours till there isn't much left to research. I know everything about Pokemon, from it's religon to how it started. I know that Mew is the ancestor of all non-legendary pokemon. I know that Arceus is the creator and he made Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina shortly after awaking. It don't suprise me either. I have had a high level vocabulary for a very long time, I had a College level vocabulary as long as I can remember. I remember most things since I was two. Infact my Seventh grade teacher called me her "Little Genius". In fact Autism is one of those interests. I've been researching it a few months before I first joined wrong planet. The only reason you wouldn't get diagnosed would be because you say nothing of SPD. Though Autism doesn't need SPD. It's a Combination of OCD, SPD, SCD, with Special interests or obsessions. That is what we call them around here. You sound alot like me.

One of the biggest issues with being on the spectrum is that if you know one Aspie, you only know one Aspie--the next one will have his or her own set of strengths and weaknesses.

It is quite possible to have sensory issues, but not really know about them because you are lucky enough to have a low stress environment. But, if you have a bunch of other issues happening at once, you might suddenly realize that yes, sensory issues are part of the mix--just not on a regular basis.

You are good at reading faces now but what about as a child?

Don't know if double posting is allowed so forgive me if it isn't but I checked out the collection of scientific tests for autism and took the AQ and the Cambridge face recognition test.

My score for the AQ test was 33, one point above the suspected autism line, and I got a five on the face blindness test when the average is eight.

This at least argues for me suffering from aspergers or autism like symptoms and is in favor of my diagnosis.