Should i tell my shrink i am autistic

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Do you actually WANT friends?

Well, I don't agree with the sentiment that you are either autistic or you aren't. Are you telling me that people with Asperger are more similar to profoundly ret*d non verbal autistics than to NT-s? If you simply say that both aspies and profound autistics have the same underlying abnormality, I can make a similar argument in the opposite direction: aspies and NTs share the same "abnormality" (NT-ness) that makes neither of them get along with severe autistics; aspies simply have milder form of NT-ness, but it is NT-ness nonetheless.

Also, what about people with the newly-introduced label of social communication disorder? Seeing that this diagnosis is completely separate from autism spectrum according to DSM 5, are you saying they aren't autistic? But aspies are? All because in DSM 4 they did things slightly different than in DSN 5?

In any case, I am not saying experts are wrong. I am saying that whether someone is autistic or not is a subjective question without right or wrong answer. Its a spectrum that goes from the most severe people to the good old introverts that are half the population. Since you don't want to diagnose half the population, you got to draw the line somewhere. And where you draw it is entirely subjective.

To put it in scientific terms, if a disorder is based on single chromosome, such as Dawns, then yes you either have it or you don't. But autism doesn't involve one specific gene, but rather a combination. Since genes combine independently of each other, there is no way autistics will have the whole combination; they would just have some parts of it. So different autistics might have different genetic abnormality altogether, but they are both called autistic die to similar phenotype. In case of Williams syndrome, whose symptoms are also similar to autism, they didn't include it in the spectrum because they have proven its genetically distinct. Well, who knows maybe different disorders on autism spectrum ate genetically distinct from each other just as much, but nobody knows it since nobody found their genetics to begin with.

As far as what you said about a treatment for misdiagnosed condition having bad effects, that would be a good treason to stay away from such treatments altogether. I, for one, would never agree to take any psychiatric meds, regardless of diagnosis. I do go for counselling though. Or are you saying counselling can also do a harm for misdiagnosed condition? Please tell me if that's what you meant so that I can decide whether or not to quit counseling. I mean, if the counselor says the truth, how can the truth be harmful, regardless of diagnosis? Or if the counselor lies, why would you willingly allow someone to deceive you, just for the sake of therapeutic effects of said decease.

(PS: regarding the long posts here about getting diagnosis, this is not the subject of this thread nor my aim, thank you)

I would, as it is more helpful.. but it is up to your personal preference on whether to do so... Good luck!!

As I posted earlier, my response is yes. However I suggest you plan for her follow-up questions about how your awareness has developed over time, and what you feel about this now, what your hopes and fears are relating to it.

Make the answers as concise and to the point as possible, capturing the most important factors for you. Too much detail and your message may get lost in "noise". At that early stage of the discussion, it's crucial to make the message as clear as possible I think, especially if you are dealing with an NT shrinker who has no inside knowledge of life lived on the spectrum. She may have academic knowledge about it (or not) or have been influenced by psychiatric myths, who knows; but that doesn't confer knowledge of what it's like to walk in your shoes, as an individual, living your life.

So I hope that she is one of ones who has the ability to see the big picture and not the narrow diagnostic black and white view.

^^^Thank you. I did not even anticipate she would ask questions, but of course she will and those questions are actually quite probable.

^^^I do not "see a psychologist to help her" I am seeing the psychologist because I need and want help of course.

I do want adapted help, I have already made a list of my problems for her (obviously all autism-related). Maybe it is good to tell her I am sure I have autism. Otherwise, we will stand together speaking about the elephant all the time but never naming the elephant. So weird.

Knowing myself for 38 years doesn't make me an expert in autism indeed but makes me able to recognize myself in autism (having previously made all other possible tests before finding out). I have met and read enough about NTs to know what differentiates them to me.

I did not score 40, I scored "more than 40".

Best wishes as well.

I think I will insist that I do not want confirmation from anybody that I am autistic. (hope she will understand I don't want a diagnosis)

I will also not take any medication she would propose me because, I don't know if true, but some would prescribe medicines that reduces fertility or stuff like that, because they would be afraid that disabled people invade the world, kind of eugenics.