Do self-diagnosers ruin it for the rest of us?

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Just wondering--is it common for people not to know much about autism even with autistic people in the family? If so, the doctors have even more explaining to do than I thought. On the other hand, you mentioned not knowing them well, so maybe you grew up separately from your brother?

Like thank you notes for a gift that was given in person. You gave it to me and I thanked you. You have been thanked. Doesn't it seem arrogant to demand I thank you in writing, not to mention a waste of money and natural resources?

Ok, but referring back to my post on page two what benefit (from the ADA or otherwise) does an official diagnosis as an Aspie confer? If I had this information I might go to the expense and stress of seeing a professional.

Gah, my bad. I meant I didn't know much about AS/autism in general. My behavioral patterns differed greatly from my brother by the time he was diagnosed. We shared certain things in common, but my mother just assumed I had become very anti-social due to being an adolescent. It wasn't until my late teens and failure to respond to various combinations of medicines that we started piecing stuff together. And then I learned what was actually wrong with my uncle, who is now currently in his late 40's and still with my grandfather (his father).

As for your question, in the late 90's I didn't have access to internet, and our schools did nothing to teach about autism in health classes. Literally, the subject was never discussed at any point, period. My mother simply explained to me that my little brother works differently than most children and to just try to be easy with him. Our way of trying to bond was to play video games together or watch certain cartoons. A lot of the time though I would be the exact opposite, preferring solitude and listening to music constantly.

Culture-wise, the area I grew up in is behind the rest of the country by a few years. Coupled with the fact that by the time autism was becoming more widely understood by public schools, I was past the age where adults would look for certain patterns in a child and it was just assumed that I had issues integrating myself correctly with my fellow classmates. I did exceptionally well in my classes up until late junior high, so no one thought I had any sort of learning disability either. I just stayed under the radar basically.

The doctors do almost no explaining. Anything that Joshua- or anybody with an autistic person in the family- knows about autism came from a source other than a doctor.

Ok, yes, I'm somewhat bitterly over-generalizing. But doctors are really just about the worst resource there is for learning about a family member's autism. Probably it's because their time is so expensive so they don't use much of it to explain things. Instead, they hand over a diagnosis and a brief explanation and a pamphlet. Yes. A pamphlet. When our daughter was diagnosed we spent about 20 minutes in the doctor's office getting their explanation. What can really be summed up in 20 minutes? And they gave us 3 pamphlets (I still have them). All actual information came from other parents, teachers, books, the internet (your blog, for one, which I found before finding WP) and of course WrongPlanet.

Vent over. Carry on.

I agree. I remember I once called someone to say thanks for a gift voucher she sent me and she threw a sulk because I didn't thank her face to face. WTF? I was showing appreciation, for flip's sake.

I've met one saint in my life, and I devoted my life to her on the spot. My woman, Courtney, she is the type of person who feels bad when considering how others may have been hurt by statements in the past, and who is perpetually surprised when people aren't genuinely kind and sweet to each other.

I do my best to protect her innocence, as it is a wonderful thing to be cherished and praised, we recently did several personality tests. She's a Jungian Champion/Enneagram Type 2 Helper, and I'm a Mastermind/Investigator.

So basically she's the Superman type, and I'm Lex Luthor. Awesome!

I always did get that vibe from those two . . .

Many "self-diagnosed" people don't feel the NEED for a professional diagnosis. These are the people who don't use the "Don't blame me I have Asperger's" excuse. They don't need a formal diagnosis because although they may be 99% sure they are somewhere on the spectrum, they will do their best to not let it hinder their success in life (and will never use AS as an excuse for anything).

As for me, yeah I am pretty sure that i have it. And no thank you, I don't want to deal with most of the psychologists/neurologists/whoever else around here. I have dealt with plenty, and never once did they think that shoving medications down my throat was the wrong answer. They told me themselves that they could not help, and even accused my mom and I of "jumping clinics." Most of the times I could not even answer the questions they threw at me any way, and I didn't even know what AS was at the time so I couldn't ask to be tested.

I had a 0.02 (?) high school GPA and took an equivalency test to leave that hell hole. But right now at the age of 17, I am in college and doing better than I could ever have expected. There are a lot of challenges, but I save most of my energy so that I can force myself to bulldoze through these challenges. The hardest challenge so far wasn't getting mostly A's, but it was having to ask two professors each for a letter recommendation. I did it, but I am having to force myself not to replay the conversations in my head because I will mentally kick myself.

I wish everyone happiness on this forum. I also want to thank everyone for being so nice and welcoming.

whats strange is im new and im diagnosed with this syndrome, i think we have 2 sets of aspies the true autistic ones and the ones who are not autistic but have traits of it, as a kid the only 2 traits i had were bad socail skills and fixating on objects of intrest and not having many freinds i always knew i was distant, but it realy started getting worse wen i was older and it still is . this seems more like a phycotic mental illness than AS to me, the new traits are mood swings and lack of empathy, im also very in my own world to the point its almost insane like i will climb a tree to find a certain species of cicada and im 26 years old, so i would say aspergers should be done away with in the new dsm and replaced by autism on a scale of how sevear it is. also it should include more phycological testing to weed out the people who might exibit traits of aspergers becouse even nts have autistic traits as non nts have nt traits if that makes sence