Missed chances for an earlier diagnosis

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Doctors thought I was autistic when I was two and there was one arrogant doctor that pinned the label on me before I had tubes put in and he didn't even have my mom tell him first about my history. Instead she just thanked him for his opinion on what might be wrong with me and left. She never took me to him again. I don't think it was 'autistic' that made my mom mad and upset, it was him not hearing the history first about me before he placed that opinion and that was what she was upset about. But other doctors that thought that, they knew of my history because my parents told them. They were aware of my hearing loss and my chronic ear infections. They might have been one of those parents who were in denial because I have heard of parents saying their kid does not have autism and find reasons why like "oh my kid was sick a lot so that's why he is this way" "Oh he kept having seizures so that's why he is this way" bla bla bla, they find excuses to deny it. But there are some that do think the sickness caused their kid to be autistic but the most common blame is on vaccines.


I missed the chance of being diagnosed when I was 10 because they took me to be tested and my doctor said I didn't have it. I don't know how she missed it. My mom figures it was maybe because she might have had it herself so I figured that could explain it because everything I was doing might have been normal for her so she didn't see it. But she was a psychologist so she would know she had it too if she knew about AS. My mom said she could tell she had a learning disability just by her choice of words and how she processed information and how she interacted with her.

I could have been diagnosed again in 5th grade but my mom pushed the label away when my speech therapist thought I might have it. She said they had me tested and it was negative so my therapist said I might have symptoms of it then but not enough for the diagnoses. My mom didn't get mad at her or anything.

Then in 6th grade, my psychologist I was seeing thought I might have it too because it was what was left on the list after she had ruled everything else out I might have. But she wasn't qualified to make the diagnoses so my mom had a psychiatrist look it over. My shrink recommended this psychiatrist who specialized in autism so mom kept taking me to see him. It took us a while to get me diagnosed because of my history so it made it very hard. Most people, it only takes them one or a few sessions for the results, with me, too many. I remember going to the place a lot and I hated it. I never counted how many times I went there but it seemed like a lot. I was never taken there and was there for a few hours. We went and mom and him would talk. Our sessions were never that long I don't think.

My school never suspected AS in me and said I had ADD and that was it. They knew of my poor social skills and my difficulty relating to my peers and dyspraxia and sensory issues, OCD, obsessions, learning difficulty. It was obvious in my records I had AS and they just didn't see it. I am sure they knew of my early diagnoses but didn't even suspect I might have Asperger's since it's a form of it. I was pretty disgusted what I saw in my IEP and stuff from my old school because they knew all along I had problems and the whole time I just thought they thought I was "normal" because they didn't understand me and kept punishing me for things I didn't understand but no they knew but just didn't care. I was on the IEP then and didn't even know it. I thought it was something new when I was 15 but no I had been on it all my life since I started school.


I said in my late teens to my mom that when doctors thought I was autistic, they were technically right because it was the Aspergers they were seeing. AS is a form of it after all and they didn't know about the word then, only autism and it was the 80's.

I don't blame my parents for not knowing of AS or even suspecting it sooner because they never knew of the psychiatrist I went to when I was 12 or never knew of the word and I am sure no one else knew of the word either who knew about autism. Back then, HFA or AS was seen as autism so some kids with AS were diagnosed with autism back then or PDD. Then later it get changed to AS when the criteria came out. But they did know I had something, even in my early years, but didn't know what it was. I don't know what they thought of my autistic tendencies. Could they have been blaming it on my hearing loss?
But when they did find out about AS, they tried to get me tested for it so they did open up a little bit to autism but my doctor said I didn't have it. So they moved on. My mom took me to a psychologist instead so she can try and see what I could have and she said I might have AS so my mom opened up to it again and said she wanted someone else to look it over so she recommended my psychiatrist.

This doctor I saw when I was eight for a short bit, he could have suspected AS in me but he probably didn't know of the word or the whole spectrum. He wrote in the paper he couldn't agree with my early diagnoses of autism because I am too social but wrote I had odd behaviors like sniffing everything he give me and it can be worked on. I said "sorry" and stopped when he told me to. I can't be arsed to pull out the papers to see what he exactly wrote, or I should say typed lol.

I won't claim to know your situation that well, but is it possible they were considering your long-term interests?

I say that because the typical American kid who gets counseling for suicidal thoughts/intentions.

1. Get a medical record that might keep him/her from finding insurance, getting a job, military service, etc. all because of something many teens go through during puberty but were really not in danger of following through on.

2. Get labeled and pumped with drugs that do nothing to address why they feel the way they do. Those drugs can actually make things much worse, turn the kid into a chem zombie who definitely won't develop normally from that day forward, and then go back to the above point of how the drug use can be a barrier to opportunity.

If I had a kid that claimed to be suicidal, the last thing I'd want to do is get them what passes as "professional" help unless I really trusted the head doctor I was going to let care for them.

Yeah, I was misdiagnosed with ADD when I was 10. I think I could have come out of that with an AS diagnosis, but the guy was specifically screening me for ADD.

My mom actually said she read up on Asperger's when I was seven, but she didn't think I had it because of the "trouble understanding/using humor" symptoms.

I’m not going to go through it in detail, but several time from 2 onwards until my mid twenties when I was formally diagnosed. There was a lull between adolescence and and my own initiative in my twenties because my folks didn’t feel there was anything fruitful coming form he “professionals”. It didn’t help that a I grew up in many different countries when I was a kid.

I've always had to get the third degree from friends and family about who professional therapists and drugs are quacks or just a bunch of bullsh*t but then they dont go into it any more than that. I will admit that my college counselors did not know what they were doing as I have come to realize late in the game. But the fact of the matter is that I felt I was getting some form of help and attention as compared to my family/friends. They say that therapists/drugs are a scam that doesnt help you and I say well "what else am I supposed to do?" They dont reply. They dont give me another option while at the same time discouraging me from what would seem like the best thing to do when you're in a suicidal state to keep from actually killing yourself. I have friends who tell me not to do it but they dont bother to even go into details as to why I shouldnt do it. Again it's sweeping my concerns under the rug while at the same time doing what they think is best for me without regards to how upset I am. And while my brief stint with counseling and antidepressants did not get me the results I wanted, I'm still grateful for giving this a shot at the very least. Talking to the quacks and taking the medication felt like a more comforting alternative as opposed to having my friends and family laugh/ridicule at my problems by saying "you're being stupid" or "you're being silly".

I wish someone had seen me have a meltdown in second year and rip out handfuls of my own hair when a group of kids were taunting me and wouldn't shut up.

That happened more than once.

I never thought of myself as meltdown prone but those things were meltdowns, I'm sure. Normal kids do some stupid dramatics, sure, but not freaking out and ripping out handfuls of their own hair.

And either none of the staff saw me have one, or just didn't give a rat's ass. Could well be the latter, a lot of kids got bullied but no one really did anything.

If I was a preschool-aged child today and acted the same as I was when I was little, I'm sure that someone would have suspected AS. I never interacted with any of my fellow students unless they approached me, and even then they had to do all the work- I'd just give short responses to their questions; I was held back a year in preschool, despite being obviously ready for school academically, due to not being "socially ready" for school; I had motor skills problems that were treated with physiotherapy and occupational therapy, I got fixated on subjects and talked about them all the time; I had this game where I'd memorise huge chunks of dialogue from books and make my mother recite them with me word for word...

There were a lot of clues, but I don't think anyone around me knew enough about ASDs to think "Asperger's!". I got called things like "smart but shy (the "shy" part was incorrect; it just didn't occur to me that I was meant to talk to the other children)", "different", "an educated idiot", "just like an absent-minded professor (another clue there; the noticeable lack of organisational skills, and forgetfulness in daily life coupled with an excellent memory for facts)".

I'm not angry about it; it's not peoples fault that they didn't have information.

The school talked to my father and strongly suggested I be evaluated. He told them that such disorders didn't exist. He said I was fine the way I was, and they weren't going to label me.

I didn't find out about this conversation until AFTER I was diagnosed as an adult.

In 1979, primary school teacher told my mother that she should bring me to see an Educational Psychologist, because I was not paying attention in class - "I seemed to be in a world of my own". My mother was too worried to bring me to see a psychologist. In Ireland, 30 years ago, there were only 4 Educational Psychologists and the waiting list was 18 months - I would not have been diagnosed properly anyway.

I just recognized your sn. I really like your documentary on youtube. I share it with my friends/family who are curious about Aspergers.