Why can't I let go of this lingering doubt?(post-diagnosis)

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I am not diagnosed officially with As yet, but I went through this same thing with my Fibromyalgia diagnosis. Maybe the doubt is more like depression? I mean, these are disorders that cant be "cured" or "fixed" and that is very hard to accept.

I would like to be diagnosed because it may lead me to resources I could use, like vocational rehab or couselling. I know I wont have a real treatment plan. I think in the back of my mind that my sister will stop hating me and treating my mom so poorly if I am diagnosed, but I know that is irrational.

What were your expectations going in for the diagnosis?

I kind of expected to be able to not obsess about autism so much. I went in because my son was diagnosed and a lot of what was going on with him has always been going on with me.

I guess I didn't figure on the whole identity-issue actually getting worse. There are so many things in my life that make more sense now, but also so many things I have to question, especially about relationships or the lack of genuine friends.

I suppose I've had a moment or two during which I wondered if I was just being a Mental Health Hypochondriac (and I've no doubt there are those around me who choose to think of me that way), but the truth is, I don't doubt the diagnosis, because I lived with all the symptoms of AS for so long before I ever heard of it, and spent so many years believing these feelings, reactions and behaviors were just flaws in myself. I can remember having AS every day of my life, long before a professional psychologist gave it a label.

At my age, I know better than to think I can just 'pull myself together' and move on - because that's what parents, teachers and employers have been insisting that I do for years and years - and if I couldn't do it for them, there's no reason to believe I could just take a deep breath and change through an effort of will now.

No, like it or not, like Popeye the Sailor, I yam what I yam, and what I would still have been, with or without a diagnosis.

I went through a lot of processing, when I was first diagnosed with Asperger's. I called it "de-fragging" my inner systems. Now a lot of things made sense, and it was very liberating. It took me about 3 years to stop talking and thinking obsessively about autism, and boring everyone that I talked to, to tears. I even had to mourn the person that I had come to believe that I was. I still get into moments of doubting that I have it, and trying to "snap out of it." Needless to say, I can't snap out of my genetic wiring. Other times, I have to fight getting mired into "Us vs Them" thinking, because that does no one any good. But yes, I still have my doubts, so you're not alone in this, LipstickKiller!

Lipstickkiller.........in answer to doubt........I doubt everyday.

Yet after 2 years of intensive therapy and painful dissection of the past, the evidence in incontrovertible.......

And being an evidence based thinker........I still doubt, which is totally confusing. I am a paradox of myself.

Take care and I hope it gets easier for all of us doubters.......so that peace will come. For me anyway.

Mics

I can't help with the diagnosis stuff as I am pre-diagnosis. However, I can help with the obsessing stuff.
If you are worried that you are boring your family with your constant thoughts and questions about your diagnosis but it is on your mind and you feel compelled to get it out, then start a blog or an online journal or a book journal and write about it.

That is the reason why I blog. I have things in my head that I have to get out. Yes, I could talk about them incessantly, but I have realised that really no one wants to hear me talk about the same stuff over and over, but writing it down and getting it out of me is really helpful. Also it helps formalize my thoughts about stuff if I get it out of my head and onto paper. I also have issues writing about what is going on in my mind, so it is good for that as well.

I had a similar experience after being diagnosed with ADD and starting meds. In one way it was great. It definitely felt great. My brother, who's very smart, started meds and was finally able to complete college (we've both had a difficult time with school because of majorly lacking in executive skills). I still haven't finished. After I started meds I had this lingering dread (I like to call it existential dread when it arises. Gives it a sort of humorous twist even though I'm feeling worried and doubtful). My dread was...well what if with the meds I still can't finish college. In the past, I can start, and I make good grades. The problem comes because for various reasons (generally too much starts happening and i get stressed and overwhelmed and then distracted and then I have a sort of fall apart and then I quit). I've gone to college lots of times. But I'm better at working a consistent/full time job and was great as a soldier (I do better in REALLY structured situations where I don't have to decide a lot). So even now, I'm enrolled in school and start in the fall...but still worry...though the worry is less than it was at first...that I won't be able to do it AGAIN...and it will be my fault and not because i have a problem, just because I'm a loser. Mostly I don't feel that way, but sometimes I get in a funk of worry...and then I do.

I didn't realize there were so many people struggling with doubt, most posters seem sure about their diagnosis even if it's a selfdiagnosis. I can't even trust the professional one.

Sometimes I've thought that since I doubt it it must be I really don't have it. But I know that's a fallacy, there's no inherent truth in thoughts. I shouldn't take them all so seriously.

I guess for autistic people getting tangled up in your own obsessive logic is pretty easy. Just hearing I'm not the only one takes a little of the doubt away.

I never doubted mine, because I knew there was something about me that made me different from others. It was just a matter of putting the pieces together of the puzzle.. the first piece I was given when I was 20 and went to the house of a work colleague and met her 11 year old son. Later the lady confessed to me "I wanted you to meet him because you reminded me so much of him."

And it was true, I could understand this boy so well. I knew we thought alike. He had a diagnosis of ADD at the time. It wasnt till 5 years later when I read about AS I realised.. that was what me and the boy had. I then went to an aspie group and saw further evidence of it. I never doubted it because I could understand the thinking of this boy so well, and the people in the AS group, that I didnt feel a diagnosis was necessary even. (I do have one now though).

I guess what I am trying to say by this post, is perhaps nothing has happened yet which has made the diagnosis feel "real" to you.. like suddenly recognising that you are not the island you thought you were...

I think also aspies want 100% evidence of something and they cannot quiet the voice in their head that a psychiatrist's diagnosis still will be subjective on some level.