I am 36 now. Female. I have been ASSESSED as having "Asperger's" at a center for autistic adults and children. The woman who assessed me said she had done hundreds of assessments and was quite confident that I was an aspie, and that there would be no need for me to spend a few thousand dollars and take a rigamarole of tests. She was very good at discerning in a short amount of time whether or not a person fit the criteria for Asperger's.
She said that I could treat the assessment as a "diagnosis", except it does not come with "official paperwork"....She said that this also meant that I do not have ADD, according to the DSM-IV.
When a few years prior to my Asperger's assessment, I went to a center for adults with ADD, the doctor who interviewed me seemed very unpleasant and skeptical and said that sometimes he could tell whether a person had it with a brief interview and move on to treatment, but was highly skeptical of me, and took my money and sent me home with a great jumble of packets for my friends and family to fill out, and said that I would have to plunk down upwards of $2000 for a battery of tests to determine whether or not I had ADD....(a short time later, a registered nurse befriended me and acted as my "advocate" and I was able to get a script for ADD meds from a medical doctor)..She did much of the talking....and all of the driving....(but part of the reason was she wanted to get her hands on some of my meds)
AFTER my AS assessment, I went to another doctor because I was really suffering from my executive dysfunction and in serious need of something to help me with day-to-day functioning....(partially cause I had trouble doing anything not related to my "obsessions".....and was generally going mad from being uncontrollably disorganized. I told him of my lifelong ADD symptoms, and my AS assessment. I told him I had been treated in the past for ADD by a medical doctor. He disbelieved the ADD part and scribbled me down for PDD-NOS and "general anxiety.
LATER...la la la....I was directed to ANOTHER doctor...who after a rather brief interview proclaimed that he had NO difficulty in believing that I had very strong ADD symptoms...passing the questionnaire with flying colors....scoring well beyond the standard criteria that would have made me a shoo in for Adult ADD. I was given a rather strong prescription for Adderall and another script for my occasional bouts of anxiety, and sent on my way. I have been with this doctor for 2 years. I never mentioned my AS assessment to him because I was never asked...and since it was only an assessment and not a "formal diagnosis" with paperwork...I figured that I was not being false. I never lied on any of the questions i was asked. I merely opted to not volunteer the AS assessment since it was never brought up....My reasoning that it was a mistake when I brought it up with the previous doc who penciled me down for PDD-NOS and gave me a script for Wellbutrin which I could not afford, even with insurance. He is aware that I have sensory issues...and things like that...and I finally succumbed to his recommendation that I take an antidepressant in addition to the ADD meds. So I have been on Prozac for a month and a half. Adderal (taking a fraction of my prescribed dose...for about 2 years)...and Valium because I still have crippling overwhelming panic attacks in the evenings when people show up at my venue....
THAT BEING SAID....
I voted that I have no idea WHAT my diagnosis is. I have thousands of posts on Wrong Planet..My facebook is consumed with AS groups now. I have been a member of an AS support group in the past...(it was a bit too social for me
).....I have AS traits on BOTH sides of my family....but more strongly take after my mom....Artsy, nonmathematical mildly dyslexic executively dysfunctional sensory issue-riddled....and less after my HIGHLY systematized Architecht/engineer/inventor dad's side of the family. I did not excel in school due to sensory overload, and other learning dysfunctions, and taught myself mostly on my own thru reading and spending much time in the library...I test as having above average intelligence, but there are definite areas where my intelligence lags....so I was often considered to be "dumb" in my "gifted classes"...Though I excel in unconventional ways to the best of my ability.
I am of the school of thought that if you are in an AS forum, and consistently relate to the forum enough to continuously return....What difference does it make whether or not you have a formal diagnosis..Depending upon where people live in the world, there seems to be an enormous variance on what even constitutes a "formal diagnosis" and also mass discrepancies in regards to general understanding of the autistic spectrum, even among mental health professionals.
When I use the term "AS" I generally mean Autistic Spectrum and not just "Aspergers" persay. I can tell people that I am "mildly autistic" in the event that I am having an episode in front of them and not feel like I am lying.
In general, I am less socially gregarious than many Aspies I have met, and have slightly better insight than some..just due to self awareness from having spent so much time on forums.
Before I knew what Asperger's was, I was a member of several ADD forums after reading about ADD in the library when I was a senior in high school back in the "stone age" of the mid-90's...I was in the process of doing research to try and figure out "what was wrong with me"....my other suspicion was chronic anemia...
The book I found it in was dated and still referred to ADD as "mild brain dysfunction"...and I used our "fancy new School Library internets" to look that up and was led to links on ADD...I became a member of ADD forums for a number of years.
I only even HEARD of Aspergers maybe 10 years after being on the ADD forums...when soneone on one of the ADD forums suggested that I should perhaps look into the "autistic spectrum"
BUT
it was suggested to my parents by my grandfather that I might be mildly autistic...when I was around 7, unless that was a false memory. I do recall being told that "I was not autistic, I was ARTistic" right around that age.