Self diagnosed aspergers

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DSM-4 does not include sensory issues. Now, someone did recently say that the explanatory text does, and I'd like to see a link to this if available. All the same, it is remarkable that the main guts of the diagnosis does not include sensory issues. Kind of like, you professional people didn't actually speak with many people on the spectrum? ? Apparently, not.

And remember, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a disorder until 1973!

What's called mental health is often a pro-'normal,' pro-status quo, to a fault. People trained as professionals don't really seem to get, in their gut, that sometimes different is just different, not better, not worse, just different. And I think their training gets in the way of this.

Reminds me of the Poseidon Adventure where Gene Hackman is giving the great speech: Help from where, the Captain? He's dead. The only help is what each of us can give ourselves and working together.

The trailer (and only a little of the speech):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-bTQuzJlX8&feature=related[/youtube]

I really hope what will become Spectrum Civil Rights will primarily be self-advocacy with us working as individuals and in a variety of groups.

And alright, good-hearted professionals can help out, but they can't run the show. We as people on the Asperger's-Autism Spectrum will run the show thank you very much.

Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 12 May 2012, 5:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm really sorry to hear about this, have you tried going to a clinic that doesn't require insurance? Its how I got my official diagnosis, you just need to bring proof that you don't have any. I was lucky enough and found a really good one that referred me a behavioral center type place with A VERY good doctor. Even if you have to make a longer commute it would pay off since with an official diagnosis it might be a bit easier (Though still a long time) to get SSI. I just got very lucky, the clinic is so good my dad even goes there and he has insurance, I imagine quality varies from each State (assuming you're in the US)

I never really self-diagnosed as such. It was others who claimed I have it. I have had a few people (unqualified, predictably) say I don't have it.

I self diagnosed mostly because my parents have always ignored my mental state and psychological needs. There is no reasonable explanation for my mother (with a masters degree in special education) not st least seeing enough autistic tendencies in me to have me more thoroughly tested than one crappy ADD screening. I was struggling way too much to reasonably stop investigating after I said I didn't want to be on ritalin... Once I became close to (eventually married) someone who really paid attention to my mental state and the workings of my mind, it was only a few years before we were both on the verge of realizing what was going on. I just happened to be the one who looked up aspergers on wikipedia first.

Once my life is more settled and funded (read: insured >_>) I'll get an official diagnosis. Officializing it will make being a potentially successful writer easier.

I don't consider myself SD, just waiting to speak to a professional who'd understand me. The root cause of identifying myself with the definition probably had been that the first people outside my family and school that I trusted (ie, the people who were diagnosing me) were not treating me as an equal at all and I felt like an invalid just talking to them, though I didn't know what they'd diagnosed me with at the time.

Since then I came to conclusion I have Asperger's and ADHD, and again I guess it matters because none of these definitions humiliate me and bring back the feeling of the bullying I got at the mental health centre, I think that upon close inspection neither of these things are faults, just differences in the brain.

I saw a guy for two visits of 20 minutes each.
At the end of the second one, he said "you don't have Asperger's"
I had the presence of mind to ask what made him think that.
He replied "You don't have the physical look".

Mind you, I should have been asking what color snot he'd pulled out of his nose during the visit:
Twenty minutes and he spent a full nine trying to get a booger out of the inside corner of his left nostril.

Edit:
I'm willing to say that I'm self diagnosed. I spent 6 hardcore months researching AS, as well as all the other "head" diagnoses possible. Even after satisfying myself that I'd undergone many of the same experiences as others on this site, and more importantly that I'd seen the experiences in the same light / been treated the same / etc.... I continued to search and research to see if there was anywhere else I fit in. I am of the opinion that either I have Aspergers OR that my physical impairments and the social issues they invited led me down a near identical development over the years.

Resulting conclusions: Genetic or otherwise, I'm an Aspie.

This realization has led to self understanding, reflection on my past, re-evaluation of people, relations, and situations I've been in (and am in) and has allowed me to love and nurture myself for who I am... and shown me (and led me already) to learn positive changes I can/could make in my life... to hate less... to find some inner peace. Much of it thanks to this website.

So thanks, folks.
See? I've learned to voice my gratitude! (Big Proud-of-Self Grin)

Last edited by OddFiction on 12 May 2012, 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

wtf? The physical look? Did you seriously find some idiot capable of mixing up autism and downs syndrome or something?

It really is disturbing how much ignorance the professional psychological community has about ASDs...

I self diagnosed once my son was diagnosed with AS and I started researching and watching him and how he was and realizing that we were nearly just alike with a lot of things. Then I got on here and the quizzes and such fit. I went for a diagnosis and was told that he didn't think I had AS but it couldn't be ruled out. I'm having a hard time finding someone that is willing and able to diagnose an adult.

It is not clear to me how a diagnosis can be made in two visits of 20 minutes for any developpmental or mental condition.
In terms of ASD it means excluding SAD, Avoidant Personality Disorder, Schizoide Personality Disorder, AD(H)D, Depression, Attachment Disorder [...], especially for diagnosing adults. Even the amnamesis of childhood should take longer than that and that is only a part of a diagnosis. There are other conditions (like schizophrenia), where people "withdraw" and autism was first defined to definie traits in schizophrenia (by Paul Eugen Bleuler)

What is the "physical look"?

I am sorry that the people at this so-called mental health center engaged in bullying behavior. My guess would be that some people tend to have an authoritarian mindset and don't seem to get the purpose of a diagnosis at all, and possibly combined with customer-itis. In any case, not cool on their part. And as adults, they certainly should have known better.

In my view, the purpose of a diagnosis is to give a person a set of tools which are more likely to work. That if a diagnosis is fairly accurate in describing aspects of a person's personality and life experience, it also opens up possibilities and open fields, keeping in mind of course that persons on the spectrum are still individuals. I understand this. To me, this is obvious and straightforward. I don't get why many mental health 'professionals' don't seem to.

Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 14 May 2012, 8:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thank you for the sympathetic post. Your view on diagnoses is exactly why I want one.

What is a real diagnosis? When I was 8 years old, I got my finger caught in a door. It stood off at a weird angle, was swollen and hurt like hell. I diagnosed it as fractured. The orthopedist at the hospital agreed with me.

At age 17, I suffered from severe pain in my lower abdomen. I diagnosed myself with an appendicitis. My doctor disagreed. He prodded various spots on my belly and when I told him that it hurt on both sides, he decided that it was probably just a bad case of gas. According to his professional opinion, an appendicitis would only have caused pain in the right abdomen. He was wrong. I was right. I shouldn't have listened to this clueless idiot with a medical license, and I should have sued his pretentious lab coat off after my appendix ruptured and I almost died a few days later.

My point is, a diagnosis is a diagnosis. Amateur diagnoses are often correct. Professional diagnoses are often complete and utter BS. Life experience has taught me that my own diagnoses are better than those of medical experts. After all, I'm the one who inhabits this body. If anybody is able to find out what's wrong with it, it's me.

You're very welcome. And if it turns out that you have some aspie traits but not others, I think that's fine, too, and I think you'd still have a lot to contribute here at WP.

I have criticized psychologists, counselors, etc. above and will probably criticize them some more, and I think for good reason. They often have their own pet theories, their ego issues, and can be distinctly unhelpful.

All the same, there are some good ones. And that side of the story needs to be told as well. I previously initiated this post.
Please share good stories of counselors, etc.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp3370622.html&highlight=

Maybe the skill that's most needed is lateral movement. That is, how to ease back away from a crummy professional and go look for a new one. I still think most of our success will come from self-advocacy and from group advocacy in the model of civil rights movements.

It's one thing for the guy to suspect one way or the other and then follow-up. But to be so sure on the basis of a "physical look." Wow.

And then to pick his nose during the session. Yuck! I mean, Major League gross. It is one thing to be walking out in the country with a friend. And the friend might say, 'Excuse me a second, I need to kind of clean my nose.' And I might say, that's okay, we're outside, you can go ahead and do what you need to do. That is, I might give the friend permission to do something which would normally be rude. But meeting with a professional, that's more along the lines of stranger to stranger, and accordingly, standards of courtesy and politeness apply. He was jumping levels and not in a positive way at all. Some mental health professionals use the term client to remind themselves that this is largely an equal-to-equal relationship. Obviously, this clown didn't get the memo!

And thank you for a very humanistic post. I also do sometimes hate and wish to hate less. And it's tough. Sometimes these are the very factors that make the world a less good place and some of the very reasons I can be excluded. And many (most?) fellow people don't seem to be genuinely open towards meeting new interesting people, or their dance card is already filled, but rather people who can help them with social climbing. I guess I can use lighter touch, more skimming, more feel-and-texture right-brain skills. But it's still tough.

I have often felt the same way. In fact I have often used almost those exact words.