You have Asperger's. No I don't!

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I've been aware that I had AS for about a yearr and a half now, for the first six months after my mother mentioned the idea to me, I indignantly refused to believe I could be "disabled". After considering it a while, I finally sat down and did a lot of extensive research, and it's taken almost a year of almost daily searching through archives, stories, medical texts, journal articles and looking at my own behaviour for me to determine that my mother and the psychologist she discussed my symptoms with were probably right. I'm okay with it, and myself now.

I went into an early psychosis intervention program thinking my life was doomed and that I was developing schizophrenia. I walked out with a diagnosis of ocd and gad and on my record it said "...is at ultra high risk of developing phycosis" (It really did say that...way to put the fear into someone, but I guess it is an official term used on their rating scale) and he said that if I start hearing "things" I should come back to him right away. It also said on there "A diagnosis of aspergers is highly suspected but patient refused to take diagnostic tests for fear of leaving a paper trail" I actually pleaded with him on the phone to take away my ocd and gad diagnosis because I started to worry that I would be denied employment in the future. I should of taken the meds that were offered to me then and there...that whole situation could of turned out better. Instead I was in denial for two years and figured Asperger's was just some silly fad diagnosis and that all my symptoms were instead due to being in the prodromal phase of schizophrenia. Now after accepting and realizing just how much a diagnosis would mean to me I am the happiest person I have ever been. I am too old to develop schizophrenia now I think (26) and I realize all my symptoms are really just a volatile combination of ocd/gad/asd. Now I see how it could be confused with schizophrenia! The fact that anxiety disorders are common with asd makes even more sense. I am getting re-tested for asd come spring when the new diagnostic criteria comes around. It has been one interesting but terrifying adventure. My uncle has schizophrenia and I know it a has a genetic component so It completely fueled my worry.

I very much understand my life now in the context of autism...to infinity it seems...it is clear as day and I am so proud of myself for reaching this point.

I suspected I had AS long before I first went to a psychiatrist, but when she told me I had AS I still acted surprised and half denied it. That was partly because that's how she expected me to react, making it harder to go against that, and partly because in movies and tv shows people always are shocked, so I had scripts for that but not for having always thought so and being okay with it.

I found out i had AS at age24yrs i am now 27 and hate to tell anyone i have AS..i somehow feel ashamed and i don't want to be seen as different from other people..but i find it hard to face up to the fact that i have this although now i understand why i have had so many problems since i was very young.

I.ve had a neurological diagnosis since I was 4-5 so there was no denying having as

I despise psychology, we are people not just ID tags with disorders on them...

Well, I went through with that whole thingy when they said I had Asperger's even though I had communication delays and I saw how high functioning a lot of the [often] self-diagnosed were.... I couldn't have AD 'cause I didn't constantly flap and I could speak, albeit mechanically, said the experts.

I now know better.

Yes, and I still would now. Well, I can talk about it now to close relatives, or a doctor to counsellor, etcetera, but otherwise I don't like to admit it. I just get embarrassed about it. Lucky for me, friends don't suspect AS, and so I've never been asked.

I remember one of the girls at primary school knew I had AS because her brother was (severely) Autistic and her mum got friendly with my mum and it got explained to my friend that I had this AS which was a mild case of Autism but very different from a severely Autistic person (don't accuse me of that being my only description of AS, that was just what I was told about AS when I was first diagnosed and that was what my friend was told). But one day my friend went and told all the other girls in the class that I had AS, and after that they started talking to me like I was really ret*d. Then one day a boy brought up Autism (he didn't know I had AS), and then one of the girls pointed to me and said, ''she's Autistic!'' I said, ''no I'm not!''

Ugh! Hate having a label!

I was diagnosed less than a month ago and even though I was fairly certain I had it, it's almost harder for me to believe it now that I've been diagnosed. Sometimes I forget altogether that I was diagnosed and accidentally revert back to that 'do I have it? Maybe I don't! Maybe I do! aSKFJAKSJFsj' state of mind. I feel like my distrust of the diagnosis inadvertently belittles the experts who tested and diagnosed me. One of the psychologists has interacted with and diagnosed autism spectrum disorders for decades so why can't I accept that I have it?

I wrote some form of the word 'diagnose' seven times in this reply (including just now). Ha!

Yes I was diagnosed when I just turned 14 and I denied it for a long time while simultaneously trying to rid myself of all symptoms. For example at that point my steryotypies were already mostly just something I did in private but I made myself stop -well I made myself stop twirling a string in front of my face in my room at home-but then I started doing this again when I got depressed later on. Also I tried to stop having a need for sameness by doing things like alternating different dishes that I would get at a fast food place instead of always getting the same thing. Also I tried to practice my facial expressions because sometimes I make weird expressions and I wanted to get rid of them and do a good fake smile and looked up proper hand shakes and hugs(not too much or too little pressure , not too long or too short) and eye contact (not too much, not too little, only when sharing affect or emphasizing a point -I still can't do this quite right ..). Then I got really annoyed, super sensitive about these things and would get really mad at anyone who pointed out or made a joke about my facial expressions, eye contact, hugs ect. and I got really mad at anyone (family, professionals ect) who brought up my diagnosis.