How did your diagnosis come about?

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I think I might have been diagnosed sooner had my dad (who was against all that mental/cognitive illness "mumbo jumbo") not lived with us and had I knew English as my first language. I fit in pretty well with kids in elementary, but was "weird." No one minded, we just played tag all the time. I couldn't understand people sometimes (words, metaphors, faces), couldn't write well, and said weird things, but I guess all my teachers thought it was because I was Russian and didn't know American culture that well. Then, in middle school, things got bad. Bullies, bad grades, overloads. I was an outcast and spent most of my time alone, but (thankfully) found some good friends that were also a little weird.

I remember taking an online quiz (I love those things!) in 9th grade for autism and got a pretty high grade, but didn't think anything of it. In 11th grade, people were asking me if I was autistic or telling me that I seemed autistic, so I looked it up and that's when it (figuratively) hit me: I might be autistic.

I told my mom about a year later, but she said I needed to spend more time with friends, be more social. Things kept getting worse and a year after that I had huge sensory overload, which led to a huge meltdown, and then a shutdown. I was taken to the hospital because I stopped responding to everything around me; some thought I was having a seizure or took drugs.

After some altercations with the ER doctor and the family doctor, I was finally taken to a psychologist. One month later and I was diagnosed!

I think my parents knew something more was wrong with me. That's why they kept pushing for a diagnosis of Autism. I also believe it was because if I had autism, I'd get better services later in life when needed. What really put up a red flag was my lack of social skills and huge interest in rocks. I remember my mom telling me I was abusive to my peers in Kindergarten. I was extremely hyperactive and couldn't sit still either. I had the WORST temper tantrums for no reason at all (and still do).

A fellow aspie at work asked me if I had asperger sydnrome, and told me he knew the moment he saw me. it made sense right away because of an endless list of things. I had also blamed all my many differences on lack of affection from my family, my parents were never close to us or demonstrative, although they werent bad parents or anything. they were just remote, and i think my father's an aspie too.

i blamed it on lack of social experience and simply not paying attention. but then i have just about any symptom there is of asperger, and i feel much better now after being diagnosed.

My diagnosis came about as a result of years of severe depression, psychotic episodes and the final straw which was a suicide attempt.

There's nothing romantic about my life.

I'm ok now though.

I was seeing a Psychiatrist for my ADHD medication and she said she thought I had Asperger's Syndrome and put me in for the tests, and she was correct.

At first I suspected dyslexia because in my attempts to be more social I discovered it was very hard for words to get out of my mouth. When I did my assessment the students testing me were still going with the belief that people with dyslexia can't have an IQ above 80. Science has since ditched that whole idea. I never received my diagnosis. My mum suggested a bunch of other conditions; ADD, autism, Asperger's. I wasn't properly listening to her though.

During my first real romantic relationship I had a few concerns. I wasn't very attached to the boy and I didn't like going out to places as much as him. When it came to meeting his friends I could never join in on conversation. Eventually I developed severe social anxiety and found out about it, so got very obsessed with the topic as well.

Thos Uni students who tested me for dyslexia decided I had severe depression instead, which sort of broke up the relationship and just by chance I found out I could have Asperger's syndrome by reading about it a lot on Yahoo Answers. The funny thing was when I told my mum she was like 'that makes a lot of sense' instead of being in denial. Lately, a case worker at an unemployment office has confirmed my speech dyslexia which is still just as bad despite my confidence to talk to people. Words just don't come out smoothly for me but a whole lot of words do come out now. I'm very impulsive these days. Besides my official AS dx, I have an ADHD dx, social anxiety dx and really badly need a bipolar dx.

The most helpful dx psychologically was my AS dx even though it took an ADHD dx to get on medication for my attention problems. Asperger's just explains how I have been so different from most other people for all of my life and I'm comfortable with it.

I had tried telling a couple of doctors, but I didn't get the attention of one until I attempted suicide. She referred me to a specialist in child autism diagnostics. I was 39 when the psychiatrist diagnosed me.
This past summer I was re-evaluated. Somehow I was referred to an OCD specialist. But it's public health so you take what you can get. It was kinda funny actually. He kept trying to steer me towards having OCD symptoms, which I haven't had badly since I was a child. But he concurred with HFA, GAD and depression and, of course, OCD.