Whole spectrum and self-diagnoses?

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Am understand it as meaning a professional who diagnoses-but not in a formal way that it is written down.


Am officially diagnosed by a professional [an experienced pyschiatrist in learning disability services] with AD.

I explained it in the first post. And KoR has it just right too.

If you went through all the tests and if your professional told you he or she is sure you have a disorder based on the interviews and such, but doesn't put it down in your papers or medical file, then you can never claim assistance, services, financial support and such with that dx because it doesn't truly exist.

This one. Although I have a formal report, and it is considered an 'official diagnosis' and I could still it to claim support at college without it being in my medical file, as far as I'm aware. So the distinction between official and professional seems a bit blurry for me.

But I was self-diagnosed long before I got my professional diagnosis. My self-knowledge is accurate enough that I could see as soon as I read about Aspergers that it was quite clearly describing me.

That's interesting. In the UK, it's far cooler to be simply 'eccentric'. It's not cool to have it labelled as a disorder, be it Aspie, autistic or PDD-NOS. Brits love eccentrics but are highly suspicious of disorders, particularly disorders that have only reached the public eye in recent years.

It used to be that way here as well and that's whey so many Aspies could be successful when they were just eccentric. Once they adopted the 'cool' label it wasn't nearly as easy to blend into society but many were willing to make the leap so they could be trendy.

I don't understand this. How is the label cool and trendy when it prevents people blending into society? Normally cool and trendy things help people blend in. Who actually considers Aspergers to be trendy and cool? American society in general? Or just the people who actually have Aspergers?

I can't speak to the logic of what is illogical. I guess it's like any other fad that makes a person somewhat anti-establishment like punk rockers just to pick a trend out of thin air. I was considered eccentric fro decades and it actually made me more desireable to my clients but once I 'cameout' as being on the spectrum I found that many of my old friends avoided me thinking I had some kind of 'mental-illness' and was no longer competent to do the type of work I've done for years. Human nature is very strange. I think at the present time Aspergers is trendy in the same way that punk used to be. In a few more years something else will take its place.

I probably should have qualified that a wee bit as I'm far more eccentric than even pretty extreme Aspies so my lifestyle and behavior is perhaps far in excess of what most people today consider to be slightly 'Aspieish' which is the trendy stuff I speak of.

I think that a stereotype of this site is that we're all self-diagnosed with AS but are only shy or somewhat eccentric and think that AS is trendy. This poll seems to contradict that. (Of course I want to emphasize that not all self-diagnoses are wrong. AS is difficult, but still possible to self-diagnose, and there are strong legitimate reasons to not get a professional diagnosis, as some members have already said in this thread. In addition, it is not possible that all official diagnoses are correct.)

I was officially diagnosed with AS, but I think a PDD-NOS diagnosis (mild or atypical Aspergers) would have been more accurate. I often feel that I'm too mild in some areas to really qualify.

If there were an "other" selection, I would have chosen that. I have been diagnosed professionally with both AS and NLD. But I rarely say I have NLD, just because it only explains my visual-spatial/mathematics learning problems. I usually just say I have AS, unless I'm specifically supposed to explain my learning problems. I've also been professionally diagnosed with OCD.
-OddDuckNash99-

Self-diagnosed with AS. Reading the descriptions of what AS entails on multiple sites just caused my jaw to hit the floor. It was a perfect description of myself, from childhood to present. I really wish we'd known more about AS when I was younger as it would have made life a little easier.