were you aware of your aspergers symptoms before diagnosis?

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i too am a little worried if i dont get an aspergers diagnosis il sink back into wondering what is wrong with me. even more worrying to me though is if i have it and my psychologist thinks otherwise just because i am self aware of it

Yes. I had a weird childhood and on the suggestion of a neurophysiologist who saw anomalies in my amygdola I was diagnosed. Sure enough, I was an Aspie.

ruveyn

Three months before I was diagnosed with Aspergers I did not know what it was or even heard of it before watching a doctor show that was discussing the autism spectrum disorders. When they described Aspergers it described me to a T. My parents who were sitting there watching it with me were even saying I think you have that. My school told me I had ADHD so they put me in special education classes where the work was too easy for me and boring so I quit trying and gave up. College was out of the question so I did not even bother studying I went to school only to see my friends and to buy weed. So for 40 years I thought I was learning disabled and hated myself for it. But I went for an evaluation for Aspergers I was certain I had it. When I did the tests the psychologist admitted he did not need a test to tell if I had it. He knew from our first conversation and my lack of eye contact. After the testing the psychologist told me I had then he told I had no signs of learning disability. He then told me he thought I was cheated out of a proper education.

They did not test for Aspergers when I was five in 1975 so they thought my autism was ADHD so they warehoused me in special education. I was riddiculed for being in those classes on a daily basis from 4th grade all they way to 10th grade. It was also the reason I tried to commit suicide when I was 11. I was treated like s**t by the special education students for being a "know it all" and picked on by the NT students for being a "ret*d". What a life.

Funny thing is I would not of got a diagnosis if it was not for some as*holes on WrongPlanet who said they doubt I had Aspergers because I was listed as not sure if I had it. So I'd like to thank those as*holes for getting me mad enough to take action to get tested.

How could you not? Diagnosis requires significant - noticeable and disabling - symptoms.

The first psychologist I saw was dick too so I dumped his ass I did not shake his hand on the way out I left that prick hanging. I contacted a autism sevice group they gave me a list of good psychologists to see for testing. Google (your county or city) autism services you should get a good number of groups to contact one of them will point you in the right direction.

I have to go back and amend that I was aware of behaviors I had that could be seen as autistic, but I didn't think I was autistic, I was worried that people would think I was autistic because of these quirks and tried to hide them. There were a handful - monologuing being a big one. Palilalia was another.

but could someone with aspergers be able to identify these symptoms in themselves without outside influences? i came to the conclusion of aspergers completely on my own, but my psychologist seems to think that such self-awareness isnt possible. he said more likely i have social anxiety or am highly sensitive, but i havent told him of my sensory sensitivities, physical clumsiness, trouble with eye contact and voice tone.

the thing is that before iv even heard of aspergers, iv identified many of these symptoms and have even tried to correct some of them. aside from the social symptoms which i had the most trouble with, i was self-aware of my trouble with eye contact and have since learned to force myself to do it, though i still cannot shake the uncomfortable feeling i get when maintaining contact. the same is with my tone of voice. iv normally had a very static tone, but iv forced myself to have more dynamic inflection, though i still find it tiresome and have to revert back.

That is not true. Try to find a psychiatrist who specializes in Autism or go to an autism center.

Self-awareness.

I have significant - noticeable and disabling - symptoms from at least two disorders, and yet I didn't realize that this is what they were because a) My mother never said anything to me about how she was trying to get me educational accommodations so I could function in school, and b) the only reference she ever made to the possibility of any disability was how she triumphantly proved to my first grade teacher that I did not have a learning disability, which resulted in me actually having little to no support throughout school. So my family didn't tell me what they observed. Oh, she didn't mention that someone suggested to her that I was autistic when I was a child.

I was also raised with mixed messages that I was stupid and lazy, and that I had a genius intelligence. Since I couldn't function well in school and was constantly punished for not functioning well, while being told how stupid and lazy I was, I absorbed a lot of that. I didn't seriously realize this was wrong until I was on my own and could get very good grades with little effort. The problem was sustaining that work for more than a semester or two before crashing and burning. So, then, I went back to being lazy, sabotaging myself. Instead of working out that I was disabled, I worked out that I must somehow be doing this to myself, holding myself back.

Beyond that, I seem to have trouble noticing things when they are not explicitly pointed out. I can realize I have trouble with things, and not think about the possibility that other people do not have the same trouble - I just assume they cope with it better. I didn't think that I lacked some of the skills to apply the same skills everyone else uses.

I still have trouble seeing my deficits as deficits because this is how I've functioned all of my life. I don't have an alternative frame of reference that shows me how other people function. I can only see the results of their functioning. I don't doubt my diagnosis at all because it makes no sense, but lacking a coherent description of what it's like to be autistic, I probably would not have figured it out. Maybe someone else might have.

No, because I was quite young.

@1mwp - ah, sorry, I get you now. Yes, of course you can identify those things yourself. The difficulty is in correctly identifying and matching a large and varied set of symptoms with an even larger and more varied set of qualifying symptoms. I suppose it's tempting for me to think (and get annoyed about) "if I - or my parents and teachers - had known earlier, it would have been obvious that it was exactly this" but that's ignoring the difficulty of correctly attributing things to a particular cause. And a high degree of caution is advisable.

@Verdandi - ouch. Yeah. Wilful misrepresentation. Bad.

Your first paragraph is spot on.

And yes on the second. My parents didn't believe I was disabled in any way, so any problems I had must be due to my inability to behave correctly, and not perhaps anything to do with, say, lacking the ability or skills to function in that environment.

So any time it was suggested that I did have real obstacles, my mother was like "Oh, but Verdandi's smart! She can't be cognitively disabled!" And so it never went anywhere. Throw in that my father was against me seeing a psychiatrist because he was afraid I'd reveal how abusive he was, and there was pretty much no chance for help (although I am not sure I would have received any even if I had more help, or that an earlier diagnosis would have necessarily helped me).

For me, I just can't get over how I view many things as separate details until someone explicitly points out how they might be related, or I read something that explains how they might be related. So everything I experienced as a symptom was a different thing that I couldn't incorporate into a larger whole. I am not incapable of incorporating things myself, but it's like a case by case basis, not something I just automatically do or generalize.

I always knew I was a bit... off, but I never knew why. I just thought I was quirky, I didn't realize it was an actual condition until my parents took me to get diagnosed by a professional.

Long before my family told me I had autism, I was well aware of my differences for many years. In fact I was aware of them almost all of my life.

Very interesting thread. I am the parent of a 6 yr old boy on the spectrum. He was diagnosed at 2.5 yrs old as PDD-NOS. It sounds like most of you would have liked to have known as a child. Since I have known for so long, I definitely did not want to tell him so young, but I am wondering when do I tell him. I don't want to hurt his self esteem, but I also don't want him to go through what a lot of you have, wondering what was wrong? Any ideas?

i think it could go either way, but personally, i would rather have known as early as possible. i feel its a lot worse knowing your different but not knowing why or how to handle it.