Question to those who Self-Diagnose themselves?

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I need to make obligatory post about the female traits list not being scientifically valid.

I self diagnosed in 1998 when I was age 28. It was that year that I had my autistic burnout and I didn't know that's what it was. I was diagnosed with the comorbids depression and GAD. As I did my own research reading everything I could get my hands on about depression and anxiety, I came across reference to Asperger's and read about it. I immediately recognized myself. But being that I'm a girl and it was 1998, no one who I told believed me. I myself had doubts when I read that only boys can have it. So for 10 years I could only speculate. Fast forward to 2008 when I picked up a bunch of books including Tony Attwood's and a few others written be females. It was then I realized I'm correct... and the professionals who have claimed for years that girls don't have it, are DEAD WRONG. Since 2008 I've contemplated getting a real diagnosis, but I have an understandable mistrust for psychiatrists and I don't think there are enough professionals available that are able to capable of diagnosingg females. I also question why I'd need a dx at age 40... I also don't think I need a piece of paper to tell me "how I am". I know I have it and that's enough for me. Anyhow, that's my story. Typical story as many other adults here.. wrong diagnoses for years by the pros, but I figured it out myself. I should add, my parents are rather self absorbed with a narcissistic bent.Growing up in the 70s and 80's with parents that did not care to interact much with me and thus didn't notice or care to investigate or try to understand me was tough. As an aspie and scapegoat I was "the outsider" in the family. Never fitting in. So they "wrote me off". If I wasn't acting "normal" I wasn't worth their time. My parents really messed me up.

I love Barclay too, I always felt so bad for him, the way the other officers bullied him, even Geordi, which was sad because Geordi is generally a good person; he even puts up with Data's very autistic quirks with humour. Hollow Pursuits and The Offspring were two of my favourite TNG episodes. I understood exactly how Lal felt surrounded by that classroom full of students who were all laughing at her: "I do not wish to be different."

As far as being the outsider goes, I always related best to Seven of Nine. She was just as cluless about social situations as I always was. I was always as anxious about my cluelessness as Barclay, but I always admired Seven for her fearlessness. Even in her confusion and misunderstanding, she was always willing to give social situations a go, as demonstrated by this, one of my favourite Voyager clips of all time:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg0hbQGV3F0[/youtube]

I loved Seven, also. Thank you for that clip. Thanks to Netflix, I'm rediscovering VOYAGER and TNG.

I always knew that something (well, many things) were wrong with me and I used to spend hours online researching mental illnesses and personality disorders to try to figure out why I was so different from other people. In high school I had to do a presentation on autism for by biology class and I briefly considered that I might be autistic but the material I was getting my information from was very vague, focused only on stereotypical autism, and made no mention of Asperger's at all, so I called myself a hypochondriac and forgot about it.

This year when I was trying to explain to my friend about my difficulty eating most foods because of sensory reasons, I linked her to a page on Selective Eating Disorder. She read it, saw that it was often connected with the autism spectrum and asked me if I thought I might have Asperger's. She knows me better than anyone else does and for her to suggest that I might be on the spectrum really meant something. It wasn't all in my head.

So I did tons of research, took every questionnaire I could find, poked around on a lot of forums (Helloooo Wrong Planet!). At first I thought, "But someone would have noticed if I was on the spectrum. I don't have Asperger's, I just have all the symptoms of Asperger's." Complete denial. But I kept reading more about it and decided it was a definite possibility and now I regard it as a definite probability.

As for why no one caught it when I was a kid: I have always been painfully shy and quiet. I have selective mutism and I am severely introverted. I don't draw attention to myself and I am often overlooked (I once sat next to someone for half an hour before they even noticed I was there). My teachers noted that I didn't talk a lot and the school psychologist (after giving me a test to see if I could enter the school's gifted program, a test I failed because I wouldn't/couldn't talk) wrote a whole report about how I had communication issues. Everyone attributed it to my shyness and didn't bother to investigate further. People who don't know anything about Asperger's have a very rigid idea of what it is and I never fit into the talkative Asperger's stereotype. So they made other assumptions about me.

My family and friends have always thought that my "quirks" were humorous. I am their little Sheldon Cooper and they supply the laugh track. They don't see my "quirks" as a problem. Never have.

I have also spent my entire life consciously trying to act normal. I really have no sense of identity, so it's easy for me to copy certain people and try to blend in. Unfortunately this means that I don't know how to "be myself" and people only see a poorly crafted front.

I have not been officially diagnosed and have no immediate plans to be diagnosed. This is for several reasons. I live in a very rural area and the nearest psychologists/psychiatrists are over an hour away from my house and charge several hundred dollars for a single session. I am very poor and can not afford that. Also I am terrified of going to new places, especially alone, so even if I did have the money I wouldn't have the courage to go to an appointment (or even make the appointment). Because of my identity issues and my habitual hiding of my symptoms, I don't think I would portray myself accurately and I'd just be told I was shy or something. I'd also be scared to get a diagnosis because as of right now Asperger's is just a "maybe". To be diagnosed would make it a complete reality. I don't know if I'm prepared for that quite yet.

Yet, that's the point, isn't it?

Data was an android. Barclay was human. Geordi expected more of one than the other just because of that difference.

Living up to expectations.

Is there a male version of that as well? I found it almost 100% applied to me, even though I'm a male.

More "to the point" than a lot of other things I've come across.

How do you hope this statement will impact readers? How would you hope people will use this thought?

Do you know if anyone is doing rigorous research in this area?
Is this a branch of science in which the historical "male = normal = standard" bias remains in effect?

I was interested to note while studying behavioral genetics that most twin studies looking into monozygotic vs dizygotic variances deliberately exclude male-female dizygotic twins. This makes sense from the point of researchers trying to isolate particular variables, but it ends up meaning that there is not a lot of research into such dizygotic twins.

This also makes me think about medical research into cardiovascular heath, a field in which most researchers and clinical practitioners focus almost exclusively on the male model for decades. A nice overview of the situation is given in the opening paragraphsthis 2009 paper, "Women and Ischemic Heart Disease." As the abstract puts it, "Evolving knowledge regarding sex differences in coronary heart disease is emerging."

Given that the problem of androcentric research bias has been pervasive in all areas of scientific research, how should a rational person respond to the paucity of data specifically about women? If these anecdotal tabulations by working professionals in the field are the only available information, should they be considered or ignored? I am curious about your thoughts on these issues.

I completely agree, when I first saw that scene in Voyager, it seemed to exactly capture the way I feel at obligatory social events at work. We have these things called "ice cream socials" when everyone from a certain part of the firm gathers in some large area and mingles in this way. And that scene is pretty much it. I usually try to talk about technical aspects of things I am working on, but there are plenty of people in marketing who are completely uninterested in how their materials are created... And they make small talk of I kind I just can't join. I try to find people who are talking about movies or TV, but even then, I have a pretty good track record as a conversation killer. Silence seems to be best, along with a few noises of agreement and smiles, and to get away as soon as the obligation to be there is discharged.