Thinking about getting a formal diagnosis. Need input pls.

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I'm actively considering have myself evaluated. I have a few reasons for this. The main one is that I would really like to challenge people's perceptions of what it means to have AS.

If you were evaluated as an adult, where did you start? Did it help you as a person? Did it hinder you? How did you go about doing it?

My major motivation is my son (always). Before people judge him, I want them to understand that I can't relate to their hopelessness - I am not a failure. My life has not been easy, but I have managed.

I guess I am thinking about things again. We're in the process of solidifying where we're going to relocate to, and my "friends" are becoming more icy because I just can't tolerate them any more. If I have one more person tell me that they think biomedical intervention and modern quackery is making a dramatic impact on their child's lives, I might scream. I can't feel badly for people anymore. I can't deal with crappy interventions that are ineffective and the snitty people who develop them and treat me like I am a moron because I didn't attend college for 10 years. I would really like to say "Yeah, well I have AS, do you? I think I might have a better grip on what my child needs." Of course then I might have other things to worry about, but I can cross that bridge when I get there...

If you tell these people you have AS, they are likely to assume you are neglecting your child's "proper treatment" because you don't understand how "wonderful" it is to be "normal". If you seek a diagnosis, do it for yourself, not to tell these so-called friends that you do, in fact, know how to raise your own child.

I'm being very blunt here; but I think this is one of those situations that calls for it: These people aren't the kind of people you want to be hanging out with. They're discouraging you; they're telling you to go for quackery instead of responsible treatment and useful education. They're constantly telling you that your son is damaged and messed up. You don't need to hear that. And they wouldn't listen to you any more than they do now if you had a diagnosis yourself. If these people are like the biomed addicts I've seen before, they will simply reason, "You don't know the importance of all-out biomed because your AS is messing up your brain! Should you really be raising this child, being so abnormal yourself?"

(I'm using "normal" and "abnormal" here, rather than less loaded words like "typical", because I want to highlight the sort of bias that is often seen among people who are obsessed with turning their autistic kids into typical ones. Obviously I don't think like this myself.)

But if you want to look for a diagnosis, sure: Go to a doctor, say, "Hey, my son has autism; I know it's genetic; I have a lot of the same traits; could these problems be due to the fact that I should have been diagnosed when I was a child, and wasn't because we didn't know a lot about what autism was yet?" Find yourself a specialist; many adult psychologists aren't very good with developmental disorders. Needn't necessarily be an autism specialist; a neuropsych with experience with autism can work pretty well, or a child psychologist who doesn't mind evaluating an adult for a diagnosis that was missed in childhood.

Unfortunately my own evaluation wasn't something I initiated, so I can't tell you much there; I was diagnosed initially by a psychiatric nurse-practitioner who had an autistic son, and after that sent to a neuropsych evaluation by the voc rehab center. I pretty much just got lucky.

Thank you, I appreciate your "bluntness". And I think you're right. I will most likely have to prove competence if I take that approach. Thank God many people have been involved in our lives and no one in their right mind would question the quality of care my son gets.

I wish people weren't so blinded by their pipe dreams. It makes things very difficult, particularly if you don't share their views.

I love having a diagnoses. I was in my 30s when I got it. I had always known that in some ways I was/am different and having a diagnosis gives me a more concrete reason of why than just knowing.