So I am diagnosed

Post Reply New Topic

I've had my final assessment appointment this week. The psychologist will write an official report but she told me she is rather sure I have aspersgers. Her main differential diagnosis was with generalized anxiety and she gave good arguments on why I have the former and not the latter.

That does not solve my current issues but it does change the way I see myself, and not in a negative way. If anything it restores a bit of my self esteem. Thanks to everyone here who gave me help, advice and support

congratulations to getting a step closer to understanding self, ouroboros!

It's great If it helps you make sense of stuff that did not before, it's already a victory. I'm glad.

I am very happy that you have received a diagnosis. It must give you a sense of relief I think.

Thanks

It does remove some guilt about my failures to communicate with people and form relationships.

It is also a "victory" in some sense, yes, since I have been doing various therapy and psychological work for 3 years and after much energy and time spent following wrong tracks I am finally starting to understand how I work

Indeed, congratulations on the new knowledge!

Great relief for you I'm sure.
While my life hasn't moved on post diagnosis, I don't have the feelings of having something wrong with me any more which as you say does help self-esteem.

It really helped me, wondering do you need services?

I think I would certainly benefit from some form of therapy by an autism specialist to help me solve my anxiety issues for good and learn how to have more fulfilling relationships with other people. I am currently undergoing counselling and I would say that it is useful (she really helped me prepare for some stress) but I don't think my therapist is really able to help me implement long-term strategies to make the underlying issues better. Unfortunately, the psychologist told me there is no such NHS service in my area (she was so sorry and apologetical about that that it actually made me feel bad for her) and I can't afford private specialized support. Basically, she redirected me to the resources and services directories maintained by the National Autistic Society. Which is sound advice, but I had already done so. Still, I will have a look at their resource again now that I have a formal diagnosis.

I may be able to find some form of specialized care that I can afford. Another problem is that my employment at my current place only last until the end of the year and I will probably have to move afterwards, so I can't take any really long term disposition. (Which is another cause of anxiety :/) I am considering support groups, but I don't really know what to expect of them.

I just got my permanent contract of employment today and under the trail period section it says already worked.

In other words the company likes me and my work and I got diagnoses 11 months ago and I have been open and honest with the company and my fellow workers.

Having a diagnosis has been a great help in my life to say the least.

I still put my foot in my mouth now and again in work but people just laugh and move on because they know my diagnosis and understand I am well meaning.

I am diagnosed. I don't have the official report yet but the psychologist told me that following the tests and appointments she clearly thinks I have Aspergers and no further testing is required, and that is what she will write in it. I was referred there for assessment, and the result of the assessment is that I have aspergers. I believe it is what you usually call a diagnosis. And it has been done by a NHS clinical psychologist through the regular (and free) procedures of the UK public health system so I think it is official enough to give me access to "services", if and where those services exist.

I speak about anxiety and poor relationship skills because that is where I need help and where I can hopefully improve myself. Most of the point of the assessment procedure was indeed to determine if I had AS (which then indirectly caused me some social anxiety) or a generalized anxiety disorder (which could in turn lead to withdrawal from social relationships and asperger-like behaviours), but details I gave about my social difficulties and some data about my early childhood that my parents provided made her rule out the second hypothesis in favour of an autistic diagnosis.

It seems likely you have AS and potentially a co-morbid anxiety disorder....you can have both, I know I have both I think much of my anxiety was indirectly caused by having AS as in kids picking on me and teachers singling me out for being 'weird' causing me to become more anxious about interactions.

No problem ; as I am reading it again my post was not crystal clear.

Yes I was lucky. I got a young clinical psychologist (I am very bad at evaluating people's age but I would say around 30). She was not an ASD specialist but she had obviously researched the topic or been trained by competent people. She probably did not have as extended a knowledge about it as a real specialist, but she was completely OK with considering my hypothesis that I had Aspergers and she had no gross preconception about how an autistic person or an aspie should look like or behave. She listened to me ran me through tests and questionnaires, asked some questions to my parents, discussed the data further with me, proposed and considered differential diagnosis hypotheses, and finally concluded that I indeed had Aspergers. So it shows that some younger professionals start having a more accurate view of Asperger's Syndrome even if they are not specialists. (Well, up to a point at least. I also think I was lucky and got someone really good.)

On a more personal note, I was surprised to find out that diagnosing me was so easy. From what I read here and elsewhere on the Internet, I thought diagnosing Aspergers in high-functionning adults was usually a very complicated and uncertain process. But I really did not thought that my scores on the various tests would be so high (=highly autistic), and according to that and the rest of the assessment results it looks like finally my diagnosis is quite clear-cut.

I'm glad for you, ouroboros.

Suspecting and then finally having it confirmed, it must make a big difference for you.

CONGRATULATIONS!