Questions about getting your diagnosis.

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What was assessment like for you....
How did you feel after receiveing an official diagnosis?
Is there any who 'flunked' the assessment, but still feel they have asperger traits?
Any other thoughts?

Last edited by comawhite on 01 Feb 2012, 11:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was assessed by interview against the DMS-IV criteria by a psychologist and a psychiatrist.
I showed them a few test scores, but neither was terribly interested. There weren't any surprises for me, because I'd self-diagnosed several years earlier.

There's a lot to work through in the wake of the diagnosis - for me, the fact that noone cares much, and absolutely noone can do anything much to improve outcomes for adult diagnosed autistics is (still) hard to take.

There's that treatment outcome dichotomies too - are we working to narrow the gap between child x and the norm? To make a school a safe place for them? To make a world that's accepting of their adulthood? Or just to make the best use we can of whatever funds are being handed out for this year?

It was a series of intellectual tests, plus questions that assessed my childhood and current functioning.

After officially being dxed with AS, I felt a sense of euphoria; it felt like there was a name to this, and I was officially part of the Aspie group (this was an emotional, irrational response, because whether someone has a formal dx or not, we are all more or less in the same boat). It just felt more real being on paper.

However, as the years have gone by, that euphoria faded and sometimes I 'forget' that I'm an Aspie. I beat myself up just as much as I did prior to being diagnosed (I don't know a lot of Aspies in real life).

For me it was various questionnaires, audio/visual tests, interviews and an IQ test. That was over the span of roughly three months.

When I was given my diagnosis of AS, I felt a little relieved to know that my problems were legitimate, but overall I didn't feel much different since I was still the same person.

This is what never has happened to me, since I was denied of getting an AS dx. Instead, they diagnosed me with freaking PDD-NOS. So, just as irrationally, I freaked out, and I feel an outsider here from that moment on, where almost everybody is AS. Irrational, since I know very well that there are different diagnosing practices even within the USA, not to mention variations between countries. This bad feeling aside, I'm glad I'm at least recognized officially as being on the spectrum as an adult who is near forty. That's something.

The diagnosing process itself consisted of interviews with me and my parents. Autism Diagnostic and Observations Schedule and Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised had been deployed along with an IQ test, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV.