I do not refer to myself as "self-diagnosed", but I'm fairly confident in my belief that I have Asperger's. I have done extensive research over the last year and a half using a variety of resources including the internet (scholarly peer reviewed articles, reviews of research, websites of prominent autism organizations, and forums and blogs written by or submitted by autistic people) books, psychological journals and magazines, and autistic people and their parents. Basically, every resource I can study, I have. I feel I know myself very well, have a great memory of my behaviors and thoughts back to about age 3, and have no motive for wanting to claim autism than other wanting to truly understand myself and try to learn to improve my life. I have also consulted professionals. Most of them have been clueless about autism in adults, especially women. I have been "provisionally" diagnosed by one professional; he wants me to undergo more testing before my dx is made official but I cannot currently afford any more psychological care expenditures. I have been diagnosed ADHD-NOS by one professional; I think that a combination of ADHD and AS is a possibility but I think that the real reason he gave me this diagnosis is that he didn't know enough about the differences in autistic children and adults to give me the correct diagnosis; I also think that he may have believed that he was doing me a favour by diagnosing me with ADHD and not autism as ADHD can be medicated, doesn't hold the same stigma as autism, and because he could not understand how it would help me to receive a diagnosis of autism as an adult. Mostly though, I think he had no idea how to evaluate an adult woman. He also commented that I was "too smart" to have autism and that there was no way that I would be able to function at the level that I do if I had autism. How he could judge so much about my functioning in a testing session that he vehemently declared "was not therapy" and he" was not interested in hearing about my life experiences" is beyond me.
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"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons; for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."