Maybe I'm just brain damaged?

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I was diagnosed with Asperger's four years ago, after a lifetime of severe struggles and ultimate failure in school, work, and social relationships, and I do fit all the official criteria of ASD, as outlined by the DSM-V.

But in the four years since my diagnosis, the overwhelming attitude I have encountered is that 'autism is overdiagnosed', and I am honestly tired of it - to the point of not wanting to participate in this forum anymore, because I am just tired of encountering that attitude on a daily basis, in the one place where I ought to find acceptance.

So lately I've been questioning: if so many people seem to think this - maybe they're right? Maybe it's not a case of the 'ignorant masses' not understanding autism, but rather something else going on, in my case?

(Though I DO want to make clear that I disagree with the 'autism is overdiagnosed' attitude, and am not in any way doubting another person's diagnosis - only my own, in an attempt to understand my issues better.)

And in my case, I was deprived of oxygen for 8 minutes during birth, and doctors at the time were concerned about brain damage. (I explained this to the psychologist who diagnosed me with Asperger's and Bipolar Disorder, and she told me that both of those conditions are linked to birth trauma, so I suppose it's a package deal in my case.)

But just out of curiosity, I looked up symptoms of brain damage on WebMD, and a lot of this describes me as well:

Cognitive symptoms of brain damage include:
Difficulty processing information
Difficulty in expressing thoughts
Difficulty understanding others
Shortened attention span
Inability to understand abstract concepts
Impaired decision-making ability
Memory loss

Perceptual symptoms of brain damage include:
Change in vision, hearing, or sense of touch
Spatial disorientation
Inability to sense time
Disorders of smell and taste
Balance issues
Heightened sensitivity to pain

Physical symptoms of brain damage include:
Persistent headaches
Extreme mental fatigue
Extreme physical fatigue
Paralysis
Tremors
Seizures
Sensitivity to light
Sleep disorders
Slurred speech
Loss of consciousness

Behavioral/emotional symptoms of brain damage include:
Irritability and impatience
Reduced tolerance for stress
Sluggishness
Flattened or heightened emotions or reactions
Denial of disability
Increased aggressiveness

I'm not even sure why I'm sharing this here, except just to add my voice to those who are frustrated by the lack of acceptance and support for people with ASD - even in the few places where we ought to find understanding and compassion, such as on this forum.

So if anyone prefers to think of me as simply being 'brain damaged', I'm fine with that too. This is the only place in the world that I try to socialize at all, and in real life I am completely reclusive, so I'm learning to accept that it simply doesn't matter what anyone thinks of me. I don't like being misunderstood, and yet that's the reality I face, and at this point I think I just need to make peace with it.

Perhaps my ultimate triumph will be when I can say "hi, I'm Ashariel, I'm socially awkward, scatter-brained, emotionally immature, and hypersensitive to stimuli, for reasons unknown" - and not feel ashamed of any of that, because I know that regardless of what label you put on it, none of that is my fault, and I have spent a lifetime dealing with it as best I can.

I've known a few people who were "anoxic" (deprived of oxygen for a period of time) at birth. Their symptoms vary widely. I've known people who are functioning quite well despite their anoxia; I knew a person who is nonverbal and (seemingly) severely intellectually disabled.

All in all, it doesn't really matter whether you have Asperger's, or you don't. You are still quite welcome on this Site.

I would have thought if your doctor has diagnosed autism then that's what you have. I would not take any notice of any other peoples "Diagnosis" unless they are also doctors.

Brain injury is a 'cause' diagnosis, and AS is a 'symptom' diagnosis, so they are in no way incompatible. It would be like being diagnosed with both a broken leg and a limp.

So if someone has a brain injury that caused them to meet the criteria for AS (including the onset criteria, so only an early childhood brain injury would qualify) they would have AS. It doesn't matter what the cause is - if you have the features of AS and have had them since early childhood, you have AS.

Have you had a brain scan/MRI to rule out other possible diagnoses that could explain the symptoms you are experiencing?

sometimes I feel the same.

I have told people in the past that I have brain damage rather than tell them I have aspergers.

I was actually diagnosed with brain damage/brain injury back in the 1960s.

Why does it bother you to hear "autism is overdiagnosed"?
It doesn't really bother me.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, it's hard to tell since autism is so varied.

This is a possible example of the real damage bieng done by the continoius onslought of the Austism and particularty Aspergers is overdiagnosed meme. In the 2 1/2 years here I have seen post after post after post from proffessionally diagnosed users doubting thier diagnosis. While some of the concerns are legit most of it is people wondering if they faked themselves and the clinicion in order to make an excuse or be treated as a special snowflake.

Anothers words time and mental energy that should be spent dealing with and accepting ones autism is bieng spent wondering if they were wrongly disgnosed and wondering if they are really just a bad person.

I was oxygen deprived at birth and born cyanotic. I figure that's what caused my autism. Doctors won't commit to a straightforward answer on that of course. And there's a bit of debate that my severe dyspraixa is more of a problem for me than my autism in some areas. But I think the whole thing adds up to the effects of brain damage.

I used to work for a specialist practice for people with acquired traumatic brain injuries, and yes, most of the patients were of a severe category requiring constant care, but none of them were able to be as coherent and eloquent as you are. If you did have a brain injury, my guess is it would be mild, especially if you have no past history of needing medications to control the symptoms. Many of the symptoms of brain injuries and autism do overlap, but most people with brain injuries at birth (I worked mostly with people who had suffered brain injuries as adults, as a result of accidents or partially-failed suicide attempts) have had it identified by CT scans documenting actual measurable abnormalities in the structure of the brain. You might look into getting yourself scanned by CT / MRI if you're curious.
BUT - if your only cause for concern is the invalidation by other people, I'd challenge letting those opinions sway you from a diagnosis / identification that works for you and gives you answers. The "autism is over diagnosed" attitude is just part of the not-autistic-enough spiel that I for one consider a really sh***y attitude, and would not endorse by allowing it to scare me off. People can say what they want. It doesn't stop you being autistic or them from being ignorant, insecure and elitist.

So being autistic enough equals being elite?

Thanks for the input on this issue. No, I've never had a brain scan, but I'd be curious about that as well.

I think the reason the 'autism is overdiagnosed' attitude bothers me so much is that I've spent a lifetime being told that there's nothing wrong with me, I'm just a hypochondriac, and a liar. And here I am at 44, finally having been diagnosed with a condition that explains my lifelong problems - only to be dismissed as a hypochondriac and liar anyway.

Alexithymia makes it difficult for me to trust what I actually feel, physically. Do I actually feel nauseated and dizzy, or am I just making that up? It's really hard for me to tell, for sure. (And any kind of emotional symptom, I simply wasn't aware of feeling at all as a child.) So if you're told often enough that you're just faking it - you start to wonder if maybe you're really that depraved, to the point that you imagine symptoms and actually believe your own delusions.

So this has been a sore spot my entire life. Basically 'gaslighting', being told everywhere I turn that I'm only imagining my physical and emotional symptoms, that there's no logical reason for me to be feeling the way that I do, and therefore I'm making it all up for attention, or to get out of school and work obligations.

The truth about me is that I am extremely quiet and shy, not the attention-seeking type. I am by nature an obsessively hard worker, and was valedictorian of my high school class (despite my frequent absences due to 'not feeling well', which was supposedly evidence of me 'slacking off' out of laziness?)

So anyway, I need to learn to trust - in my own heart - that I really do suffer from typical ASD-related GI problems and sensory issues, plus alexithymia, and that my nature tends toward blunt honesty rather than lying; desiring solitude and isolation, rather than attention. (If I'd actually wanted attention, I already had plenty of it as a musical child prodigy. I didn't need to be faking illness to get people to notice me.)

Thanks again for the replies - you guys have really helped me to identify what's really bothering me, and what I need to work on, in terms of reclaiming my confidence, and saying no to the 'gaslighting' that I've encountered my entire life.

I do think that autism is somewhat overdiagnosed.
I think there are distinct populations in which autism label is applied based on some "autism-like" behaviors, but the label not really fitting, and applied for treatment.
Some examples are children with specific genetic disorders like fragile X, Rett Syndrome, Timothy Syndrome, Prader-Willi Syndrome, agenesis of the corpus callosum, etc. Literature estimates are these disorders with some "autism-like" behaviors making up ~20% of spectrum. As research into these disorders and autism expands, they are found to be increasingly distinct from autism. I even read of a child with Batten disease being diagnosed with autism. Batten disease is a lysosomal storage disorder that kills brain cells over time, so the child loses more and more functions. It can be diagnosed as autism based on some symptoms, but Batten disease is not really a cause of autism, but more a cause of general brain dysfunction. Eventually, when the child starts going blind as the visual cortex dies, doctors realize the problem was never autism.
Also, autism can be difficult to distinguish from mental retardation or brain damage from birth trauma or caused later by epilepsy or stroke or tumor, etc. These conditions can cause some autism-like behaviors. Or generally reduced cognitive functioning, so the child doesn't meet developmental milestones and can be diagnosed with autism. Large scale brain networks such as for social cognition can be severely affected by brain damage or mental retardation.
One of the ways to be more confident about a diagnosis is if a person has normal intelligence and no other disorder that is severe, but their social cognition is deficient, their sensory processing is different, they have repetitive behaviors, a childhood history consistent with autism, and they were different very early on.

I agree that as autism becomes better understood, the criteria might change over time, and doctors might do a better job of recognizing signs of other disorders (since so many of the symptoms overlap).

The only part of this that differs with the current DSM-V definition is the absence of other disorders. In my own case, I meet all the criteria for Bipolar Disorder, plus all the criteria for ASD - and until they come up with a diagnosis that incorporates both of those things, the most accurate way to classify it is Bipolar plus ASD. (Which, granted, makes me different from someone who only has ASD, but it's the current belief of mainstream psychiatry that a person can have both.)

In any case I'm learning a lot from this discussion, and settling into my own opinion that in a world of differing viewpoints on what autism is, I choose to defer to the official criteria established by mental health professionals.

Indeed, the definition of autism is forever evolving.

It's quite possible that the single entity known as autism might become "the autisms." Perhaps they'll name each "autism" after somebody (just like they named a syndrome after Asperger).

This is not satirical, by the way. I do believe in the "multiple autisms" hypothesis.