Obsession with the diagnosis

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Hi! For a long time I was told to have Asperger's. Now I officially asked for an assessment to actually know the truth. Meanwhile, I've been testing myself on usual Asperger traits. I began with watching a few autism related tv shows: Touch and Parenthood; and now I think I'm exaggerating: now I'm rocking back and forth all the time, I really have to cover my ears when someone says something a little louder or the school's bell rings, I'm very focused on thinks for long periods of time, always noticing patterns and distracted when these are corrupted, having daily routines, etc. I'm afraid that once I have my diagnosis, I won't stop checking every thing I do.
I wasn't like that. If am actually an aspie, then I was very high functioning. But now it feels like I can't stop being "very" autistic.

Is this normal or there is actually an unknown autism spectrum disorder that gets progressively worst with time?

I'm looking forward to have a positive diagnosis because I need a relief of all thoughts I have in my mind and begin to look "normal" again.

It's normal for people to be more visibly autistic at times, where one of the times they tend to be more visibly autistic is for a while after learning that they are, or are probably, autistic.

Don't be too worried about it, after lerning about the diagnoses this is normal.
It's like this is "comming out" your autism, because you are thinking about it more. A lot of autistic people start reading about the diagnoses and everything that has to do with autism.
Your autism hasn't gotten worse even if it feels like it, you just notice it more and so you act more autistic but that wouln'd be forever like this.

For about a year after I was diagnosed, AS was pretty much my focused interest, but as a result of my awareness and pride, I was asked to participate in a panel discussion on autism and a few months later I was invited to speak at a conference, which was all pretty cool.

Begininging this past year ago though, I rarely think about it. I still have pride in myself and my difference, but I no longer talk about it unless someone else brings it up.

The stress from waiting on a diagnosis can result in you being "more" autistic. This is perfectly "normal".

But it really feels like I'm doing this on purpose just to get more attention but on the other hand I've always presented these symptoms (except rocking back and forth).

Thank you so much for your replies. I am much more tranquil now.

After I found out I have tics (probably Tourette-Syndrome) my tics started to get worser. I even couldn't sit still for lunch, nothing. It needed a fiew month to get "normal" again, how it has been bevore. In this time I also had the fear that it got worser, espessially because I'm in puberty now so it wouldn't have been so unlikly with the brainchanges that happen and everything.
For me it wasn't something to get attention, I think it was more like finding out how I "work" and a "testing" how society reacts.
The first time you find out how your brain is working and that is working differently can freak you out.

Sometimes it is good to inform yourself about a diagnoses and sometimes it is just too much when it starts to overwhelm you.

I'm going through this right now. It's so confusing because I don't know if I'm noticing habits I had previously or picking up aspie habits because I think I have aspergers. And I'm not sure if I'm being biased about it when I think over my childhood for aspie symptoms and am just remembering aspie things and filtering out all my NT behaviour.

Well, I think I was obsessed with the diagnosis before I got it differently than after. Before, I was looking for traits of myself that could indicate I had an ASD. WP had been a very good place to do it. After, I was obsessed with the diagnosis I was given because I didn't expect it at all, not a bit! I expected Asperger's or maybe HFA but I've been diagnosed with PDD-NOS. I hated this vague and cumbersome label that almost no one seemed to know about, let alone recognize it as being on the autism spectrum. So I looked even closer into this matter, read a lot about PDD-NOS and its difference form other ASDs, brought it up to the psychs who evaluated me several times. At one point, I settled. I don't think it is the right diagnosis for me, but I understand that different clinics diagnose differently. There's reason why they've given that dx to me, and somehow I have to appreciate it, even if I don't like it or think otherwise.

At first I thought I didn't have any disorder when my mother insisted that I did and when she said that I had an educational law specific for this kind of disorders. I refused to accept I had Asperger's and I thought that that was a psychological problem that was not for me, that I couldn't adapt myself but I was not insane! And my mother used to speak of me, right beside me, that I had some mental problem. That really annoyed me. Who likes to be spoken in the 3rd person when you are right there?
Anyway, years later, when I was in middle school, I was bullied (and I still am), made fun of, etc. and I started to feel that I didn't belong here. Now, in high school, I've been researching for ASDs and I agree with my mother, there's no way I'm not an aspie. But when I spoke to my class director, she didn't believe so, because there is a boy in my class that do have Asperger's but he's deaf and ret*d and she is always comparing me to him. I keep saying to her that a person with Asperger's doesn't have to be that severe.
Redirecting to the subject of this topic...
I think that my subconscious wants me to be noticed so my class director can believe me. I'm always thinking to myself that I might be doing this on purpose and faking it. But on the other hand I truly believe I am and I'm afraid that when I get my diagnosis it reveals that I'm not Asperger.

Of course that if I'm diagnosed with PDD-NOS, then I can fret that in my class director's face.

At first I thought I didn't have any disorder when my mother insisted that I did and when she said that I had an educational law specific for this kind of disorders. I refused to accept I had Asperger's and I thought that that was a psychological problem that was not for me, that I couldn't adapt myself but I was not insane! And my mother used to speak of me, right beside me, that I had some mental problem. That really annoyed me. Who likes to be spoken in the 3rd person when you are right there?
Anyway, years later, when I was in middle school, I was bullied (and I still am), made fun of, etc. and I started to feel that I didn't belong here. Now, in high school, I've been researching for ASDs and I agree with my mother, there's no way I'm not an aspie. But when I spoke to my class director, she didn't believe so, because there is a boy in my class that do have Asperger's but he's deaf and ret*d and she is always comparing me to him. I keep saying to her that a person with Asperger's doesn't have to be that severe.
Redirecting to the subject of this topic...
I think that my subconscious wants me to be noticed so my class director can believe me. I'm always thinking to myself that I might be doing this on purpose and faking it. But on the other hand I truly believe I am and I'm afraid that when I get my diagnosis it reveals that I'm not Asperger.

Of course that if I'm diagnosed with PDD-NOS, then I can fret that in my class director's face.

I had forgotten about things that I did as a kid until I started doing more research. A lot of those stims I had suppressed, because I knew other people would look negatively upon them. I found that I was also subconsciously doing them more often than I was previously. However, one thing I WASN'T doing as often was spending so much effort suppressing them or trying to do other things to impress people. I had been being another person for so long, it was more like I was trying t to find my real self again. It's as though my brain is trying to reconcile everything that came before in order to find where it wants to settle in the grand scheme of things.

It's a fairly typical response, and nothing to be too concerned about. It's like the injury that doesn't hurt until you start paying attention to it. It keeps hurting until you forget about it again. The same thing happens with a new diagnosis a lot of the time. You're focused on the symptoms, how they relate to your past and present, where and how they crop up, etc. and because of that focus, you're bound to emulate the behaviour (either unconsciously or semi-consciously), more intensely, or where you didn't before. I went through the same thing; for months after I discovered AS and self-diagnosed, I started stimming a lot more, getting even more sensitive to touch/sound, etc. being even less socially savvy than I already was, for a while I was looking like a positive Rain Man (minus the savantism). The point is, this kind of thing will flare up and die down depending on how much attention you give it. Once the diagnosis becomes familiar and you stop obsessing over it, everything will go back to the way it was before.

It is also a learning process, similar to other medical conditions. The same way people with high blood pressure have to learn to avoid things like eating salt, too much stress, being too upset, etc. you are learning to account for your specific condition. People with schizophrenia have to consciously monitor themselves around the clock for psychotic thoughts, voices, paranoia and such in order to prevent acute psychosis. People with addiction or depression have to push themselves out of passive behaviour patterns and also watch out for possibly dangerous inclinations. Most conditions are like that.

The better your understanding of your psychological mechanics is, the more you can adapt your behaviour and decisions to match your specific needs. Showing more symptoms could actually mean that you are less negligent of those needs, then again it could also be some lesser form of malingering (the so called secondary handicap). We cannot know this.

What if I don't get to forget it after my diagnosis?

I believe that my subconscious doesn't want me to stop this until I finally get the answer. Only then I may be less worried. But I still won't forget it.

By the way, today I had a meltdown during my math test. I think I'm gonna have a bad grade 'cause I didn't answered a lot of questions. Who knows if I had this meltdown because I'm Asperger or because I didn't know the answers and panicked...

You're going to feel a lot of anxiety until the diagnosis, and then after that (regardless of the results) give it about a year to get your bearings straight. Playing "What if..." with yourself is inadvisable. Give yourself permission to react without second guessing your reactions.