Do all people with mild AS doubt their diagnosis?

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Hi,

I wanted to ask the people who were diagnosed with a mild case of AS, do you doubt your diagnosis? Does anyone know whether it is universal or almost universal for people with mild AS to doubt it?

I ask because I was diagnosed with a mild case and I have had a lot of doubts...

Thanks for all replies.

Hi. I was diagnosed with mild AS. The psychologist was not sure, she didn't have experience with ASD. I wait assessment focused on ASD and I want confirm or reject it. It is now for me best explanation for my problems, I don't have better, but I want know it sure.

I don't even know if I count as mild. At some point, I was told either you are an aspie or you aren't---it didn't seem to be a matter of degree. Now that diagnosis itself doesn't exist anymore. But you can rest assured there are very, very few things I wish more than to get rid of my diagnosis and for the world to forget it ever existed, so it can't be used against me again.

My diagnosis was just over two years ago (at 41) and I still have days when I doubt the diagnosis.

I found it useful to read a few of the biographies that are around. The similarities between their lives and mine have been quite profound.

There is a club that I go to regularly. Whilst I am by no means the most affected person there I can see little bits of myself in all of the other attendees.

Other days I don't doubt the diagnosis one bit.

I have read :
Michelle Vines
Luke Jackson
Cynthia Kim
William Hadcroft

I was diagnosed with mild AS when I was 8. But I never understand how, because I have a good memory of myself as a child and I know that I did not have a lot of the typical autism traits that a child needs to be qualified for a diagnosis.

For a start I never lined toys up or stacked things or got fascinated with spinning things. My parents say I didn't as a baby, and I don't remember doing it as a child, so I know I didn't do stuff like that at all. I remember playing with my toys imaginatively. I was a messy child, and I hated tidying up, so when I had managed to tidy up my room (after being nagged by my mum) I didn't want other children to mess it up again. But in about a week it got messy again without me noticing, so I didn't care if other children touched my stuff. Also I used to throw a tantrum if my mum had cleared up something I had set up in the living-room, only because I wanted to continue playing with it after school or the next morning. And when I saw it was all tidied away, I would lay on the floor and cry.
And that's another thing: tantrums. As a child, I didn't have 'autism meltdowns'. I just had tantrums either to get attention (if I felt nobody was paying me any attention), or to get something I wanted. So I had tantrums to emotionally manipulate adults. I was very verbal during a tantrum too.
I was rather social too. I loved chatting away, and I seemed rather good at having a conversation with people. I even could chat away with other children too, but usually kids were there for me to play with rather than just sit around talking. I played imaginative games all right with other kids though. My mum says I would play outside with the other children in my neighbourhood for hours, and I co-operated fine. We would play among some trees that were in front of our houses, or play on our bikes.

So I don't understand how I qualified for a diagnosis of AS.

Yup, I was diagnosed a bit less than a year ago, and I keep going through phases where I'm sure it's accurate one day, and then a few days later I'm questioning it.

My diagnosis included a section "Alternative Diagnosis Considered", which stated that the psychologist had also considered a diagnosis of Social Communications Disorder for me.

I asked the psychologist about this, and he said the reason he put that in the diagnosis wasn't because he thought I might have Social Communications Disorder, but because it makes the Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis stronger; if he didn't explicitly state that he had considered and discarded Social Communication Disorder as a possibility, the first question someone reading the diagnosis would ask is, "Was SCD considered?".

He told me that Yes, he was sure it was ASD and not SCD. And yet, every so often (particularly when things are going well), I still have my doubts. And other times, I look at the difficulties I have, and I am as sure as the psychologist was.

Maybe if I had been diagnosed at a much younger age and not gone through 36 years of life not knowing about it, I would be more accepting of it.

I had doubted because most signs are passed off as a child thing. Doubted simply because of the culture's leniency. Doubted because I have too many fulfillments and means. And doubted simply because pride and wrath had screamed that it's the world's fault.

I doubted my own differences at despite sensing it.
I doubted my problems despite that it caused problems to others.
I doubted my issues when I actually see it and be aware of it.
I doubted other people's accounts even if it's true.
I doubted my diagnosis despite a part of me says it made sense.

Yet...

I doubted less as I roam around the net, looking for answers.
I doubted even less as I meet others who might've been like me.
I doubted much less as I explore and figure myself.


Sometime later -- I've been more confident with the fact that I'm autistic.
That time, I realized that I'm not some maladaptive human whose issue is the will, the personality, the outlook, the heart/soul/mind, or some happenstance.
Disabled is not equal to maladaptive. Being different and choosing things differently wouldn't mean refusing adaptation and growth.

Bottomline is, I'm certain that I'm autistic. Not some narcissistic brat, not some anxious wreck, not some delicate flower nor a stubborn weed, and not some screwed up person because the past says so.
At worst, I just woke up with a headache, hungry, and pissed because I overslept and not well rested despite that... Causing whatever imbalances -- consequently whatever crap of a potential bad news. And imbalances are 'events', and are a part of my past -- not necessarily a 'part' of me.

Heck, I might even be on a 'moderate' side of functioning level. I was diagnosed 'mild' not because I have less burdens, more means, therefore I could appear like one -- actually it's because I could 'afford' it.

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I don't.

Even now I doubt my diagnosis. I feel like I am too socially adept to be on the spectrum, but still not socially adept enough to not be on the spectrum, if that makes sense.

I don't. But my therapist thinks my Aspergers is caused by a childhood trauma

I was diagnosed because it was the "best he could do for a diagnoses" according to my mother. She also told me he said to her this is the closest she would ever get to for a diagnoses. I interpret that as "You daughter has a disorder that doesn't have a name, it's a forum of autism but it's not autism or AS, she has her own version of it but it doesn't have a name." Maybe if he had more of me, he might have started to study this rare disorder and call it Stubb Syndrome and describe it as the mildest form of autism before Asperger's. There are disorders out there that are so rare, they do not have names.

I once met a kid that had a rare chromosome disorder it didn't have a name. He was small for his age and looked a lot younger and he had a mind of a toddler even though he was only eight. He didn't look eight either, he looked two and he was the same size as my then two year old daughter. You could tell he had something too just by looking at his face. I was shocked when the mom told me lot of kids are afraid of him and adults too and she acted like I taught my kids to not fear difference and I was like "no, you don't teach your kids to not be afraid of someone different, they learn it." I never taught my kids different is bad. That is something taught. If you make a big deal about something being different or tell a kid to stay away from another child who is different and get on your kid's case about when they do something different or when something they do isn't "normal" they learn different is bad and they have to be like everyone else so those who don't follow it are bad people. That is why kids with disabilities get flak. Because kids are taught it's wrong to be different. I think it's subtly taught and it's subliminal.

I havew doubt my diagnoses before because I cannot relate to reading messages and books and always relating to everything in it like the other aspies claim. I was always under the impression everyone is different so they will have their own experience and their own problems so of course you won't always relate. It's the same with other disorders too like anxiety or OCD or learning disability.