Who adapts better, the diagnosed or the undiagnosed?

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Do you think it's better to be diagnosed early, or to never be diagnosed at all?

What I mean is...

Imagine two adults (Person A and Person B) who both have AS. Person A was diagnosed as a child; Person B is not only undiagnosed, but doesn't know what AS is.

Who do you think has adapted better?

My theory is that Person B may not be as happy b/c B's MANY social failures make B depressed sometimes.

Person A, on the other hand, is happier knowing A is different.

BUT while Person A sees the NT majority as being different and, in many ways, impossible to relate to, Person B does not see the differences as clearly and therefore adapts better than A.

Of course, just because B adapts better doesn't mean B is better-off than A. In my opinion, I would rather be A...

Since I wasn't diagnosed until my late forties, I can't tell. On the one hand, I've often wondered if my life would have been different. On the other, I can see that, even with a diagnoses, there wouldn't necessarily have been the support that I needed. My parents would have had to seek marital counseling, and my mother would have had to face her own issues, which were preventing her from being a nurturing parent.

As someone who is undiagnosed, I can tell you the world has been a perplexing and overall bad place. Since I'm a problem solver naturally, I often paid attention to things others claimed was too strange in social situations so I'd try to correct it but would end up screwing that up too. I finally just gave up trying to conform and felt better but I didn't know there was a label for my personality until a few years ago but I don't like to quickly jump to that conclusion or accept such things but this year I've finally accepted it. It feels better knowing these things because things that were unnoticed I now notice and can stop myself at times. Now it feels like an on and off switch. There are times when the social difficulties kick in and it turns back off. More like a roller coaster really. I don't like feeling limited so now I'm pushing myself to do things out of my comfort zone even though it's hell in an attempt to get used to it.

I am undiagnosed and I don't think it would have helped me if I had been diagnosed in childhood. In fact, with my parents, it would have made things worse. They were already preoccupied with making me be or at least appear "normal" and knowing there was something "wrong" with me, they'd have probably worked 10 times harder to "cure" me. Part of this cure may have been encouraging my sister to treat me even worse than they already allowed her to. Worse yet, they'd have decided I was damaged goods and written me off as a complete and utter failure before I had a chance to prove myself.

I'm not sure being diagnosed as an adult would have helped me either. All it would have done is answer alot of questions as to why, but given me no clue what to do now.

There are alot of parents of aspie children on these forums who don't condemn or try to "cure" their children but instead, fight for them and let them be who they are and instead of seeing it as a disadvantage, use it as an advantage. Those parents are in my opinion, unsung heroes.

WHere i was born it would not have madea difference i would just have been ret*d

I can also relate to PrisonerSix's post in that my parents would have reacted by trying to "cure" me. They labeled me as defective without an AS diagnosis so the diagnosis would have strengthened their case. Actually, when I was about 5, my mom and my pediatrician thought I was autistic, but the psychiatrist they took me to said I did not have autism because I had a large vocabulary for my age. She diagnosed me with ADD and encouraged my parents to use negative reinforcement methods similar to dog training in order to "correct" my behavior. Being diagnosed with AS probably would have made the experience worse.

However, I think that if I had been diagnosed with AS when I was a younger adult, it could have made my life easier. It could have helped me to understand that I was ostracized because I was different, not because I was defective. I also could have made better decisions about my education and career. For example, I might not have let my dad talk me out of applying to PhD programs in the hopes of becoming a professor. I might have been able to use the diagnosis to explain to employers that I'm not stupid or emotionally fragile. And I might have suffered from less depression and anxiety. Since I figured out I probably have AS, I haven't experienced any depression or anxiety. I think it's because I no longer blame myself for all the difficulty I have getting along in society.

So I think it's true that diagnosis (including self-diagnosis) can alleviate depression and anxiety, but for me, all the rest is speculation.

Undiagnosed. I've come to, quiet honestly, hate the rest of the world. I just don't get it, and I've descended into the animalistic stupidity of fearing and hating what I don't understand.

However. I still managed to cobble together the social skills I've needed to work with the public as a customer service rep and salesman. And this was prior to my even knowing AS existed and my understanding of Autism was that of some mythical beast or something of the like.

I was professionally diagnosed with ADHD as a kid, and last year with Bi-Polar disorder, however. So maybe these are just symptoms of a greater problem. My attention span is still crap, but my mood swings are rare these days.


Had I been diagnosed? I don't know. Who can predict these sorts of things... But I probably would have had better raising and training for social skills instead of having to rough it on my own. My father would have called BS, though. He wouldn't have believed it and probably would have fought any attempts to put me on medication, even though even now there is no magic pill for autism. He fought the ritalin every step of the way. I overcame my attention span issues though self training, and same with my professional social skills. So don't see how It would have mattered. Either way I would be alright. Probably happier though. I'm am an extremely deeply unhappy person.

My parents tell me that I was diagnosed at a young age, they just didn't tell me until I was 16 or 18 because they and my neurologist didn't want me to use Asperger's as a crutch. While, yes, it would have been nice knowing why I had outbursts here and there, on the other hand, instead of trying hard to be popular in middle school, I instead would have secretly used my Asperger's as an excuse and wouldn't have even tried, and in addition, instead of being excited by certain things, my emotions would have been more monotonous. In other words, if I had been told at an earlier age, it would have been hit or miss.

I think that my kneejerk rejection of getting diagnosed has to do with my Aspie personality of not believing in or expecting sympathy from anyone. I think that my aspie father would have greatly benefited from being diagnosed and might still be alive he had been formally diagnosed. To prevent anyone else from suffering and being denied their potential the way my father and Joni Mitchell were, I want everyone to get formally diagnosed even though it makes me think that the Nazis would have rounded us up and Mengele would have experimented on us if we had been formally identified under the Nazi regime. I think that more of us getting formally diagnosed and collecting our stories will be useful for stopping the bullying by becoming part of the received wisdom of society the same way we are less homophobic now that we are more understanding.

I am in Group B and, in some ways, I feel I have adapted much better than someone in Group A. True, AS wasn't a known diagnosis when I was going to school, but I also had the good fortune to have good teachers who treated me as someone with the potential to learn. I found that the more people expected of me, the more I learned.

I'm in group B. I have just turned 40, and was diagnosed in May.

In some respects, I think I may have felt better if I knew there was a concrete reason for why I did what I did, rather than spending the last 35 years wondering why I was so weird. I don't know if I ever got a formal diagnosis as a child - I went to and fro to specialists - if so no one let me know! My parents tried to change me and were rather embarrased by me- I don't know whether knowing at an early age would have helped or hindered - maybe I would have been more self accepting , and maybe I would have just given up completely.

I dont understand - how do you diagnose happiness ?

I still haven't been diagnosed (can't find anyone to do it). I would have preferred getting diagnosed early so I could hopefully get help, or at least know what was going on rather than feeling like I was a freak.

On the one hand I'd like to get an official diagnose, but on the other hand I don't think it would change anything for me now. I'm 20 and I've been strange all my life. I've learned to live with it. Looking back, I'm actually glad I was never diagnosed, because had I been, I don't think I would have made as much effort to be NT. AS would have been the perfect excuse for not doing things. Besides, there's no absolutely sure way of telling if you have AS or not. If you can go to 5 different psychiatrists and get 5 different diagnoses why should I trust the one that says I have AS? I'd rather be "self-diagnosed" and still have the world think of me as strange than be shoved into some category.

My biggest fear is not being diagnosed with AS, but of getting an unscrupulous evaluator who will limit my life based on a diagnosis. I had that experience in college, and don't want to go through it again.