So Im back from the doctor, and it is official enough.

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So, in case you dont remember, or didnt read my thread, I was scheduled to go to the psychologist today to get an assessment about AS.

Seeing as how I have read a good deal of information about the subject, and know myself better then the doctor does, I am the best person to diagnose myself. But I did feel somewhat uneasy about diagnosing myself with a condition when I have never met anybody else with the condition, let alone spent a good deal of time with them. Books and the internet are excellent sources of information, but they dont exactly give you extensive personal experience with the subject. So, I decided to look up somebody who specializes in aspergers syndrome and ask them for a second opinion.

Well, I finally arrived at the clinic today, and was fairly nervous. I solved my rubics cube 6 times, but that didnt help calm me down much. The psych was fairly nice, but he did seem to be too social and talked about a lot of irrelevant stories. He told me what his wife's cousin did for work because it was somehow related to a hobby I mentioned. I'm pretty sure he was just trying to be friendly, and make small talk in an effort to break the ice, but I found it somewhat bothersome being off topic. I just smiled and nodded till he was done. After that I told him about my past, and why I thought I might have asperger's syndrome. He asked some questions about me, and we talked about things such as dating (which was fairly short because I have never gone on a date).

In the end he agreed with me that I do 'fit somewhere on the autistic spectrum', which I'm willing to accept. I wasn't looking for an exact title. I was just more so looking for confirmation of my suspicions from somebody who has personal experience with other autistic people. Call me paranoid, but I didnt get it officially written down on the record, because I didnt want it used against me. Since I work as a mechanical engineer on military projects, I will likely get a security clearance soon. I didnt want any flags popping up when the government starts looking through my records.

My only complaint was that the psych seemed to underestimate people with AS. He was surprised I could live independently and hold down a job. My guess is that this is because most people who are high functioning enough to live and work independently dont visit the psych for help, so he probably wasn't getting the full picture.

Overall, for the 30$ copay I spent, I think it was worth it, just for my own self assurance.

K...

Well, I hope you achives your goal- whatever that was.
I have pretty good insurance through my partner's insuarnce but that still didnt' cover the 5 psych visits, numerous tests and interviews to determine my place on the spectrum. $30 is a bargain.

I know someone that worked in psychology and she was surprised that I could even write the way I do. She said the people with AS she met wouldn't be able to string two sentences together.
I don't work though and so can't be financially dependent, so I guess your psyche wouldn't be surprised about that.
My psyche thought I did rather well for being undiagnosed for so long.

Anyway, I hope your reason for seeking a diagnosis has been achieved and that it helps you better understand yourself. If you start to feel down about it (as I did) you can visit the 'diagnosed later in life' thread which is around here somewhere.

Try being 40 before getting any kind of diagnosis!

That's generally been my impression...

I met this girl on DeviantArt a couple years ago and we hadn't talked much at all... I just remember that when I saw the first few messages from her on DeviantArt that I had that rare (for me) gut-intuition that she was a really cool person and that I'd like to know her better... but knowing my past history and also knowing that she was still in her mid-teens, I was being fairly cautious about what I said to her. I didn't want to lay some thick trip on her like I've done to people in the past, and I definitely didn't wan't to be that "creepy old guy" (who's intentions might not be entirely ethical). So I just told her that I enjoyed talking to her and left it at that, kind of hoping that maybe it would turn into one of those kind of adult-role-model type relationships maybe... She's a big fan of the old Far Side comics and she loves my work because it reminds her of Larson's. So the potential there seems promising.

A couple months ago(?) I posted a journal entry on DeviantArt (cross-posted to a couple different blogs) titled Pay It Forward because I finally got to see the movie and I wanted to share my thoughts on the subject with folks. Doing these kinds of things has been part of my ongoing reinvention of self to try and learn how to be better at the social thing and build a bigger/stronger friend network. About that time she started saying hi really frequently... up until that point we hadn't really talked but maybe exchanged an email or two every couple of months. And suddenly she's saying hi several times a week.

So... in spite of my usual obliviousness, it's obvious that something had changed, although I'm not entirely certain what. So I'm starting to go through my mental catalog of advice I've heard or read over the years about relationships (platonic or otherwise), because I want to make sure since she's taking an active interest in me that I make a mutual effort. And I'm remembering the advice "ask her questions about her interests". So knowing that she's now a senior in high-school, I ask her when she's graduating and if she's going to college... and "have you picked a major or are you going to wing it?" ... Mechanical Engineering... interesting... she knows she wants to do something in the engineering realm, and a mech. eng. major (or degree) will give her more time to decide on something specific. Seems pretty reasonable.

At this point (well for a long time now) she's known that I believed myself to be AS. We'd talked a lot about AS because I'd been perseverating about it and she said she found it interesting -- and she generally hasn't interjected a whole lot of new conversation topics when we've talked. I think I've tried to put forth an effort to instigate conversation and somehow coincidentally hit on a number of topics that really interest her like cognitive science, because these are subjects that are an interest for me. I had the follow up with the neurologist and then within the last few days we had this ongoing conversation about her and her family.

"This may be an odd question, but do you ever get the feeling I might have some traits of AS?"

To be honest, the thought had crossed my mind once or twice, but I wasn't focusing on it. She'd been sort of tallying up various different things that I'd said about AS and my experiences with it and noting that there was a really high rate of correlation between her and I on a lot of these things.

However... the interesting part of this story (the part that's relevant to what you were saying above) is that she's an optimist. Die-hard optimist. She's never struggled with any kind of depression that I'm aware of... But her father and even her grandfather seem also to have a lot of the same AS-like traits.

We know that autism is heritable (in particular that distributions of brain mass are particularly heritable). She's got the enormous egg-head like mine, she's got the eye-contact aversion, the uncomfortability in large social situations. She takes multiple advanced-placement classes and aces every test or assignment in school but is incapable of studying. And it seems fairly likely, particularly given that her father's side of the family has a history of strange and never fully identified "learning disabilities", that her and her sister both inherited some autism from that side of the family.

What's made the big difference in her case, the reason why she's an optimist and free of depressive symptoms, is because her mother is an optimist. Martin Seligman talked about that in his research on Learned Optimism (book by same name), that a person's "explanatory style" which differentiates optimists from pessimists is also highly heritable. But because most of us grow up with our mother as the primary care giver, and explanatory style is a modeled behavior, it's dominantly modeled by our parents. My mother is a freaking basket case! (So's my dad, who I think is also autistic.) So that helps to explain me and why I've had to work so hard to change myself.

She's not into the work force yet though. So she needs to get out there and see how she handles when the rules change quite a bit in college and working life. Right now though the prospect of her doing quite well is really promising. And I mentioned to her that unless she starts having difficulty keeping jobs, she may not want to pursue a diagnosis because of the difficulties involved in getting health insurance and the like.

Long story short. Although yes, most of the AS people we hear about are suffering with a lot of depression, etc. there's a good chance that's only who we're hearing about and that there are perhaps a fairly large number of people who are neurologically diverse but doing well despite the difference because of being lucky enough to have a really positive environment growing up.

And this is actually subsequent to my already being of the opinion that there might be a lot of folks who are on the spectrum but whom a doctor wouldn't diagnose as having an ASD because their symptoms aren't debilitating.

34 was hard enough for me... I'm not sure if I'd have survived the next 4 years.

I'm 40 and I've more or less decided that I'm going to ask my GP to refer me for an assessment. I've been thinking about it for a while, but I feel that I need to know and to talk things through properly with a professional who understands autism.

I don't know why, but I feel, I don't know, a bit foolish about asking my GP to refer me. I've managed to get by for this length of time, and I've definately learned how to be more sociable over the past 10 years or so.

Anyway, congrats to the OP. Sounds like you've achieved what I'm kinda hoping to be able to do.

Congratulations, Tracker, on getting your suspicions verified. I can understand the feeling of not wanting to be diagnosed on paper for job reasons, but it's still good.

That's the same reaction I had from the psychiatrist I saw. He said that it was impossible for me to have AS because I'm aware that I might have it, he said that "it's a defining factor that people with autism and AS don't have that kind of insight." He said, however, I was "borderline" or something. He acted like it would be impossible for me to be in college with AS.

Oh yeah, and congrats! I forgot to say that.

try 46. woo-hoo

aww geeze, guys. . I was 58!

Merle

what a delighful little crock of crap from your shrink, ryn.
i hope you departed his ignorant clutches and moved on to better things....

I was gonna say "try waiting till 50," but I am now humbled.

I'm sorry, Millie, but I don't quite catch your meaning here. I don't think you're being blunt enough.

Anyway, I totally freakin' agree. I just wonder what planet he came from?

Tracker, congratulations on having your self-diagnosis validated. I'm glad you got what you needed out of the assessment.

i take my hat off to you, Merle/sinsboldly!
and of course to you too, nesh.