Did someone tell you or did you discover AS yourself?

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Exactly the same here. Suspect I could've gone the rest of life not knowing, had such information only been available through others.




When I told the doctor my suspicions about AS, he said it was good how I came to the conclusion myself because it makes me more in control, and increases self-knowledge. He was the first I told; had not known what to expect. While accepting I am disabled in daily life, he sees it as a matter of management (not fixing something), 'cause it's a result of having a neurological type, not illness.

It felt weird, him accepting my conclusions immediately and assuming me to be AS from then on... I still had doubts about being on the spectrum. Having gathered enough evidence for and against, and having been assessed by professionals, it has begun to sink in, but still only recently.

Was certainly far more interesting to discover it alone, how I'm of a different neurological type, and answer decades' worth of questions myself. Had I been told in early adulthood (or even earlier), it may have been a disaster being labelled as such by others... no way to really tell.

i was assessed as autistic at 4 months old.
i was a "floppy" baby.
people who held me noticed that i was not an accommodating baby to hold. i did not provide help by flexing my own muscles in co operation with the holder so they would find it easy to hold me.
i often fell through their arms onto the floor. they said i was like a "loose sack of potatoes" to hold.

this was of concern.
also, i did not pay attention to any of the "family" situations around me.
i was more interested in watching flies at the window than looking at the faces of my family that were all trying to bring me to their world by smiling.

they took me to a doctor to see if i was missing some nutritional element that accounted for my lack of reciprocative involvement with the family.

the doctor referred them to a specialist who said i was autistic after some tests.

there were tests like whether i payed attention to where people were pointing (i asked about this later in life and that is how i know).
so in one test, a person would rush into the room and have a dreadful expression on their face and point. the tester would look in the direction of where the other person pointed, and also develop an expression of "dread".
i apparently did not notice the fear in the person who rushed in, and i did not look in the direction of where they were pointing and looking.
this was one factor in my diagnosis.
another test included whether i would change my facial expression or demeanor when presented with people that were laughing heartily, or crying in despair.
i did not.
i did not exhibit separation anxiety from my family during the tests etc.
so i was simply assessed as "autistic" at that stage because they could not guage my intelligence.

my family did not follow it up. they were kind of happy that it was not a nutritional imbalance or some other thing that may cause my early death. so i existed for about 4 more years unrestrained or guided.


when i went to kindergarten, i was seen as very strange by the teacher.
when the other children used to ask me questions, i just looked at them as if they were a TV set. like when i watched TV at that age, i saw the hosts on the kids shows seemingly ask me directly "how are you today?" and i knew that it is silly to answer, because it is just a TV.
so i also had that attitude toward the children.
i looked at them blankly when they asked me a question, and i started to snigger at them when they continued to wait for an answer.
i considered them to be objects and i had no connection with them at all in a "human" sense.
so i went to another round of assessments and i was considered MFA (medium functioning autistic). i was very blocked off from the reality of human beings and their thoughts.
i was then relegated to a mentally handicapped part of the school which was "OL" class which has spastic people and severely ret*d people in it.
i did not care.
i felt relieved.
then i was taken out of that because i obviously understood logic well, and i was reinserted into mainstream schooling. (year 3)
that lasted a short amount of time because i still was unable to absorb from any external person what they wanted to tell me (teachers that is).
i was expelled from that school and went into a psychiatric institution.
i was put in a special program that just gave me puzzles to do in an almost empty classroom for the rest of my junior school years.

they tried to put me back in the system in year 7 and it did not work.
it was a religious and strict private school.
i was a "laughing stock" to the other students.
i did not perceive the "authority" of the brethren and priests there.

an example may be that they may tell me to get my hands out of my pockets.
i paid no attention to that "request" because they are MY pockets, and i have a receipt for my trousers if he wishes to see.
i will do as i please with the property i (or my family) paid for.

they used to become enraged and demand me to extract my hands from my pockets, but until they produce a court order, my pockets are where my hands are going to stay.
(that is an influence of ODD (which i also have), but it is inculcated by AS).
another example is if a teacher snapped his fingers at me and called me "lad".
i would pay no attention to his gripe, and i would watch him snap his fingers in a repeated frenzy and i would become amused.
but my name is not "lad" so he is obviously not talking to me, even though he is snapping his fingers in my direction.

whatever, needless to say, i did not last long, but i was referred to an adolescent unit
i then got a very good psychiatrist who was researching asperger syndrome for contribution to the eventual DSM recognition.
she had a number of students as she was a professor, and i was questioned profusely, and put in circumstances where my reactions were studied.

i was a border at that adolescent unit and i very much liked it.
she said i would one day have a diagnosis of AS, and she contributed to the research that made it so.

i got officially diagnosed in 1996 after 2 drink driving charges. my lawyer found out i was assessed as AS from my historic psychiatric files and asked me to get a valid modern diagnosis.
so i went to the psychologist for 12 weeks, and he got my history from the files, and he spoke to my parents about my childhood etc and he did tests on me, and after he compiled his results, he certified that i was AS

but i refused to use it as a reason that i drank drove.

I'm unsure.

An awesome English teacher told me to check out 2 books after knowing me half a year. One was Big Mouth and Ugly Girl the other one The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night.

Was that chance or did the... suspect?

I asked him some more about the books and settled upon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night.

I didn't know what this weird 'Asperger's' was and Christopher's story seemed pretty normal to me. Nice book, easy read, all's fine I thought.

Sometime later, a year or half a year (can't remember) I read about autism. I didn't know what it was but knew the word 'autism' from TV and hearing people say it and decided it was time to check up on it to stay informed.

Then there was something called 'Asperger's' on the same page (German wikipedia article) and... well, the rest is boring.

I assume my former teacher's book suggestions were free from ulterior motives.

But I can't say I'm 100% sure.

I have a "cotton woolly" feeling in the left side of my head that has been there forever. I tried to get it checked out many times by doctors because it started to emit crunching noises, but they could find nothing unusual. A few days before I turned 30, I wanted to get to the bottom of what it was, and started to look up papers on brain lesions. I found one with a series of patients that had left lobe abnormalities and it said they all had Aspergers. First time I had ever hear of it, so went to Wikipedia of course, and found my own biography.

I thought I was the only one...

A counselor at my college believed that I had AS after telling her my difficulties in building friendships and romantic relationships in college. So she referred me to a psychiatrist to be evaluated for AS and was finally diagnosed with it.

.

Last edited by odd on 25 Jan 2009, 11:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't have an offical dx, because I can't afford it ATM, but I'm 99% sure that I have AS. I discovered it after 2 of my children were dx with ASD. No one told me, but I wasn't looking for it, either. I was just researching, because of my kids, and the pieces started falling into place.

Discovered it myself a year ago (aged 48) by looking on Google for an explanation for my lifelong habits of endlessly counting and tapping my fingers on my leg especially in social situations. Ended up doing some online tests that pointed very strongly at Aspergers Syndrome. I'd never heard of it so looked it up and my life made sense then, why I'd always been different is lots of specific ways.

When my youngest brother was diagnosed, my fmily went through a time of exploring what it was. My mom came to the conclusion that my grandfather was most likely one with Aspergers too so it kind of all seemed that all my brothers had one or two aspie traits. My older sister especially, though by the point of the diagnosis my older sister was settling down and was becoming less of a problem.

It has only become more apparent as time has gone on that I may have it severe enough to warrant a diagnosis, that much of my clumsiness and anxiety at school and work may be due to it.

I discovered that I had AS on my own. I was watching a documentary about autism and savant syndrome, when they made a mention of Asperger's. I was curious, and decided to look it up and....voila, I had found the answer to all my questions. It was a life-changing day. I tried to explain it to my family afterwards and I don't think they completely believed me. I'm still not sure that they do. Oh well, at least I know.

I found out about AS while surfing the 'Net. Nobody had told me about AS, or told me I might be autistic. Only one person has asked me if I was autistic, but that was after finding out about AS and diagnosis.

It was through a book, which is online, about the concept of love-shyness that I found the mention of AS. Love-shyness is the name given by the writer to the situation where men find it difficult to initiate relationships with women who could be potential romantic or sexual partners. The book is a research study on the causes, consequences and ideas for treatment of love-shyness and is very comprehensive (nearly 700 pages).

But the research was done around 1980. A letter written in 2004 which appears at the start of the online version of the book talks about AS and states that many of the love-shys would have AS. This is where I'd first heard of AS. I then found out what AS was and, like a lot of Aspies, I knew it was me to a T.

There was no suggestion from the writer, at the time of writing, that the love-shy men would be themselves on the autistic spectrum. Something that was completely missed in respect of the men at least. But one of the suggested ways to address love-shyness was introducing them to autistic females e.g. through their college. Because the research found that love-shy men were overly concerned about finding an attractive partner, autistic females were suggested as potential mates. This is because autistic people are held to be above average in looks, but would be less socially demanding than most attractive women, virtually all of whom are highly sociable, status striving and dominant and so might seem threatening to love-shy men.

I discovered my AS after a failed relationship with an NT girl. Living together was hard to say the least and I had to bail out. I was a wreck! I wondered why this happened and after some research I came upon this thing called Aspergers Syndrome.

I was told.

I had never heard of AS until about a year and a half ago. I was familiar with Autism already. No one has ever told me that I might have it, or that they agree with my opinion.

The first diagnosed person I've ever met with AS was a customer at the strip club that I worked at. He is still a regular customer there, and is very popular with some of the staff and probably, the hottest dancer that is there. She is Vietnamese and looks like a supermodel. Her best friend got mad about something he said off the cuff, and started cussing about it in the dressing room. She exclaimed that he was "Autistic or something" and one of the other dancers said, "He might have Aspergers". My ears immediately perked up, and I asked, "What is that?". She gave me some tidbits, and I started doing research.

I have been DX'd with Bipolar I and Bipolar II disorders by two different doctors without undergoing any real evaluations or testing. I am not Bipolar at all. I have in each case been put on anti psychotic, anti depressant cocktails. I, for sure have Clinical Depression, there is absolutely no doubt about that. I am also Gifted. There are many parts of human interaction that I did not even know existed, until I started gaining an interest in an AS diagnosis. I might be a rarely known about case of environmental causes of AS symptoms. I have uniquely overcome some of my issues that I relate to AS, mainly, eye contact, which is only a problem sometimes.

I am 26, and slow to develop socially, but I am making progress. I sometimes appear totally 'normal', but without a doubt, I have mental and/or behavioural health issues. I have no close friends at all, no lasting relationships under my belt, and have no idea how I slipped through the cracks for so long. Looking back on only ten years ago, today, I think that someone would have been more aware that there was an issue with me, like the one I've got. Granted, I did get in trouble a few times in school for being cold to people, presumably starting ''drama'' or social altercations, just for speaking my mind. I could blend in with popular kids, smart kids, weird kids, boys, and girls, but I never really got close. I was class president in the eighth grade, my speech writing skills were incredible. I also kicked a teacher in the back of the leg, that same year. I cannot play team sports, end of story.

My (now ex) wife read Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-time. She then made me read it as she recognised elements of me in the central character. We then stumbled across a documentary about a school for Autistic kids which got me seeing more and more of their behaviour in me. Did some research online, tried taking some of the online AQ tests and was sufficiently 'worried' (I use the word 'worried' as, at the time, it was a massive shock to the system - my only knowledge of Autism came from the film Rain Man) that I went to see my GP, who referred me to see a psychologist.

I kept researching as while I definitely had some autistic traits, I didn't seem to exhibit others. Then I came across Asperger Syndrome and that seemed to fit me perfectly. Before that I'd never even heard of it.

After waiting 18 months to see the NHS psychologist (and then being told that it would be at least another year before even an initial assessment) I snapped and opted to go to a private psychologist who diagnosed me with AS (the NHS psychologist did eventually see me and confirmed the diagnosis...even if he was somewhat 'backwards' in his understanding and knowledge of Autism).

Up until this chain of events, Autism had never been mentioned (I was merely 'shy') but, with the benefit of hindsight I can now see the same behaviour in both my father and grandmother (on my father's side). Sadly they're dead so I'll never know if they were AS too.

How old are you Neil? If you don't mind me asking.