Benefits of Official Diagnosis of an Adult

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I have been seeing a Psychologist for approx 4 years regarding my 11yo with Asperger Syndrome (good IQ) and 6yo Autistic with an ID and tourette's. He can see a definite family trace on my side and says that I am AS too (which I knew anyway). Is there any real benefit now I am a 40yo mum of 3 apart from emptying my wallet for a report?

I've been wondering the same thing! I think it would be helpful to have a psychiatrist at least. (for me I need help with identifying and managing my anger) The AS diagnosis might be helpful if you want accomodations for school or work.

Other than that, I'm not sure. Just reading about AS and thinking through the areas in my life that seem harder than they should be has been validating.

i know where i live (in canada) there would be definite financial benefits of being diagnosed. you would get tax benefits, qualify for government drug plans and depending on your income you could get a disability benefit every month. not sure about other countries though.

Top 10 Top Ten Reasons for Adults to Seek an Asperger Syndrome Diagnosis

http://autism.about.com/od/aspergerssyn ... etasdx.htm

I was diagnosed as an adult less than a year ago--very helpful for school accommodations and to get some outside validation, but that's about it. If you know the diagnosis fits and you don't need someone else to confirm it, you will still have access to all sorts of information that will help you sort your life out on your own without a professional. Much cheaper that way. For what you would pay for the diagnosis and therapy sessions, you could buy an enormous personal library of books on autism/asperger's and probably get a lot more out of it.

But that's just my two cents.

I read those and many, if not all are true of me (except for the job - mine is fantastic), but when I did see a couple of psychologists they didn't offer any solutions or tips. None.

Getting a diagnosis was merely validating.

I have also been wondering if I should get an official diagnosis or not. There's little doubt in my mind that I have Asperger's, but I'm 28 years old, I have a job, and I'm self sufficient. Yes, I'm sure it's getting in the way of quite a lot of those things on the website list... but how will getting an official diagnosis help? I find it much more helpful honestly getting tips from people here. If I had someone in person who could help me in my daily life... maybe, but I'm skeptical of it. Yes, I try to fake normal, and there are a lot of areas I struggle to understand still or have only recently realized were there at all. However much of the advice I've gotten from NT's throughout my life has been to do things that are totally against my nature and seem pointless, for little or no gain. There are a lot of areas where I have to weigh the energy expended in pretending to act a certain way to appear more "normal" (usually not fooling many people anyway) against the benefit, which is very low. I guess I'm just skeptical that an official diagnosis will help with this.

In terms of the disability rating... I don't consider myself disabled. Yes, I clearly think differently than other people I know, and I have trouble in many areas. But I don't feel I deserve governmental assistance in the way that someone who has lost their legs does and I would feel bad accepting it, and wouldn't apply for it.

Another factor is, practically everybody I've told in real life about Asperger's has reacted negatively (not knowing anything about it except vague preconceived notions, if anything). If I had an official diagnosis I think I would feel more obliged to tell people about it.

Also, due to the constant negativity and my years of trying to mask my behavior, I don't feel particularly trusting towards the unknown psychologist who would diagnose me. I think I would feel much more likely to get diagnosed if there were some physical test (which I feel there probably will be, once medical research advances to that point), instead of the opinion of some person who doesn't know me.

On the other hand, learning about Asperger's was a real revelation for me. Talking to other people with Asperger's, if only online, finally made me aware, for good or ill, that I am not the only one of this species in the world. So part of me also feels that an official diagnosis would "answer the question".

Yet another part of me is afraid that if I go to get diagnosed I will find out something else (or many something elses) is wrong with me... I have so many problems that I'm a little afraid to find out how deep this well goes. I am not interested in going on any kind of medication.

I love your description of trying to be normal. I have often said that it is the energy expended to be "normal" that is the biggest burden AS has placed on me. I feel like I've wasted half my life on it.

I have a few thoughts you might consider while contemplating getting a diagnosis. I didn't really realize the limiting effect my problems had on me in my 20's until I reached my 30's. I might have been much better off if I had.

Also, I have used medication for over a year now and my life is substantially better than it has ever been. I didn't feel any acute need for medication, I just wanted to try it to see what it might do for me for the sake of my wife and kids. It has been well worth the side effects and I could now accept the idea I might take it for the rest of my life.

First off, Grendel stated it perfectly.

I'm coming up on 27, and I've made it this far on my own. I have a wife, 2 kids, and a job that I can remove myself from human interaction for 95% of my day for. At the same time, I feel like a robot or a fake person - I have to make up these mask personas to put on during the interactions that I am forced into, and sometimes I can't put my mask on quickly enough - then I sit there silent as the person I am supposed to be having a "conversation" with rattles on, and I completely lose track of the conversation, muddle up my words into an incomprehensible sentence, or go into a kind of trance. I guess this is the "sensory overload" that I hear about, but I can't prove this to myself with any certainty.

I could go to a therapist and get diagnosed - and I've already tried this once, in fact (he just wanted to slip me drugs, and accused me of trying to fit myself into the popular culture mental illness) - and think that some of the therapies could really help.

...On the other hand, everyone that I've breached the subject with in my life, other than my wife, has either taken it as a joke or with some withdrawal and their attitudes have changed. And one person was actively hostile. Additionally, I plan on migrating to Norway or Sweden, and am completely unsure how this would affect my immigration papers.

It's hard to decide.

There's a deeper issue here - by avoiding diagnosis we keep the hope alive that we're really normal, just different. Diagnosis brings identification with the autistic race, and - when the shock's dissipated - a desire for justice. We're excluded, discriminated against, abused. Just because we're not like them. That's not fair.

That's a good list, I agree with them all! Getting a diagnosis as an adult has been a huge and positive turning point in my life.

ditto

You nailed it. I've been doing a considerable amount of extracurricular reading on the subject. The deeper I dig, the uglier it gets--the psychiatry and psychology professions have ugly history, and most of the research being done on autism is useless, with "data" that is little more than a reflection of the prevailing biases of the researchers.

I appreciate what you're saying, although in my experience, most of us welcome an AS diagnosis with open arms. We don't want to be told we're "normal," because all our lives we've known something is wrong, and everybody around us has said "oh, you're normal" even though we know we are not. By the time of our diagnosis, we welcome it, and the emotion is joy, rather than shock.

I'm not convinced that I need the system to validate my diagnosis, and therefore give me the identification and feeling of injustice. To be honest, I have been feeling the injustice for most of my life though I didn't have a name for it until a few months ago. Reading Tony Atwood's book was like reading an autobiography of my life up to this point. He has me convinced, and he also has me convinced that the DSM-IV definition of AS is terribly flawed. Being diagnosed under that definition wouldn't mean anything to me. I am also an American, so an official diagnosis would bring stigma, but absolutely no financial rewards or support. I wouldn't want either anyway - I am highly successful in my career and the family I am creating and I can think of better ways to spend the $1000+ it would cost to have a piece of paper that confirms what I know in my heart already.

I would also add that the establishment has already had plenty of cracks at me and have failed each time this far. I was sent to a special school for "gifted and talented" kids when I was 8 because I could not properly socialize with my peers (granted the diagnosis of AS did not yet exist at this time but the word autism never came up), I was diagnosed with clinical depression at 19 and social anxiety disorder at 23. The cause for all of these issues was never discovered by the professionals, it was discovered by myself in researching possible causes for my 2 year old son's speech delay.

There is no doubt in my mind that I have Aspergers. I'm not sure if I want to get an offical diagnosis because I don't want it to be used against me. When I told my psychiatrist that I have Aspergers, it was like he suddenly realized it himself and now he has become more interested in me and started testing me to see what kind of reaction he would get from me.

He moved his chair up a great deal closer to where I sit and he carefully watches me which makes me feel uncomfortable for him to be right in front of me and looking at everything I do so closely. I told two other medical professionals but I didn't like the reactions that I got from both of them. I don't need a diagnosis to apply for disability so I'm still considering whether I want to get one. btw, I have always known I was different and never considered myself to be normal even before I knew I was an Aspergian.