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Hello. I am a university student in England, studying Mathematics. I don't know whether or not I have Asperger's syndrome. I first heard about Asperger's about three years ago when I was in college. I told my first counsellor at university that I suspected I had AS, but she told me I probably didn't have it, and preceded to try to treat me for Social Anxiety using CBT. I lied to my second counsellor and told him that I used to think I had AS, but now accepted the SA diagnosis.

There are things that make me think I have AS, like how closely I can relate to the stories on this site. But then I start to think I'm just looking for an excuse for the way I am.

I like programming and playing videogames. I am also learning Japanese. At my university we have a society for designing and programming games, which I am a member of. We're currently working on an RPG for the Gameboy Advance.

Hello Bryan. I wold 'welcome' you to the board, but as a newbie myself, it might make senes for someone who has been around longer to do so.

I understand your concern about being unsure of your suspion that you have AS and the reasons for being unsure.

If your counsellor (who is quite probably, a talking-cure expert first and foremost), will not co-operate, then this may be the time to look further afield for advice.

It might be a good idea to register with a GP from your student accommodation address and ask him to refer you, or you could speak to your family GP if you are comfortable doing that.

Other than that, it might be worth approaching the university directly, as counsellors often have a view of the world in which AS is only a label given to psychological and personality problems.

Welcome, Bryan! I'm glad you found us.

I think a lot of councilors are not that familiar with AS and make incorrect assumptions, such as if you make *any eye contract* you can not be AS. Did she perhaps tell you why she didn't think AS fit? I would indeed consider looking forther afield.

BeeBee

Thank you for your replies. My counsellor told she didn't think I had Asperger's because I "understand that sayings like 'it's raining cats and dogs' shouldn't be taken literally", which I thought was fairly superficial grounds for her judgement.

I'm not even sure if I'd want an 'official' diagnosis, I'm not sure what the benefits might be, but I think it could encourage me to shut myself off from the world completely.

I would have thought that the key point from a psychologist's point of view woudl be the 'theory of mind' concept. The fact is, that if you've managed to study hard enough to get yourself into University, you've probably picked up quite a lot along the way. Some of that would include recognising odd phrases like 'raining cats and dogs' to indicate that the rain is coming down hard and that there aren't really cats and dogs dropping out of the sky.

When I as younger, I didn't get it, but now I do and this is because I have been around long enough to learn it. If something new comes along, I may have to learn it or try to make inferences (using what I have learned before, in order to try to apply what I have learned to the new situation that I am facing). Sometimes when I make inferences, I get it wrong. Also, I sometimes get it right. There are lots of things I used to do 'wrong' which I have now learned to do 'right', so there is a continuous process of 'learning', more accurately expressed as 'adapting'. Even at my age, there are things I miss and sometimes, I don't care about that because the assumption is that it is somehow 'my fault', yet if I go into one of my things and other people don't understand it, it somehow becomes 'my problem'. I think it is called the Tyranny of the Majority; but I might be wrong.

There are really only a finite number of non-literal expressions in use at any time and they come in and out of fashion. I have not heard the phrase 'raining cats and dogs', because to my mind, if people have to be so lazy in their use of language, then I probably don't need to talk to them anyway. And although I know most of the colloquial phrases by now, I used to get into trouble for not knowing some of them, for interpreting people at what they said. I find the use of 'lazy phrases' like 'raining cats and dogs' rather irritating, (even though I love cats), because they conflict with my sense of how language should be used. Also, new collquialisms, which are informal usages of language, can throw me. When I moved to London and somebody said 'get with the lingo', I was strongly tempted to point out that learning Lingo isn't much use because most people use Flash (which doesn't have Lingo as a programming Language), for screen-based projects. That is another topic that does not belong here though.

If there is a 'benefit' from a formal diagnoses, then I think the first one would have to be that the difficulties of adjustment are a). not your fault, b). not down to supposed 'childhood traumas' which are made to appear more important than they are and c). you have the means of sorting out problems on the basis of what the real situation is, rather than just going round in circcles iwth a psychotherapist, to try to dig up 'problems in the past' that probably don't exist, or are problems for other reasons, such as having AS and not knowing it.

If you do get a formal diagnosis for AS, it is not an excuse to lock yourself away from the world, it is an opening for you to try to find help for those problems you are having, but from the point of view of knowing what the real underlying causes of the problem are.

For example, my motive for wanting to have a formal diagnosis (one way or the other), is so that I can find out for sure that I understand where my problems really are (and I do think that having done so much research on the internet inthe formal literature, taken tests - but more importantly - being able to relate to things people have written in forums like this one, being able to say "yes, that is exactly how it was for me, these are the things I did, this is what happened to me and this is how I played a part in making things happen", that it becomes possible to understand where the problem really is and find out what you can do to change things.

Having a diagnosis as AS is not shutting the world out, it is a way of finding the proper way of relating to it in a way that you can manage and in a way that makes it possible for you to lead your life in the way you should, so that you can achieve the things you are capable of.

[had to do the redact job to tidy it up and try to make sense; plus spell check. I type letters round the wrong way sometimes and they have to be caught.

Last edited by adversarial on 13 Jul 2005, 6:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Hello there

I agree that her reasoning sounds superficial; that's like saying "Well, you're quiet, so you couldn't possibly be ADD." (actually, that one happened to me when I was a kid). As for whether or not a diagnosis does any good, I suppose it makes things easier if you need special accomodations (i.e. taking tests in a different room than the rest of the class). The Disability Resource Center at my university wants paperwork and proof of any learning disabilities (which, admittedly, AS can be one sometimes) and whatnot.

Welcome, Brian!

I think your counsellor is wrong! There are a lot of us who have no problem understanding metaphors and figures of speech, me included! You should never judge by the stereotypes.

Welcome to the site Bryan!

Hi Brian, and welcome to WrongPlanet!

Well, it is a sort of an excuse, but a good and useful one, I think. If it makes you stop fighting with yourself, trying to change what you can't, and instead allows you to understand yourself, find people who understand you, and concentrate on moving your life forward - then what's wrong with that? My life has changed much to the better after I learned about AS, even though I don't have a diagnosis.


I understand that very well too. After all AS is not mental retardation. But, oh boy, how much fun these expressions can bring! All those dogs and cats falling from the sky, pigs flying in front of my eyes...

Wow. Thanks adversarial, that makes a lot of sense.

Welcome Bryan!! !!

Can u teach us some japanese?? sayonara! toga! Mister Roboto! pokemon

Welcome.

GROAAAAR

Welcome.