Struggling to accept my autism diagnosis

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This is long, so please bear with me. I am trying to provide some background information. I started seeing my therapist on December 7th, 2018. I was in the middle of my first year of teaching high school math, and I wasn't handling certain aspects of it very well. The struggles of my students were hitting me SO hard and I would often go home and cry about their lives. Planning was difficult for me. I kept getting caught up in the details of making it perfect, but knowing that it never would be. I spent hours planning and didn't understand how some of my coworkers could plan a lesson for the next day in less than an hour. I was overwhelmed and often thought of crashing my car. I knew that I wouldn't ever do it, but I thought about it ALL the time. I told my old college professor how I was feeling, and she asked me to start seeing somebody. Guilted me into it by asking how I would feel if one of my students came to me feeling this way and what I would want them to do. I had a long list of requirements that I wanted my therapist to meet. I won't go into that right now. I was having a difficult time finding one that seemed acceptable, and was about to settle with one until I somehow managed to come across the guy that I ended up seeing (I will call him Dr. K). Dr. K seemed perfect, but his office is over an hour away from me and he doesn't accept insurance. I chose him instead of the lady I was going to settle with because unlike the lady, Dr. K had it set up to wear I could request an appointment online without having to call him. Perfect. So I went. I felt comfortable with him right away, which rarely happens so I decided to keep going despite the cost and time associated with going. On March 6th, 2019, Dr. K asked me if I had ever thought that I might have autism. He said I had some traits that were similar to traits seen in autism. It had crossed my mind once when I came across a post on facebook that seemed like me, but it seemed silly so I had forgotten about that until Dr. K said something. I told him about that time, but then said no I don't think I am autistic. He read off the criteria from the DSM-V and I said again, that doesn't sound like me. But when I went home that night, curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to look up high functioning autism. Some things sounded like me. I also saw how autism is often misdiagnosed as borderline personality disorder, depression, anxiety, ADHD. These were labels that I had often wondered if I had throughout my life. What really got to me though was how aspies described their autism and how they felt growing up. Some of that really resonated with me, and I started to get worried. Autism is deeply misunderstood, and I was falling victim to that misunderstanding. I did NOT want to be autistic. I became obsessed, and for the next week I did nothing but research autism. When I went in for my appointment the next week, I spoke (cried) to Dr. K about my fears and what they would me and he reassured me that it wouldn't change who I am. After that appointment, I decided that I wasn't autistic. There were too many things pointing away from it. Even though I had come to that conclusion, autism still crossed my mind repeatedly. I thought about previous (and some current) experiences in my life and wondered if autism would offer an explanation. Every so often Dr. K would ask if I was still thinking about autism and possibly taking the assessment for it, and I always responded that I planned on taking the assessment eventually, but only so that I could get the "definitive no" and finally stop thinking about it. Because I'm a teacher, I get the summers off. It's glorious. Dr. K works with a psychologist that specializes in autism assessments, so I was planning on taking the test with her, but her available hours don't work for me when school is in session. If I was going to take the test with her, it was going to have to happen this summer or else I was going to have to wait. After months of avoiding it, I finally emailed her and requested an appointment. We scheduled it for two weeks later on July 19th at 12:30 pm. My autism obsession returned. I couldn't stop researching. I began to lose sight of who I am. I couldn't remember what my experiences were like before I heard of maybe having autism and so I wasn't sure if I was suddenly remembering things incorrectly or if I was possibly experiencing things differently now just because I was so biased by all that I read. I previously didn't want autism, but from all of the blogs that I read, there was a feeling of relief that came with it because it was finally an explanation, and I wanted that. I wanted it so badly and I was worried that because I wanted this diagnosis, my brain was subconsciously making me more autistic so to speak. When I took the screeners, I wasn't sure how to answer. For example, "I enjoy social occasions". I answered with a slightly disagree. I really enjoy socializing with my friends. But I wasn't sure if it wanted to know about my friends, or other situations, and if were discussing other situations, then the answer is no I don't really enjoy it because I feel awkward. That is just one example, but I am worried that my collection of responses weren't accurate enough and led to the false positive. When I took my assessment, I only took the diagnostic interview. It was cheaper, and I didn't see the need for the full assessment since I was truly convinced the result would be a no. The psychologist (Dr. L) met with both me and my boyfriend separately. Me first, then him. When she was done talking to him, she called me back in and told me that I met the criteria for ASD. I did not feel relief. I felt confused. I told Dr. L about my concerns that I had tricked the test somehow since I had been researching so much about autism. She informed me that her decision was based off of more than just my responses. She said that there was an obvious deficit in my eye contact. This didn't surprise me. It was one of the reasons Dr. K had brought up autism to begin with. But I feel like it was only that bad because I didn't know her and because I was nervous. My eye contact isn't bad with people that I feel comfortable with. She also started talking about how people with autism have a robotic speech. That I didn't understand. Yes, I am SOMETIMES monotone (isn't everybody?) but again I didn't know her very well and it's not like answering questions requires a change in tone? I have been told my whole life that I am talking too fast and I am pretty sure that my tone changes when that happens. Other people have told me that my tone changes. Those reasons didn't seem good enough. She told me I could email her if I had any questions. I did have questions. So I emailed her. And she did a terrible job of answering them in my opinion. I stopped emailing her after she informed me that she would be forwarding my emails to Dr. K. I am just really struggling to accept this diagnosis for so many reasons. I don't feel like there is enough evidence. And some things don't add up. I have looked through my baby book, and my mom wrote that I cuddled into people, looked at peoples' faces when they spoke to me, and some other things that didn't seem characteristic of autistic children. I know for a fact that I did imaginative play when I was younger, both by myself and with friends. I don't prefer being touched now, but there are plenty of pictures of me growing up where I am being embraced and there are no signs of discomfort. I feel like I am REALLY good at reading people and being able to identify when they are not okay. I got in trouble for talking all the time when I was in school, and it was never about a limited subject. It's not like I sat there and talked about Harry Potter all day. I had normal back and forth conversations with classmates and I don't recall feeling uncomfortable in the process. I don't have issues breaking the law at times. I am a major speeder and I text and drive sometimes and even though it made me feel bad, I occasionally stole when I was younger. I also drank before I was 21 and tried marijuana even though it is illegal. I don't like jaywalking, but I have been forced to do it enough by people that I'm with that I do it on my own now. I am only really bad about eye contact when its with people I don't know. I get really attached to people and I really care about what other people think of me and I love hearing when they think I am great or loved or if they're proud of me and I do share my accomplishments and the things I like with people. I say um ALL the time and I keep reading the autistics use less filler words like um than NTs. I have read how some of you describe your language issues, and I don't feel like I have that. I sometimes forget the name of something and will refer to it as a thingy and I sometimes blank out on what I was going to say, but that is about it. Sometimes I am expressionless, but I am also very expressive at times too, and not in an exaggerated way. I wasn't bullied as a child. If anything, I might have been the one that was mean to others at times. I got along with people from all sorts of different groups in high school. I was well liked by many and I socialized well with my peers. I had friends all throughout my life. I feel like I have way more problems now that I am older than I did when I was younger and I feel like it should've been the other way around. Yes, I recognize that I have some autistic traits, but I am really struggling to accept this diagnosis because some of it just doesn't make sense to me. When I took the aspie quiz, I got an aspie score of 104/200 and an NT score of 102/200 and the description read "you seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits". Everything for me feels situational. Sometimes I struggle, sometimes I don't. I hate that I am right on the edge of both aspies and NTs. I feel like because of this, neither group will ever accept me as autistic, and if nobody else can accept me as autistic, how can I learn to accept myself that way? I'm sorry this has been so long. Thank you for reading this far if you have. I am just having a really difficult time with this. I want to accept the diagnosis as being right.

An autism diagnosis typically means that "normal" life creates way too much stress.
Worse case, it can result in "burnout."

I suggest you be alert for things that cause stress in your life and see if there is anything you can do to reduce it.

I enjoy movies in public theaters a lot more since I've been wearing high fidelity earplugs to reduce the sound in theaters to more reasonable levels.

Bright lights are also an issue for many Aspies. I've reduced the intensity of the lights throughout my home. As a bonus I have a significantly lower electric bill!

But every Aspie is different, so some stuff helps and other stuff doesn't matter.

In my opinion, the biggest factor in the life of most Aspies is finding a reasonably low stress work environment. You can have two jobs with exactly the same job description but totally different vibes and stresses.

Welcome to WrongPlanet!

In many ways, your situation sounds very much like mine when I was diagnosed two years ago at age 36. At first, it was a shock and a horror to me that I might have ASD. Then I really wanted to have it because it would explain much about my life. Then I actually got the diagnosis, and found myself doubting it.

My reasons for doubting it, I think, were:
1) It didn't feel any different to have the diagnosis. Which is really ludicrous, because I've had ASD all my life even though I wasn't diagnosed until age 36. But I'd thought of myself as Neurotypical for 36 years, and it didn't feel any different to think I had ASD - so I couldn't have ASD.

2) Even though many aspects of traits of people with ASD seemed to describe me, looking at the official diagnostic criteria, there were several things that I didn't feel like didn't apply to me. I didn't think I had serious sensory issues (I could say that tags on clothing bothered me, but that felt like a stretch). I didn't feel like I had a serious need for routines. There were a few other things too. When I asked the psychologist about it, he said he'd seen enough of it in me for the diagnosis, and that at level 1 it can often be very subtle.

3) I read quite a few horror stories about people being diagnosed with ASD, and then being undiagnosed years later, and having it turn their lives upside down. Even though I knew that it was very rare of that to happen, it make me think that if someone else was misdiagnosed, I could be too.

It is extremely common for someone who is newly diagnosed as an adult to doubt their diagnosis. I actually think that kind of extreme self-analysis is actually a trait of ASD, and in fact is all the more proof that the diagnosis is correct.

I think it took me something like a full year before I fully accepted my diagnosis and mostly stopped doubting it, although I still do occasionally.

Part of the assessment process is actually to pick up on people who are trying to fake the test either deliberately or subconsciously. If a psychologist did a diagnosis and was convinced you have ASD, you probably do. If she wasn't sure, she would have said she needed to do more testing.

BTW, the first time I did the Aspie quiz I got a score very similar to yours. I think it's because the way the test is structured, it allows you to choose a "maybe" type answer for most questions, and "maybe" on that test tends to result in being told you have both Aspie and NT traits. I think that's actually a major flaw in the test, because many people with ASD tend to be indecisive, and that very indecisiveness results in this kind of mixed result. Try doing the Aspie test again and force yourself to say "yes" or "no" on almost every question rather than allowing yourself to answer "maybe".

The Aspie test was actually created by a hobbyist, not a University or psychologist, although the hobbyist did to a lot of research and has been refining it for years. Another self-test you might want to try is the AQ (Autism Quotient) test, which was created at Cambridge University. You can find it here: https://aspergerstest.net/aq-test/

Regardless of how you do in either of these tests, neither is as accurate as your assessment with a professional. Both are quick screening tools, whereas your assessment with a professional was a very detailed analysis of you.

I hope that helps.

Some of us hover close to the boundary with NT, and it's common to doubt the diagnosis.
I never thought the ASD criteria fit me either, until I started reading about the female presentation, and seeing myself in so many writings by autistic women, and eventually I took the AQ and it was high enough that I decided to get tested. So I understand your experience of not seeing yourself in the diagnostic criteria (which were developed based on studies of boys).

I questioned the positive result, too, wondering if I'd "cheated" the test. But after a while I came to see that for every few days I could pretend not to be autistic, there'd be one in which it really affected me. After a while all these experiences in which I now see ASD as a contributor added up to the conclusion that the diagnosis was correct, I just have compensation strategies that work well a lot of the time.

Now I'm quite open about being autistic, because I think it's important that people become aware that it truly is a spectrum and we may not all seem obviously autistic to have a diagnosis, or for it to affect our lives. I want to do my part to dispel some of the stereotypes.

The year after diagnosis can be quite a rollercoaster, as you start questioning everything you thought you knew about yourself. Just hang on and see where you're at in 12 months or so.

Your post was very hard to read due to no paragraphs but I got the gist of it and you sound like me. I also got a borderline score on the final version of the rdos test and it was 119 and 112 I remember. I can do eye contact fine with people I feel comfortable with and people have to earn it from me, not demand it. You could be like me, it comes and goes where you slip in and out of it depending on your mood and stress level but when you are calm, you are fine. But you got diagnosed because it was causing you significant impairment. NTs get worse too when stressed but it doesn't cause them an impairment.

If you are in doubt, go see another therapist. Also was this therapist you were seeing qualified in ASD and specialized i it? Also did she give you actual autism tests than just the ones online? Some just get diagnosed through talk therapy without doing any real testing.

Welcome to wrong planet, I wish it were under better circumstances.


I think it very important to figure why you fear or think it is bad to be autistic.

I was diagnosed at 8 and I still doubt my diagnosis on and off today. It just bothers me a lot because being diagnosed as a female in childhood makes me feel severe, even though I am level 1 and my symptoms are subtle and complex.

Welcome. Some of what you describe is similar to me in that though I have not been assessed and here in the UK there are waiting lists, the going all out to research autism/asperges is very much me. When I latch onto a subject I don't let go until I have exhausted all avenues of the subject and a few subjects like my special interests, I never let go. Sure, I have changed certain things about my special interests over the years, but ai sill have them and love them. The dominant one is Model Railways. The lesser one is Bicycles, which has more been combines with work and cycling etc. (So, though I rarely cycle these days due to energy loss, I find the hope I will cycle lots more keeps the interest going, but I do admit the depth of the subject is more specific to the mechanical aspects and their practical use rather then a historic depth of knowledge or wanting to keep up with the latest technology (Much of which is re-invented like a fashion). In both hobbies I have matured, so I don't need to research everything as I have found out what I like and I keep to that area where I used to research everything theee was to know about the subjects!
Many on the spectrum will keep moving from one interest to another and some on the spectrum have no special interests. It is a wide spectrum.Such a wide spectrum that I started a thread "You may be an NT if" so people could post typical NT traits so I could check myself to see where I fit in.

I have only done two brief online tests which were the same test repeated, even though at first I didn't know it was when I tried it the second time. The first time was when I had a GF with asperges and I was asking questions as I found out that I shared the odd trait, and I started questioning. I put "No" for any words I did not u derstand like "Stimming" (When I asked the GF she said "Rocking back and fore" which I don't do but she did).
I ended up with 32 or around there out of 50 which was boarderline. It said "See a doctor". I didn't as I had in my mind what past doctors would have said... They would say hypercondriact or something unrelated.
Just before joinginb this site I was asking questions about it on model railway sites and someone gave me the link. About a third of the way through I remembered it from before. But this time, as I had watched Youtube videos, I knew what stimming aas and knew one or two technical terms. (If the test said what stimming was I would answer correctly. This time I had 43 out of 50.
But it does not mean I am on the spectrum so is why I need to be assessed, as how have I reached my age in life where almost no one noticed? I say almost... In the last few years, looking back since around 2006 to 2007 onwards, I have had about seven times people suggested I had asperges or autism... Each time I kind of laughed it off, and once (Looking back) in primary school when I was about 7 they may have taken me for a brief check, as I was very slow at learning handwrighting, and also I had been slow at learning basic printing before that, and I remember two or three of us had to see this man. Out of the whole school it was just us. Our parents didn't know. Also, being a shy quiet intelligent kid, I saw the two others who were at the other end of the intelligence spectrum of life, and I thought "Why am I here as they would be struggling and not me?" So when I was asked questions I was quick to work out the type of reply to make me look "Normal". (I didn't know what asperges and autism was, but I was having a hard enough time in school without having something on top of it!) So through bending the truth to answer questions as I read between the lines even at that age which the guy who was asking me had no idea I could do this, I passed off as normal!
But this is my concern when the day comes and I am to be assessed. If i know nothing of the tests themselves I can't manipulate the results. Hence, after the basic test, I have not looked to do any more until I am assessed. I am researching into my personal history to make sense of things and a lot of my writings are recorded as answers to posts in here or new posts I have started.

I think it can feel quite confusing and overwhelming when you first start thinking you might be autistic. There's so much to process-so much information about autism and how it might fit into your life and how it changes how you've framed things in the past.

And I think it's also very common to get pretty obsessed with reading everything about autism (that's a pretty autistic thing to do!) and have worries that you've somehow 'tricked' them into giving you a diagnosis. I really don't think that's likely though. Will you get a report that details exactly how you meet the criteria? I worried when I had my assessment that maybe I had somehow misled them, but when I got the report, it was clearly an accurate description of me. It also really helped me to talk to other people around me (friends, family) and try and encourage them to give me an honest appraisal of how they saw me, and to see that they agreed with a lot of the specific things that had been pointed out.

Looking at the things associated with autism that you don't do is not a good way to analyse how much it fits you. Everyone's different, it is not an all or nothing thing and it can be much more nuanced than you probably know. It is especially more common for autistic girls and women to be imaginative and affectionate and to have friends. It's also normal to be more comfortable in familiar situations-that's pretty universal for anyone including autistic people. I am very cuddly at home for example even as an adult, but not so keen on other people being touchy-feely with me, and I am often known for being very quiet by most people, but my family would probably describe me as talking too loud and too fast a lot. I recognise a few things you say you think are reasons you don't fit being autistic that could be read actually as reasons you do-for example, your difficulty with eye contact with people you don't know. That was actually in my report for how I met the criteria (a comment my mum had made about me-and that I'd got better as I got older-yep, because I taught myself to do it). I am not unexpressive (though my assessor did say I had a limited range of expressions) and not all autistic people have 'flat affect' (i.e. expressionless, monotone voice). It is also not true that autistic people don't share things with people-they might share things less though-for example, I definitely am really keen to tell my mum or siblings about things I have achieved and have them be proud of me, but I am much less likely to get in contact just to 'catch up' and talk about every day life (and I have to admit other people telling me mundane things about their lives bores me to tears). I generally only talk to them about things I am excited or particularly upset about.

It's also very common for things to get less manageable as you get older. Part of the diagnostic criteria is that it might not become obvious until the demands upon you outstrip your coping skills (you're right the other way round can also be that people learn to cope better as they get older). I would just take the time to think things through and process things. Talk to your friends and family if you can. If you get a report, spend some time looking at that and see if you agree. Remember no matter what, you're not a different person, you're exactly the same as you were.

I think getting a diagnosis can be a very matter of fact "Yeah ,so I was right" rather than something more dramatic. It confirmed I'd had over 40 years of substandard psychiatric care , with much negativity thrown at me by professionals during that time.
I was vindicated that there was more going on than mental illness, but that still left over 40 years of not having done as well as I could due to not getting adequate help and support.
At 62 it's about being supported to lead a more comfortable and less stressful life , rather than where I'm working and being like a non aspie/non mentally ill person in terms of how I'm doing .

To those complaining about my lack of paragraphs, I'm sorry. I usually use them, but it was late (okay, not technically late, but it felt late to me. I haven't been sleeping well the last few nights, and I am exhausted) and I was more focused on getting the words out to anybody that might understand how I'm feeling right now (meaning the feelings themselves, not the writing style of the words), so I wasn't really thinking to include paragraphs. There are a few typos as well, in case anybody would like to point those out.

Thank you to everybody that has responded so far. I appreciate your feedback. I am trying. Every time I feel like I've made progress in accepting the diagnosis, I feel like I think of ten new reasons why I couldn't be autistic. That is frustrating, and I wish I knew how to stop my brain from thinking about all of the reasons why I maybe don't fit. It is not as simple as just flipping a switch.

Is it possible to have been masking since childhood and never realize that I was doing it? I can think of situations now where what I do can be considered masking and I recognized putting forth a conscious effort (for example, eye contact), but I don't recall thinking that much about these things when I was younger (like elementary school age or so).