New therapist questioning my diagnosis - can you help me?

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Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum.
I've been diagnosed as belonging to "autistic spectrum type 1" when I was 23 at a specialized center. I stopped attending the center when I discovered I would be administered the IQ test in front of 2-3 PhD students reading the questions aloud (it was too socially overwhelming for me). This happened after the diagnosis but I don't know if further tests would have made them reconsider it or not.

I have now a personal psychotherapist, for other reasons. He's not specialized in AS or autism. I feel very comfortable working with him, but every time I show I can deal with people (I often tell him when it happens because I'm proud of having acquired skills I once didn't have) he questions my diagnosis. In his opinion I don't have autism, I'm just a "very straightforward person".

I am very confused about the subject and I don't know what to think about myself. I question both the accuracy of the diagnosis and the competence of my current therapist in this field.

How do I tell a "very straightforward person" apart from AS or autism?

If I search for a "Mild autism checklist" or something similar, I get different results.

Thank you a lot in advance.

Maybe ask this therapist to go somewhere crowded with you? Autistic people can present very differently in a one-to-one setting in a nice, quiet room.

Take him to an amusement park with you before you accept him undiagnosing you

I've been to an amusement park maybe twice in my life, but I was a child and don't remember what happened...

I've lived in Tokyo for three months and it's been great. I didn't have to interact with all those people, and they didn't speak my language, and 90% of the time I had no friends or acquaintances with me, so it was like being alone all the time.

I have a very extrovert friend who often invites me to parties.
Every time there's like 10-15 people. I don't remember them if I've met them before and I won't remember them the day after. I stay silent and watch people interact for the most part, because I need to "get to know the situation" - which is usually disgruntled by the time the party is over before I feel comfortable enough to get into it.
Often I concentrate on one-two people I like more and talk just to them. My friend thinks I'm having some kind of great distress because I don't talk, while I just... don't feel like talking, and have accepted my confusion in social groups (for me a group of 4 people starts being "too big" ).

Everytime I talk to someone I'm not very intimate with I feel like I'm acting or speaking a second language.

I'm also half deaf so maybe it has something to do with it.

I'd probably say something like, "Okay, help me understand this here, you are not specialized in autism but yet you are expert enough about it to declare whether or not I have it? That's really, really, interesting."

That's my main preplexity.

In his defense I can say he expressed doubts about my diagnosis multiple times. What I got is "he doesn't think I'm in the spectrum and is expressing his opinion in his usual soft spoken way".

Isn't being straight forward an autistic characteristic? I always find it amusing when someone says you are not autistic and then point out your symptoms.

I don't know whether it is truly applicable and I'm not going to go look up the definition but passive aggressive comes to mind as the flavor of his behavior.
To which I would say, "You keep talking that you doubt I have autism, what are you trying to do, subtly manipulate me in to believing I don't have it? Have we got a little gaslighting going on here? What's the deal?"

Two answers come to my mind, going in opposite directions:

1. being straightforward is just one of the characteristics of the spectrum. But there have to be others in order for "straightforward" and "autistic" not be synonyms. Unfortunately I'm quite confused about what these other characteristics are.

2. nt people only acknowledge you're autistic when you're freaking out. If you're nd and content then you've never been nd.

I don't know, I feel quite relaxed in his company, because he never says he's certain about his ideas, and he always asks for my feedback.

But yes, I should address this issue directly sometime. Sill I don't really know how. I mean, even if I was autistic I still wouldn't have an academic specialization in autism. Even if I live something, precisely because it is part of my everyday life, it doesn't mean I can rationalize/talk about it.

I always feel like there's something lost in translation when I reply with my "counter-doubts". But I don't know if I'm just unable to describe my autism, or if the "difference" I sense between me and other people is just because I'm an individual different from others.

Based on the positive things you've said about this therapist, it certainly doesn't sound like him questioning your diagnosis is a basis to change to another therapist. It also doesn't seem like this guy is saying, "There's no freakin way you're autistic, those guys at that clinic are a bunch of as*holes." It just sounds like he's seeing things in you that don't mesh with his understanding of autism. With that said, I don't know that that means YOU should question your diagnosis.

So if I were dealing with this therapist I would say, "Ok, so I'm not autistic, than what am I? Diagnose me. Being 'straight-forward' is not a diagnosis."

I think you're right.



True. It's just that the words of someone I perceive as more qualified than me give me doubts about my identity.



Yes, I should ask him. It's likely that he'll just tell me "I'm normal". But I really don't know. I don't even know anymore what's the point in being un-diagnosed by someone who is not specialized in diagnosing autism.

EDIT: I think I'm contradicting myself. Either I think he's more competent than me in this or I think he's not.
Or maybe I think he gets something about the question that I don't but at the same time he doesn't get my part of knowledge. Oh my, such confusion very perplexed.

Do you have trouble remembering people's faces in general, or is it the relatively large group?

If a person has trouble remembering faces, it's somewhat more likely that they're on the autism spectrum, although by no means guaranteed.

Does it seem like that you are bothered by the stench of fresh paint more than average, or does a chirping smoke detector with a low battery bother you more than average?

Temple Grandin, and I think other autism rights advocates talk about the importance of sensory issues.

DSM-4 is quick and vague on sensory issues. Because I think a professional is on the outside looking in, whereas a person on the spectrum is on the inside looking out, and yes, sensory issues can be an issue.

Unless they have impressed me for something they have said or done (and this means they've caught my attention so they're probably among the 2-3 I've talked to) I won't remember them even if the group was made of 4-5 people. It has already happened. So embarrassing. I've come to the point of answering randomly yes or no to the question "have we/have you met before?". I have 50% chance to guess right.



I've been told I'm gifted at the sensory level. An example. I hate garlic and once I spotted the taste of garlic in a packed snack containing a preservative extracted from garlic.

On the other hand sensory/ASMR videos make me like this:



My heart starts beating faster and my face looks like I had bitten a lemon. It's too much.

Last edited by ghostprince on 26 Sep 2017, 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The next time he questions your autism, share with him this quote from autistic public speaker Adam Walton: "[So-called] Mild autism doesn't mean one experiences autism mildly... It means YOU experience their autism mildly. You may not know how hard they've had to work to get to the level they are."

This sentence is absolutely brilliant.