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I'm new here, I have a question for diagnosed Aspies

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AdamDZ
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31 Oct 2011, 4:57 pm

ictus75 wrote:
We can all have emotions and imaginations, it's just that some of us, like me, internalize them instead of telling everyone what we think & feel. The Spectrum is wide, featuring a lot of different types of people.

Welcome!


Yup, now, I'm beginning to understand too. Funny how few months ago I have never heard about Aspergers. I heard about Autism and had some vague understanding of it, but not AS. It was quite a rollercoaster the last few weeks. The psychologist said that they had patients with AS that were so completely different, that to an average person they would never appear to be suffering from the same condition. They had people completely oblivious to feelings, stone-cold, not able to show feelings or react to feelings, and they had people who would spontaneously burst in tears at the sight of a disabled child on a wheelchair. They had people who were face blind and they had people who could beautifully draw faces from their memory. She did open my eyes on the whole spectrum.

Halligeninseln wrote:
Greetings! You and I seem to be at exactly the same stage and asking exactly the same questions. I had an evaluation at the autism centre a few weeks ago. It lasted an hour and at the end of the evaluation I was told I had Aspergers, in their view. However it wasn't an official diagnosis because that is done at their centre in another city. So my Aspergers has been confirmed but not diagnosed, so to speak. It's a strange in-between stage and I haven't yet made an appointment for the formal diagnosis so I suppose I'm undiagnosed still. I keep asking myself questions regarding the symptoms I DON'T have or don't have anymore (I'm 57 and I suppose one learns with age). Someone said on this thread that what is important is the symptoms you DO have and not the ones you don't and I think I'm coming round to that view, too. Looking at my "case" I can see as clear as day the autism-related impediments I have had my whole life. The fact that there are other, worse impediments that maybe most people on the spectrum have doesn't change that one bit. If you have one or two fingers missing it's not as bad as having 10 fingers missing but it is useful to realise that that's WHY you couldn't play the guitar; which was otherwise always a mystery. (metaphor)


Hello :) Yes. It's the answers that I need, which I hope will allow me to take steps towards relief. My test will be at the same autism center but they do evaluation first and then someone else does the testing later. After the test they'll give me an official diagnosis as well as recommendations on what I should do next and what options and resources are available to me. So yeah, I feel like I'm hanging between places right now, I feel a bit dizzy. I have been suffering for so long already, I really need answers and - like I said probably few times already - AS answers everything. Literally: everything that ever bothered me in life, everything I ever struggled with suddenly makes sense. As the psychologist said: being diagnosed with AS is a beginning of a new road, and there are options, it's not a dead end.

Cheers! Adam



Meow101
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31 Oct 2011, 7:40 pm

I have empathy, but I also have significant alexithymia so it doesn't always show through. It upsets me greatly when people try to tell me I don't feel what I do (empathy, sympathy, etc).

~Kate


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ictus75
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01 Nov 2011, 9:08 am

AdamDZ wrote:
That's exactly what she said: you diagnose AS based on the symptoms the patient has, not based on the symptoms the patient doesn't have. There are some things that are more or less common to all Aspies, but there are many symptoms that are, like "optional", but they are misunderstood as required for diagnosis, mainly face blindness and lack of empathy, imagination and feelings. Many psychiatrists will not diagnose a person with AS if they don't have the above symptoms despite a gazillion of other typical symptoms the patient might have.


There are a couple of problems with diagnosing AS:

1) Many health professionals don't really know enough about it to make a clear diagnosis. This would seem to be the case with your psychiatrist.

2) There is no one size fits all Aspergers diagnosis. Not everyone exhibits every trait. Most people seem to exhibit a few traits very strongly, while other traits are mild or non-existent. But then there are those who exhibit most/all traits very strongly, and others who are moderate/mild in everything. This adds to the difficulty of diagnosing AS.


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