Do you struggle with doubting your diagnosis?

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Do you struggle with doubting your diagnosis?
Yes 63%  63%  [ 37 ]
No 37%  37%  [ 22 ]
Total votes : 59

nyxjord
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13 Apr 2015, 11:47 am

I also oscillate greatly between belief and disbelief but I feel like that's part of the acceptance process that takes longer. However, the one thing that always convinces me is the wall that I feel between myself and neurotypicals.. That can't ever be breeched.. That I blame on the wiring that keeps me out of the hive mind. There is no disputing that disconnect.


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Wrenton
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13 Apr 2015, 4:28 pm

I was diagnosed when I was 5 with Autistic Aesburgers, Meaning I am on the edge of either being completely autistic and Being mostly an aspie.

I sometimes doubt it because maybe I am over-exaggerating things, but then the more I look back on what I did or some things I do, maybe I am not and just Feel like I am exaggerating things but in reality I am not.



Kiriae
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13 Apr 2015, 5:15 pm

I was diagnosed last summer and I still doubt it sometimes.

My biggest struggle is the lack of any official proof - I didn't get any paper from the therapist that diagnosed me because she is not allowed to give me one. I need to see a psychiatrist for confirmation before getting a paper. I'm still working on it. Till then I am "autistic" but I have no right to any benefits or therapy. I don't even dare to ask for support because I am afraid that people will say: "Oh, you got Asperger? Sure, you can get accommodations if you bring us a proof. You got no proof? Then stop making up excuses and grow up, you are 26 year old, not 16!" (although they are the same people who think I am 16 and tell me I should come with a parent when they first see me...).

That makes me doubt - what will I do if the psychiatrist won't confirm my diagnosis? What if I am really just making up excuses? And what if there is something else in my brain, not ASD? Maybe I am schizoid? Or a complex-PTSD victim? Maybe my parents just couldn't raise me right? Maybe my problems are due to their neglect? Maybe I never got the ability to relate with people because my dad was an abusive BPD alcoholic?

But then I look at my symptoms and recall my childhood. The "super inteligent" toddler experimenting to figure out if other kids in nursery are dolls. The talkative yet lone preschooler that could never get along with peers but could talk for hours with caregivers. The forever bullied kid. The teenager not interested in dating nor fashion. The college student asking "Why can't I get along with people? What exactly I am doing wrong?".
I doubt that my whole life could be explained just by bad parenting and trauma caused by bullying. Normal people grow up in abusive families too yet most of them doesn't get autistic traits. And something must have caused the bullying I experienced because random people in random environments won't just decide to bully someone who doesn't stand out one way or another.



Wrenton
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13 Apr 2015, 6:08 pm

Kiriae wrote:
I was diagnosed last summer and I still doubt it sometimes.

My biggest struggle is the lack of any official proof - I didn't get any paper from the therapist that diagnosed me because she is not allowed to give me one. I need to see a psychiatrist for confirmation before getting a paper. I'm still working on it. Till then I am "autistic" but I have no right to any benefits or therapy. I don't even dare to ask for support because I am afraid that people will say: "Oh, you got Asperger? Sure, you can get accommodations if you bring us a proof. You got no proof? Then stop making up excuses and grow up, you are 26 year old, not 16!" (although they are the same people who think I am 16 and tell me I should come with a parent when they first see me...).


THIS^ sooo much. If there was a way to have official proof, then I wouldn't be soo worried about filling that form out to continue my disability.

Also to add on even WITH proof, you still sometimes have the felling that your an anomaly and you probably shouldn't exist and that people may actually be better off without you...(Don't worry, I'm not that far in the spectrum to actually try something. I'm smarter than that at least)



nca14
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14 Apr 2015, 8:27 am

Kiriae wrote:
That makes me doubt - what will I do if the psychiatrist won't confirm my diagnosis? What if I am really just making up excuses? And what if there is something else in my brain, not ASD? Maybe I am schizoid? Or a complex-PTSD victim? Maybe my parents just couldn't raise me right? Maybe my problems are due to their neglect? Maybe I never got the ability to relate with people because my dad was an abusive BPD alcoholic?


You are a classical "Aspijka" from which I read from your posts. You have even "truer" ASD than me, with more number of "typical" autistic traits, like visual thinking, rigid routines, problems with recognising people, quite marked sensory anomalies. I have no doubts that you have an autism spectrum disorder. I had struggles with doubting about my diagnosis even few years ago, although I was diagnosed with AS in professional centre (founded by my school, I had revalidational hours in school due to diagnosis of AS) and my mother got the papers with diagnosis of F84.5 the same day when I was diagnosed, as I remember. Specialists did not have so many doubts and concluded that I have Asperger's syndrome. But some people in Polish AS forum question my AS diagnosis, they may think that I have for example schizotypal personality (I have now the diagnosis of co-occurring schizotypal disorder) instead of it. I had and still can have thoughts that say that I have just "nonverbal learning disorder", not a PDD. It can be obsessive and really ecompassing.

I think that Asperger's from ICD-10 or DSM-IV is a broad "category" and this diagnosis is proper also in the cases of some developmental syndromes which may be not related to childhood autism (Kanner's syndrome) at all (I suppose that my disorder is not related to "classic" autism). In suppose that in Northern America many people were misdiagnosed as having just "nonverbal learning disorder" instead of "pervasive developmental disorder", which might be harmful for them because the term "learning disorder/disability" sounds significantly less scary than the term "pervasive developmental disorder" (in USA DSM-V is used, in which there are "autism spectrum disorder" and "social communication disorder" (I suppose that I may meet criteria of ASD, but not SCD (paradoxically - SCD can be assumed to be less "serious" than ASD)) and there is not Asperger's syndrome. The category of "pervasive developmental disorders" is also absent in DSM-V. There is also no NLD in DSM-V (which was absent also in DSM-IV), I think that current use of NLD is very often definitely improper because it is used to describe something which I would name just a sort of "aspieness" and "mild PDD", not just a learning disorder.



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16 Apr 2015, 9:59 pm

I was diagnosed 20 years ago and at the time I really did not understand what the doctor was telling me. She said you have High Functioning Autism and you are highly intelligent. You can go live your life and be anything you want to be. Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer ext...
She said all you need to do is "Get your ducks in a row" and you will be successfully in life.
Needless to say I was very confused. I knew nothing about autism and just dismissed the diagnoses along with all the others I had in the past. I few years ago I decided to do research on the subject and to my surprise began to understand why I had the diagnoses and started to see what all her test concluded. It all began to make sense. But the doctor was wrong about being able to be anything I wanted to be. My autism has prevented me from being able to maintain relationships. I have problems with the give and take and have problems staying in touch with friends. I have one friend that has tolerated me. I make contact with her a few times a year and we go out to dinner and talk. Most people want to talk on the phone and Internet all the time. I have a hard time having multiple friends. I communicate with my family often. I'm not sure why I just went off topic so I will stop here.


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redrobin62
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17 Apr 2015, 5:45 pm

I was diagnosed 3 years ago by a licensed clinical psychologist. Since then I've had people doubt it because I appear normal and not like, presumably, Rain Man. Probably my fault, too. I'm gay but spent many years masking it so you'd think I was straight. Same thing for Asperger's. The liquor helped me mask the symptoms to help me socialize and appear normal. I still slipped at times and said the wrong thing. Anyway, I don't drink anymore so my symptoms are become more pronounced. Fine by me.