Anyone have problems getting a diagnosis? Need advice...

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I see that Belfast quoted the rest of the article, tbam (thanks Belfast!). I understand the responses you get. I've had everything from "Why do you feel the need to categorize?" from a well-known psychology writer; to "You don't have that." from a psychiatrist acquaintence; and "So that's your problem? Hopefully you can get some help for that." from my last girlfriend. Happy to say that my immediate family and my psychotherapist have been supportive.

Like it mentions in the article, I have done great in my job (although I was promoted three years ago to a much less-protected position that completely drained me - I just handed in my resignation and have nothing else lined up), but in my personal life I often isolate myself and I live with my mother. It's so hard to "have it all" and I am exhausted from hiding, and trying to work around, my ASD traits.

Due to a paternal and maternal background of anxiety, depression, and suicide, I'm being proactive in taking care of my mental health. Because I seem so capable (particularly at work), people expect that I can handle whatever comes at me. I'm currently making some very difficult choices and I'm sure that many people think I'm just being a wimp because I don't dare say anything about AS and even if I did very few people would understand.

Z

Wow, do you have a link for that leaflet? I can't find it on the NAS website (I assume that's the organisation you were referring to). I'm going to approach my GP about this for the first time on Friday and I'm very nervous. I don't like seeing doctors at the best of times. I have been keeping a scrap book about why I think I have AS, so that when the professionals ask me I can hand it over to them.

i just started reading one of those articles (i can't continue or i'll start obsessing and i won't study for exams) and so far it's really hitting home. i feel the same way, i've had a good home environment that helped me learn, i've developed good coping strategies, etc, to help me fit in, so the first psychologist told me he saw some of the symptoms but didn't diagnose me, gave me a diagnosis of adhd though. i'm now seeing a specialist on asperger's and autism spectrum disorders, i've had one session with her and she really knows her stuff. she didn't just do a little checklist of what's happening now, she probed my past, asked me specific questions about it, gave me some questionnaires, etc. and treated me as though i was someone who did the research and had a valid case, rather than someone who was looking for a diagnosis. i'm really happy about this, and i think you should look for someone who has a lot of experience with asperger's if you're trying to get a diagnosis, because it's not a well understood syndrome by many psychologists.

The article was very very profound for me, as it seems it was for you. Its things like this that re-invigorate my passion to confirm having AS, as at the moment it is becoming easy to be distracted and think whats the use, with all the opposition, especially when some people are so rigid to the diagnostic criteria, and people's perceptions of AS are that I should look and behave like a truly Autistic person.

I too was brought up in a good home before Asperger Syndrome was recognised, given great support for my interests, and was encouraged for the most part to socialise and develop friends even though this was always impaired compared to other children. The only people supportive of my search for Asperger Syndrome has been my parents, they see it in me, but noone else does.

I think my mum likes it, because I think she has blamed my failed academic / creative potential on herself and my early schooling (teacher's often didn't recognise the over-effort i put into school projects I was interested in, and didn't provide much support for "gifted" kids), and this explains that it wasn't her or the school.

Part of my problem is that I've spent the majority of my life creating coping mechanisms, and trying to fit in without a knowledge of why I was different, that I'm not really sure who I am and what I want out of life. Normally its ok not to know who you are and where you want to be, you discover that as you get older, however I'm now in a position where it is expected of me.

I may have potentially made the biggest mistake of my life. I got married to the woman of my dreams. The mistake being, I didn't really know who I was, though I didn't know that I didn't know.
Now I've found AS It is like a light has switched on in my head and i've discovered so much about who I am, and the things about me that won't change, however my wife is completely against AS.

She doesn't think there is anything wrong with me, gets upset when anything to do with AS or my mental state comes up. Even if i get down or upset she says "You're not going to go all Aspergers on me again are you?" as though anytime i'm down i'm going to say its a symptom of AS.

Some of the time I just feel like vanishing, like escaping, moving to America (i'm Australian), just dissappearing one day and never coming back. But I love her so much, I just don't know what to do, especially with Doctors and people thinking that I should be borderline ret*d (pardon the non-PC) if I think I have Asperger Syndrome, I sometimes think "I am who I am anyway, so maybe I can just not get a diagnosis and keep any Asperger Stuff to myself and secret". My wife said to me something similar to what your ex-girlfriend said to you - "For your sake I hope there is something wrong with you".

Articles like this and your reply really help because it shows that i'm not alone, and that there may be a chance of a diagnosis, that i'm not crazy and that i'm not going to just "snap out of it" one day. It gives me strength to not give up, because I have never felt such clarity as when I found AS, I'm almost willing to risk my marriage on it (as it is my happiness at the end of the day), but at the same time I don't want to and then have a Psych say I have something like Depersonalisation Disorder or something even sillier like "The problem isn't that there is something wrong with you, we need to look at why you think there is something wrong with you" and hit even more brick walls because I appear normal.

Anyways, i'm waffling on and telling you my life story, when I mostly wanted to say, thankyou.

Hey tbam,

Thanks for writing and thank God for WP where we can find support and some understanding. I understand your dilemma and hope that you can ultimately resolve things in a way that gives you peace of mind.

The one thing that I have never trusted about myself are my feelings, because for a long time I thought they were broken. But a couple of things changed my thinking about myself, the most significant one being the immediate and powerful emotions I experienced the moment I heard about AS. That day I decided, for once in my life, I would to pay attention to my emotions and not try to shut them up in a drawer.

Since I was a young child I recognized that I was different, and also that my family was different. I won't go into all of the traits and difficulties that are in both sides of my family, but I have always wondered why we didn't seem to relate to others on a typical and successful emotional level. When a colleague at work described Asperger Syndrome to me, even before she was finished talking, I KNEW that I had found the explanation for all of my personal "uniqueness" as well as the self-isolation, underemployment, depression, anxiety and suicide in several generations of my family. I also realized that I needed help to sort things out, and that day I made an appointment with a psychotherapist who is versed in AS. Later I told my colleague that I really identified with AS, and her first response was - absolutely not!

That was three years ago, and in some ways I continue to feel off balance, but I also keep finding things, such as the ASNE article that strengthen my resolve be evaluated. I am scheduled to see a specialist in a few months, at a university autism center. When I had an initial telephone interview I was heartened to hear that they asked questions about both my childhood and how I experience things as an adult. There are specialists out there who do recognize that AS adults can appear "normal" and I think the trick to finding them is to seek out those with the most experience evaluating adults.

I hope you don't mind, tbam, if I give you a couple of thoughts about your situation.

It is never a bad thing to do what you need to do for yourself, if your motivation is learning how to be a more effective human being, and you maintain your integrity in the process.

I don't think that your finding the woman of your dreams was a mistake, and you certainly didn't intentionally portray yourself falsely to her. You were simply making the best decisions you could with the understanding you had about yourself at the time.

If you hide how you feel or how you think about yourself, it can lead to greater problems later.

Insensitivity can be a mask for fear. I think it is ironic that even if you get an AS diagnosis, you will still be the same person you were beforehand, with perhaps more self-awareness and ability to cope, and that is a positive thing that shouldn't lead your loved ones to fear.

You are not alone.

I also thank you for relating your experience. I don't feel so alone either.

Z

Most people with AS aren't borderline MR (a few are, but not most). If you mean "ret*d" in the derogatory sense, i.e., someone looks "ret*d" because they do anxiety relieving motor mannerisms, they have an odd posture or gait, they speak funny, etcetera, well, people with AS can and do look "ret*d" in that sense.

If someone doesn't show this "ret*d" look, they're going to still be severe in other ways the disorder is defined, ways that make the outcome the same, and this is what the professionals then look for.

I didn't so much mean "ret*d" in a deroagtory sense, more to express the opinion of how others think I should appear if I have AS.

For example, my wife thinks I should be sitting with facial tics and moving about uncontrollably in a overtly obvious manner if I have AS and because I don't appear to have a serious hinderance on a level she comprehends (a visual one), she doesn't take me seriously.

I do however tap uncontrollably, though because i'm a drummer its not considered as a symptom and she considers it more of an excuse to support my own neurotic notion that there's something wrong with me.

Another example is, we will be talking and I can look her in the eyes and respond when prompted, but otherwise i've got my own world going on in my head, I'm not really listening and I don't really care about what she is saying aside from the fact that I care about her. She will think I am relating and am perfectly fine, however internally I am thinking about one of my interests or thinking about how i'm not listening and I wish we could talk about something i'm interested in, or I'll concentrate on maintaining the "auto-pilot" so she doesn't detect anything is amiss and then probe me about "whats wrong" when nothings wrong, my attention is just directed elsewhere.

Now, to the observer I appear like anyone else. But internally its significantly different. You probably wouldn't pick anything was wrong unless you could objectively sit in on all my conversations upon which you would discover just how robotic and disconnected my conversation is. Because of this appearance that I have developed my entire life, it is very hard to get people to take me seriously when I posit that I have Asperger Syndrome.

Most people expect me to be unable to converse at all and be a blubbering mess in a chair unable to sit still for even a second, and that's not me (aside from my tapping and leg jiggling).

But I guess what you're saying (and now I realise that i'm unsure of what point i was trying to make with my post, maybe that I meant no offence to anyone by using the word ret*d, I was generalising.) is that a professional should be able to recognise what is going on internally to an extent.

No matter what one calls "how you are" (your thoughts, emotions, sensations, and reaction patterns), they're your reality-and your spouse either can or cannot deal with or accept the names for and/or "symptoms or traits" of your behavior. Having to "live a lie" with one's companion seems like a bad situation-of course one doesn't want to break up a union that could improve, with time & patience (on part of both people). Wish you compassion, understanding, and luck.

In past have been told the same thing about "there's nothing wrong with you other than that you believe there to be something wrong with you". Well, the reason I thought there must be something wrong with me is because other people said so-or didn't say, but did treat me differently-and if those aren't so, well then what's wrong with me that I'm perceiving things this way ? I'm neither delusional nor a hypochondriac & would like my labels/dx acronym(s) to be as accurate as is possible-given the current state of knowledge. Wouldn't want to be categorized as something that I'm not.

Here's another one, from 2 or 3 years or ago, that I thought was pretty good-seems it was forerunner to the article I already posted above (which was new).
http://www.aane.org/asperger_resources/ ... dults.html
Have quoted the "best" paragraphs (in my view):

-copyright 2005 AANE
If anyone wishes to thank the AANE staff for good writing, email [email protected]

I emailed AANE & got a good reply:

Just thought I'd share that since I get paranoid about copyright. Feel free to spread link/article.