Sure, but scared

Post Reply New Topic

Hi y'all. This site is overwhelming, but I'm really glad I found it. I'm about to be 31 and I've spent the past five years emerging from a tumultuous early adulthood, trying to piece everything together and act like an adult. I've managed to correct and reverse a lot of undesirable behaviors, but my mental health has been in a state of disarray since childhood and I feel like it's one of the final really big things I need to address in order to get on with my life- basically, I'm trying to level up. I am usually skeptical of pretty much everything and I'm definitely not one to self-diagnose. That being said, after researching AS for two years, I simply cannot ignore the probability that it is my condition (especially when it comes to information regarding traits in females).

I have no issues with my suspicions, but I feel almost a little desperate for professional confirmation at this point. That IS where issues arise- I am terrified to tell anyone and seek help in getting an evaluation. Y'all are the first people to hear of my speculations. I'm scared to tell my husband and parents because I'm afraid they won't believe me. I'm fortunate enough to have a wonderful, solid relationship with a man who understands how anxiety and depression work. He deals with it beautifully and is incredibly patient when I'm being difficult, but I fear that he might see my suspicions as a common case of overthinking and just do his best to ease my mind on the matter. My parents, on the other hand, have rarely believed a word I've ever said and perpetually accuse me of being dramatic (for example, when I voiced to them my concerns of depression and anxiety as an adolescent, I was told to "get over it" and stop making excuses for my falling grades/increasingly antiscoial behavior). I know that my husband would be supportive with an official diagnosis, but I'm also afraid that a doctor wouldn't believe me either.

Are there any resources for undiagnosed adults seeking an evaluation? I tried to avoid putting tons of detail into this post, but please feel free to ask me anything. Below are my results of the "aspie quiz"- all other online tests I've taken had similar results. Thanks in advance for any replies, you have no idea how much I appreciate them.

Hi, welcome!

Hey leroach welcome.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Hello Leroach,

I'm in a similar situation, absolutely certain I have Asperger's but having a hard time going through the process of sharing my thoughts and getting an official diagnosis. Almost everything I read just has me thinking 'yup, I could have written that '. It's both brilliant as I understand myself so much better and don't hate being me in the same way anymore, but also hard to deal with probably as I'm afraid it will be dismissed or something.

Welcome to WP.

Welcome to WP!

I'd say go get diagnosed, my life improved significantly after I got my diagnosis. I'm not one to self-diagnose either, but in my case too, it started with strong suspicions that autism was involved.

Your husband sounds nice, I think he'll be supportive regardless of the outcome. You're trying to understand yourself better.

Depending on how the diagnosis is done, you may even need his help. In my case I had to do a bunch of questionnaires and then some people close to me had to do the same. I got to choose who these people were. You can leave your parents out of this completely if you want. You should discuss this with your diagnoser, they may be able to see through your parents' interpretations of your behaviour.

One thing I remember is that some of the questionnaires I had to do, I'd seen them before on-line. I think it was the AQ-score test, here's one: http://aspergerstest.net/aq-test/

Showing the outcome of such a test may be enough to convince your GP, especially if they use the very same test. I'd say do lots of questionnaires and take the results with you.

I'm not sure where you live, but you may be able to find people on WP from the same country, that can tell you how their diagnosis process went.

Welcome! I'm new here, too, and in a very similar boat. What I did to start was:
1) search through the providers with my insurance company, selecting for experience with "autism"
2) selected for only those providers at the doctorate level (who can do testing)
3) summoned all my courage to make a LOT of phone calls. To keep it simple, I asked: Do you work with adults? Are you taking new patients? What are your hours?

It took over a dozen tries, but I finally found someone in my network who will do testing for adults. I felt really comfortable during the consultation, and am going in this Friday for some initial testing.