Post if your Dx is "Not sure if I have it or not"

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That's the trouble I have with that label...I repeatedly tell people my status...which is that I was "Assessed as Having Asperger's"..and the lady said I could treat it as a diagnosis...that is not the same as being "Undiagnosed"...nor is it the same as saying "Not sure if I have it or not"..
For the longest I had the "Other" label...for the ADD...but that didn't exactly seem right either....I have my status listed as "diagnosed"..I would switch it to something more appropriate if something fit...and also swithing it back would be a big step backwards in my quest to find closure. It was symbolic for the brief time when I felt I could switch it to "diagnosed"

So, basically, THEY don't have the ability to read YOUR feelings, nor the inclination to bother to ASK YOU.. so they decide "oh gee, let's blame the patient for our failing!" Because of course with either diagnosis, you don't really have the ability to effectively verbally defend yourself.

Yup.. 'zactly what I'd expect.


Side rant: Does anyone else see a very large difference between "inappropriate affect" and "appropriate affect with expression that we don't understand." Shrinks are perfectly willing to SAY that they get that different people can express the same emotion differently, but then they don't act like they believe it themselves.

What I find the most difficult personally is that I have been accused of lying a lot. The funny thing is that I'm very honest. Lying is a skill I never mastered. It never made much sense to me in the first place (why say something that isn't true?) and I simply don't lie well at all. So I tell the truth and don't get believed. It's rather depressing.

Of course, the good news is the SPD dx got me on SSD, so I don't have to face society unless I feel up to it. Now I'm kind of brainstorming, trying to figure out how I can earn a living WITHOUT having to reenter society. The hard part is being on Social Security at the relatively young age of 46. The wonderful part is that my stress level is practically nothing, at least compared to where it had been. I haven't needed anti-depressants for a long time now. (Which is a very good thing since most don't work on my and the last one that did, Welbutrin, quit working just before I lost my last job and finally fought for Social Security disability.) I hate having to live on other people's dollars, but I'm so grateful that it's there, and I can help out my children with their children (my son's 5 year old has classic autism and my daughter's 8 year old is ADHD to the point that he needs medication to learn in school -- although we keep the dose very low and refuse to give it to him for anything except school). I sometimes feel like a parasite, but then I remind myself that the work I'm able to do with my grandchildren could well mean that they are able to support themselves in adulthood rather than being dependent and living in a group home or something. No stormcloud without a silver lining, eh?

I've gone ahead, and changed mine to 'have asperger's-undiagnosed' recently, but to be honest I go back and forth on the subject. I am pretty sure that I do have it, but I guess I'll never know until I can afford to be evaluated by a professional. I'm not going to repeat the long drawn out story as to why I think I have AS, because I feel like I've posted about it enough. Everyone is probably tired of reading about it by now. All that I know is that finding out that my kids have an ASD, and that I probably do has given me some peace in my life. I can finally know why I am the way I am, and feel comfortable in my own skin.

I have mine set as neurotypical though I have many things in common with folks here. But I read body language easily, I co-experience many people's feelings, and other things that I would expect would be very UN-ASD like being High Sensation Seeking, except I wonder if my stimming is related to my High Sensation Seeking. I read many people easily, from pattern recognition, and empathy, but I don't seem to have the "how to respond socially" part installed, or developed it yet, other than when my intuition leads the way. I also have little desire to accomplish socialness. I am much more interested in what is happening inside the person. Once when I tried to get myself diagnosed for ADD or ADHD, the tests came out as borderline. Maybe I am just different.

Er, because professionals never make mistakes?

There are quite a few people on here who ARE diagnosed, but if you read what they have to say, it's difficult to believe the diagnosis. If you're diagnosed, that means that LEGALLY you have it. But law rarely has anything to do with reality, and frequently directly contradicts science.

"All that I know is that finding out that my kids have an ASD, and that I probably do has given me some peace in my life. I can finally know why I am the way I am, and feel comfortable in my own skin."

Yes, that's pretty much how I feel, even though I don't have the diagnosis. If they want to call it Schizoid Personality Disorder that's fine -- I claim Asperger's.

Yeah, I definitely see what you're saying about professionals making mistakes. It's such a controversial area. We're not always the best judge of our own behaviors, but then again professionals aren't always correct, either. After all of the misdiagnosises that I received when I was much younger I'm a little leery of therapists, and psychologists. It seems to be a catch 22 with me. If I don't ever get a diagnosis I will always have that doubt in the back of my mind that maybe I'm just an odd NT with AS characteristics.

I guess the best anyone can do for genuine peace of mind is to try and get a diagnosis from someone who's a specialist in the field and who'll do a complete survey, with all that entails.

The other option is to simply not care where you fall. If I could change my diagnosis property on WP to be "don't care whether I have it or not" I probably would.

I wish that I could be that easygoing. That's a part of why I feel that I'm on the spectrum. Unanswered questions get under my skin to the point of perseveration. It's always been a driving force of my life to know the why of things, and to analyze everything to death.

This is a spectrum attribute? I know lots of NT folks who are this way.

Me too, except that I get the feeling that, in this case, there really isn't a definitive answer; only professional opinions. Therefore my conclusion is definite: I can't know if I have Asperger's. That makes me AS agnostic.

The condition is defined by subjective traits and not by a scientifically identifiable, measurable, well-understood characteristic of the brain. It will work on the more extreme ends of both the NT and AS spectrum, but in the middle it gets very foggy.

So are you actually unsure if you have it, or unsure if a professional could correctly recognize it? I've gotten so many bogus diagnoses in my life, I don't see how a diagnosis makes it certain that you have something. There are plenty of people on here who are diagnosed but describe symptoms that just don't match with AS! My psychiatrist mentioned something about how even if I meet the criteria for AS, I should go to psychological testing so that they can tell if instead of AS, I actually have a combination of some of the symptoms of several different personality disorders. So apparently, it's possible that I don't have the disorder that I meet the criteria for, but instead have a disorder than I DON'T meet the criteria for. HUH?!

The reason is I'm very sure I have it, but since I haven't been diagnosed I just said "Not sure if I have it".

I went to the autismresearchcentre.com , which is led by Simon Baron-Cohen. They have many diagnostic tests on that website, with peer-review journal articles to back up their validity. All of the tests, except the reading body language, put me into the AS/HFA range. The Autism-Spectrum Quotient score was 36/50. Empathy Quotient score was 6/80. The Social Stories Questionnaire score was 9, etc.

I went from age 12 to 26 with no friends whatsoever. I'm 27 and have only been on four group dates in my life. Many of my roommates at college said I was obsessive compulsive.

I didn't say undiagnosed, because there are some people out there who accuse AS/HFA as being a fad, which I think distracts from those who really have it. I think social, communication, and repetitive issues are real, not just a fad. Since I wasn't diagnosed by someone official, then I didn't want to say for sure, so that I don't add to the critics cause.

From my own memories and experiences, from the stories I have been told about my behaviors and actions as a child, from others mentioning the possibility, from the online quizzes, from the books I have read about AS, and from reading this site for the past year and seven months and finding familiar stories and reactions, I believe (strongly) that I am on the autistic spectrum.

But I won't make such a claim without speaking to a psychologist, because of the possibility that a psychologist might give me information I don't currently know and which might convince me otherwise.