What was your diagnosis before autism?

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I was diagnosed with slight hearing loss at a very early age of about 2 due to severe ear reoccurring infections but doctors said it was regained at 7 but I think I never had any hearing loss at all and just wasn't responding to others because at 2 I was overly hearing sensitive and would meltdown when I heard airplanes and the THX thing.

I had a lot of speculations in between, ADD/ADHD, bipolar, dyslexia,OCD, and even Down's syndrome was suggested by a nurse once.

When I was 15 I was diagnosed aspergers but it recently changed to ASD level 1.

Edit: I was also diagnosed with depression, and generalized anxiety disorder before the initial AS diagnoses.

I was diagnosed as possible Bipolar since we have others in my family tree who have it. Turns out I didn't. I'm just a crazy old Aspie.

Three years prior to my HFA diagnosis, my psychiatrist (at the time) diagnosed me with Borderline Personality Disorder. She and my former care coordinator both concluded that I had BPD after I had made two attempts to take my own life. Unfortunately my communication skills are rather poor, which I believe led to them incorrectly thinking that I binged on food regularly - a common trait of those with BPD. During our sessions I would usually appear to be rather withdrawn, detached from my emotions and very quiet.

Incidentally, the first CBT therapist with whom I spoke mentioned that I might be autistic but it wasn't explored at that time.

I was diagnosed with OCD 15 years ago, but I wasn't a misdiagnosis (as in an incorrect diagnosis); it was bonafide OCD. However, the diagnosis of ASD was missed. My most recent eval stated that the criteria for OCD are not present at this time, and that's correct, largely due to CBT and Paxil. They did diagnose me with Generalizes Anxiety Disorder along with ASD, and I totally agree with that as well. So there were/are other diagnoses for me, but none of them were/are inaccurate.

Complex ptsd and major depressive disorder during two years of intense weekly therapy. My therapist was a beautiful human and I am not an easy guy to counsel, we had uncovered various possible deeper avenues but I ended up going into exile for several years at some point as it got too difficult to stay centred enough to keep going through it and became severely convoluted to process everything with the life path I was traveling on. Putting it all into an internal structure regarding my past and the implications needed isolation as a kinda tonic. I pursued the possibilities of autism, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia in the time between as I built toward returning to the professionals and ended up being diagnosed with autism after writing my gp a letter about desiring to explore my brain again, which is what I had suspected was the over arching umbrella so to speak. I do legitimately have the other two mental health issues alongside the autism but they could even be considered part of the debris of the condition, I dunno if I have anything else since there's no counseling available, I used to think having more than one mental problem wasn't possible but you learn firsthand I guess. It's interesting cause autism is such a complex beast to unravel, there's so many angles and shades to it and how it affects you in different ways.

I visited a shrink (not sure what the official title was) 2 or 3 times my first year of college. My parents were concerned about my poor academic performance. The shrink focused on my academic problems (and I strongly denied being depressed) and decided to treat me for ADHD. I was prescribed Straterra. I took the medication for three weeks and I felt it was making my mind cloudy, I felt like I lost my edge in natural talents. Then one night I felt like I had a stroke. CT scan did not find anything that suggested a stroke, but I stopped taking the medication anyway. I never saw this shrink or another mental health specialist again. I was 18 at the time.
...Oh, I just read: stroke is a known side effect of Strattera. Yeah...

Why I denied being depressed? According to my interpretation depression is when a person feels sad for no good reason, irrational sadness. I was sad every day, but since I knew why I was sad and had a good reason to be sad (my life genuinely sucks), I find the way that I feel to be rational and "normal" given the circumstances.

Well, I have been diagnosed with none of those listed in the poll. The only thing I really know is that I had near fatal jaundice at 2-3 years old. Although that diagnosis was never really firm either. (No one in rural areas on my country had heard of autism or some of the rarer metabolic disorders back in the 50s.)

In my current undiagnosed state, I'm inclined to just say certain aspects of my behaviour might be viewed as somewhat autistic, but I suspect the underlying cause of that is some neural impairment, caused by the 'jaundice'. I note that there is a possibility that 'jaundice' might have been a manifestation of Mitochondrial Disease of the liver. Now if that was the case, I suppose I might still display symptoms of that condition, and there might be some evidence left behind in liver cells. So that might also have to be investigated. True, I am inclined to run out of energy in stressful situations - a situation which somewhat contradicts my apparently very healthy appearance. But perhaps also worth noting that my career has definitely been adapted to cope with that occasional heavy fatigue. I pace myself constantly, which rubs me up wrong against life's alpha-one high-achiever's something rotten. I'm a slow plodding person, who has occasional flashes of inspiration.

Funny situation to find oneself in at the age of 60 - although I've had suspicions since the first severe cases of autism began to appear in kids in my native country in the early 70s. Just life's normal depression I thought, but no diagnosis of that either.

Grounding from more scientifically-based posters would be VERY welcome here. I'm not exactly a total under-acheiver, but this problem had quite an effect on my career, because I never really had a properly joined-up science and maths education. I ain't the most rational of folks, as a result. That said, the likelihood that a childhood metabolic disorder was a major factor seems to me to be quite well-supported by some of the reading I've recently done.

I was diagnosed at about 4-5 years of age with Asperger's Syndrome... or whatever the equivalent would be before the DSM-IV (that wouldn't be released for another few years). The doctors just straight-up called it Asperger's, though. That became the official diagnosis as soon as the DSM-IV was released.

Aspergers, at 10. I already knew I'm a bit different, yet I listened to denial and ignorance, while I indulged my hate and anger.

Never been in any kind of doctor before that, unless when being born counts.

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I was diagnosed with Infantile Autism at age 3. Nothing before then, except for Strabismus (cross-eyes)

I was subsequently diagnosed with:

Brain injury/damage, about age 4

Schizoid Personality Disorder, age 15

Many informal so-called diagnoses, some of them mentioned by ASPartofme.

I coped too well to get any diagnosis either than 'too dramatic', does that count? but I had symptoms of depression, bipolar, BPD, PTSD, and even brief psychotic episode once.

None.

Or if there is a diagnosis for "an asocial geek who missed out on childhood largely because he spent too much time in front of his computer while his parents were worried about all the security stuff he was coding and reading about computer related things 24/7", i had that.

Was generally seen as someone suffering from depression and sever social anxiety.. Even had one doc tell me to my face he didnt believe in depression, i felt like ripping his throat out at the time ( ok, that was a little sarcasm, well.. sort of) so sacked him on the spot and laid a complaint... It was until about 2 years ago when the Councillor i was seeing had a sudden epiphany, after shaking none stop for over 2 months due to an emotional disruption in my life and mentioning how alien i feel in this world and how i explained it and that i felt i was always misunderstood and how in and around groups of more than 2 people i would be sensory overwhelmed and freeze amongst a cocktail of other explanations, she asked me if i had heard of Aspergers, i mentioned i had but never an area i looked into, she mentioned to go home and have a read and see if i could relate.. I wasnt seeking a label, just wanted to stop feeling the way i did and feeli i could be accepted into society.. but after reading through it it felt like someone had been following me my whole life, could relate to almost all that was written, however the process here isnt that great and often deal with individuals that know little about the spectrum and make there decisions based on the stereo types of the presumptions that all aspies hate fiction, hate grammar mistakes ( ok i sometimes see it and feel a niggle but i am just as crap at times with spelling etc) Dont feel any sort of empathy, and interests must be that of remembering train numbers! sheesh, even in the short time i started studying the spectrum it was plainly obvious that they had not read a damn thing in the area! So going through the painful process to hopefully change the way and approach many of these so called professionals take... ok this was a very very very short version and isnt even worth calling it a summary, was just getting a small point across:) Ironically is seemed obvious why i was being told i have limited theory of mind it was blatantly obvious as were they! but hey, cant tell a ""professional"" that narrow tracked minds! Total tunnel vision, i was actually amazed! and thus far after doing as much reading and connecting with myself, i have so far had a 100% success rate of picking other aspies out in my life that had not mentioned in past and other possible would be aspies. Its like the aspie radar has suddenly started working for the first time... All quit an interesting journey, but new approaches MUST be taken in the professional world as many can actually be doing much more harm to the individual than they realize by trying to implement a one style fits all approach in their methodologies, ie social flooding! Nooooo, its nuts!! ! lol... Sorry, not well articulated, not in depth and a little off topic but felt compelled, i apologize

Wow. This thread is really interesting. Thanks again to B19 for suggesting it.

I should have clarified before, but Infantile Schizophrenia (or infantile autism) and Kanner's or Classic Autism are the same thing- outdated labels for autism spectrum disorder. These were both used generally for kids who wouldn't talk and/or had other development delays but appeared normal or above average in other areas and had no physical abnormalities such as a Down's face. Asperger's used to be only rarely diagnosed and did not used to be something recognized in small children or adults. Once the people were adults, the Asperger's traits became things appropriate for adults and they appeared to "recover."

It's telling that there are SO MANY misdiagnoses that I couldn't list them all.

I hadn't considered the misdiagnosis of depression from a flat affect or focused interests. That's a big problem, because like someone else illustrated, you wouldn't want to take antidepressants if you're not depressed.

I am not surprised to see anxiety pop up so much.

Sometimes an autistic person is depressed because they are not understood by their peers and teachers and they want to have friends but they are rejected. Plus if they want to be normal, they can be very frustrated. So sometimes depression is the correct diagnoses but to say that is what their problem is is not correct. I have had depression too in the past because of these things. But I can never relate to anyone with depression because I never avoided activities or avoided going to school or abandon my hobbies or interests. So for years I thought depression just meant being unhappy so I thought anyone who lost their job due to depression were just lazy and used their depression as an excuse to not go in. I thought depression was just an excuse to not go out and do things because they wanted to have a pity party. That was not my experience. I thought depression was just being unhappy and always thinking about dying. I don't think antidepressants would fix everything because all it does is just helps the person cheer up and cope with all this better and not be so down about it. I have a nickname for them, happy pills.