Something I have to wonder about...

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Oh - well this would fall under 1 - the doctor is clueless - which doesn't surprise me seeing how they're trained.

Sorry about your wife's illness btw. Bummer. Never give up in finding solutions - because they are out there.....everything in it's own time.

jjstar wrote:

MrMark wrote:

jjstar wrote:

...they could never, ever have found by asking a doctor because...

...when you hear hoofbeats, you don't think of zebras.

Okay........
And this means what?

I knew a guy once, a very good doctor and excellent diagnostician. He had an index card file on his desk labled "Zebras." They were all they things he had seen that presented as something else. 100 people will present the same symptoms and 99 of them will have the common ailment, but 1 of them will be a zebra. Doctors are much more inclined to diagnose a condition more common than AS. Some of them have never even seen a case of AS.

My wife was incorrectly diagnosed with Lupus. The correct diagnosis turned out to be CREST syndrome, which is much more rare, but when you hear hoofbeats...

Self-diagnosis through research and thoughtful evaluation is the way to go, in my opinion. And if 3 doctors tell me I have 'x', then I still apply my intelligence to the matter and come to my own conclusion that may affirm or may refute what the doctors say I have. There is no easy physical test, such as taking a blood sample, determining the level of a liver enzyme, then looking up the result in a database. Diagnosing adults is particularly difficult because of the coping mechanisms and the effects of childhood traumas on the behavior presented. Some of us have PTSD and/or depression from what we went through growing up. I once paid to see a neuropsychiatrist who basically just agreed with me that I have AS, no testing, just 'looks like it to me too' and took my money. I come to my own conclusions based on study plus the application of logic. Trust must be earned, I don't just give it to someone in a white coat with a title of 'MD'. Heck, people are mis-diagnosed all the time. When the shoe really, really fits the foot perfectly, you know it's a match.

Diagnosis is a big deal. For me, it was worth making sure as it meant that my entire life up to that point had to be reinterpreted in light of knowing that I was born this way. That family/friends were not simply cruel or mean for no reason, but were responding to the quirky way that I acted. It was a very big deal for me and took me a few years to process. It was time for me to realize my part in what went on, how odd, sometimes selfish, and often childish I was. Nobody knew. Cut them some slack.

What else presents a similar set of symptoms? Well, schizoid personality disorder is pretty close. But schizoid behavior usually starts later while I've always been this way, and the sensory sensitivity/overload problems, handwriting, motor coordination plus CAPD point to AS. When you study it, eliminate every other possibility, then the one that is left is the answer until new evidence proves otherwise. NLD/NVLD is another similar diagnosis, but it appears that many of us have a non-verbal learning disorder as part of the whole AS picture.

There is no need to prove anything to anybody but ourselves. I'm here at WP because we share a unique way of experiencing the world that is often alienating. It is really helpful to come here and know we are a family of sorts.

I guess I am self-diagnosed. My take on myself would be AS/ ADD combined as I seem to have symptoms of both.
My reasons are:

1) Im a pincushion of sensory sensitivities
2) I had to learn how people thought through reading books because I couldnt tell in real life what people were feeling.
3) There is a big gap in my mind where a lot of known NT reaction are..
4) I struggle with focus... going from hyperfocus to jittery distractiveness, there is never a middle ground
5) I hate all the initial weird shite like saying hello to people, and I dont like much eye contact.
6) I always felt different
7) My thinking processes are completely different to most people I meet.
8 ) I am talkative, but I dont talk "to" people, I talk "at" them.
9) I forget to blink for long periods of time, and sometimes my brain locks obsessively onto things.
10) It's better than just being "the weird girl".

So, there is my list.

I had no choice but to read up on mental disorders and educate myself on Aspergers because I don't have the luxury of health insurance. Aspergers has explained way too much that goes on inside my head. The more aware I am of which behaviors of mine are disorderly, the more able I am to control them.

The main and defining symtom of AS is Wiki.

It is the most common path to WP.

What would we be without the Internet?