Wrong Asperger's Self-Diagnosis

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I always knew that I was different from other people, just didn't understand why. I didn't understand why some things that seemed so easy for the others was so hard to me. Since I was a kid I tried to get through situations by imitation; imitation of gestures, tones of voices, postures, and this from people around me or some artist, or even some character from a film or a tv program. This is just one aspect that I brought you, there are so many more! So when I knew about Asperger's Syndrome, my reaction was: "Finally something makes sense!".
I'm trying to get the contact of a friend's Professor, my friend studies medicine and this Professor taught her group about Asperger's Syndrome. I believe that he would guide me better through this.
How can I trust a professional that tells me that I don't have AS because I don't seem to have it and that the fact that I "suspect" to have it is the proof that I don't have it?
I live on the Northeast of Brazil and really don't have any direction. I wish that at least someone had me tested! That's all that I'm looking for.
I'm tired of people treating me like slow, insensitive, dumb and that this thing of Asperger's is an excuse to "be the way I am".
My academic life sucks and my professional life exists only on my fantasies!

I took all the official tests and evaluation stuff with my therapist and I don't quite qualify for official diagnosis. There is no doubt, however, that I am firmly "on the spectrum". Just barely. But it's certainly enough to render me dramatically different from everyone around me and shot through with the kinds of life problems common to aspies.

I would say you should go to someone who specializes in diagnosing AS in adults. Generally, it's hard to diagnose in adults based on a brief observation. A lot of physicians have barely even heard of Aspergers; let alone be qualified to diagnose it.

What the HELL kinda' CRAP is THAT?

Sounds like the kinda' CRAP a diagnostician will say when they don't want to be obligated to HELP you!

Normally the opposite is the case. Most people here self diagnose, from what I can gather. Even a lot of those professionally diagnosed self diagnose first. When I was 12, after I'd spend years seeing people and nobody could figure out why I was having all these problems, one counselor (or child specialist, or somehting like that), clicked a little and loaned my family a book on Asperger's - saying she didn't know much about it, but we should investigate it further because it's possible I might have it. We took it home, I took it up to my bedroom that very afternoon, read the whole thing in 2 hours, did the several pages long questionnaire in the middle, and self diagnosed myself with Aspergers. We went to see a psychiatrist soon after, and he also diagnosed me with Aspergers after questioning me one on one and having me take several different tests.

My advice is to first make sure the research you have done is thorough - don't just go off WP, make sure you've done several of the reputable online quizzes, read at least one (I'd recommend) several books on Aspergers (books by Tony Atwood are probably a good place to start). After this, if you still feel absolutely certain, then I would seek a second opinion, and I would suggest you actually create written documentation of the test results you obtained, the symptoms you experience now and symptoms you may have experienced only as a child, your parents observations, etc. I have heard of several people on this site doing this and it is mostly quite effective - any psychiatrist worth their salt should at least hear you out.

That's what I'm doing, I've done many quizes and all of them gives me a considerable result (high possibility). I've saved all the results and sources. I'm reading Tony Attwood's "The Complete guide to Asperger's Syndrome" and recognize myself on every page. I've seen some of his programs and I have quite a material here. I'm going further on that and take it to the next professional I'll see.
Thanks for the suggestions!

Self diagnosed online by taking a few quizzes or reading a bit on Wikipedia would not be a definitive diagnosis.

Only a psychiatrist is qualified to give an official diagnosis of any psychiatric disorder.

Simply registering with this website qualifies you as having Aspergers Syndrome. It would be a very easy thing to diagnose.

In my view an Aspie is anyone who is a loner, shy, introverted and a quiet person who does not really like interacting with other people. They only interact with people when they really need to. Their level of intelligence can vary drastically from one person to the next person with the same condition. They will have unique interests that they like to do on their own. Their level of emotional intelligence which is critical to interacting with people is below that of Non-Aspies.

I kind of think no one should question self-diagnoses. Not because they're never wrong, but because they're often correct. I'll also add that someone who is self-diagnosing is probably doing so because they are experiencing distress and trying to identify it, and it really sucks (from personal experience) to have someone else try to vivisect that while you are trying to work things out.

This is one reason I got fairly stubborn about my self-diagnosis - no one who's questioned it has access to the same information I do, whether it's how far I'd gone to research it to what I was experiencing on a day-to-day basis.

I mean, advice, and information? Helps. Bringing out "only professionals are qualified to diagnose?" Doesn't help.

Most self-diagnoses on WrongPlanet are wrong and that's a statistical inevitability. Most "self diagnosed" individuals here have an average AQ score that has a NT/Aspie ratio of 12.5, and their distress is most likely related to other issues in their life and having a higher expression of autistic traits that influences their social interactions, but not to the point of being aspergian. That is, the person scoring with an AQ of 35 is probably going to be in the bottom 10-20% of the social hierarchy which makes them pretty "socially undesirable"(Think "boring person" or "dislikable person"), but that doesn't automatically make them aspergian.

That's why I'm pretty sure I don't have aspergers. But, still, I'm getting tested just to be sure. During the testing, I'm going to try to act as NT as possible. Once I figure out that it isn't due to being aspergian, I can look into memory problems and then, after that, I'll look into finding the optimal set of choosable personality traits.

I hope you'll forgive me if I disagree on account of experts who have been dealing with AS people for years saying that most self-diagnoses are accurate. You can look at the numbers, but that doesn't give you the full story, which was the exact point I was trying to make in the post you replied to.

You also didn't explain what "NT/Aspie ratio of 12.5" means.

What experts? Sure, that may have been true years ago, but AS has been a trendy diagnosis as of late so the common wisdom of years past has been antiquated. And, yeah, the full story is precisely the problem -- most self-diagnosed people on here don't research the "full story" and instead conclude from the basis that 1) Their social life sucks and 2) They got a high AQ score means that they have aspergers! Haha. Not.




That means, looking at the AQ score distribution among the control group and aspergers group, that the amount of NT controls scoring an AQ score of 35 of above is at least 12.5 times as many HFA/Aspergers patients scoring 35 or above, assuming an AS incidence of 1 per 250 people in the population is accurate.

Last edited by swbluto on 03 May 2011, 11:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tony Attwood and Simon Baron-Cohen. Dr. Attwood has said this as recently in the past few months.

And I have heard many people say it is a "trendy diagnosis" but I have to see evidence of this. I have only seen it as an unsubstantiated claim intended to criticize self-diagnosis or children who receive accommodations in school.

As for the full story, I don't know. Most people who come on here go into some detail about the problems they've experienced. I mean, I've seen many posters get downright biographical.

Seriously, I don't think you have any basis for assuming that the main reason people decide they have AS is that they score 32+ on the AQ and that their social lives suck. The AQ does not, by the way, actually test how severe your condition is, nor how many social difficulties you have, so I am not sure how you draw such conclusions from it.



I see. You should find some way to verify that as it is in direct contradiction with past statistical runs on the AQ. Kon pointed out that in previous studies, the false positive rate with NT controls was something like 2%.

trying to intentionally obscure the truth while getting diagnosed seems like a real waste of money.

The idea of trying to optimize personality traits ... firstly people can sense that you are trying to do this, which will horribly obscure your results. Even if this didn't happen, I would consider trying to understand human beings in this way is an NP complete problem (although I cannot prove that).

Allot of what i understand of people is quantitative, or relatively short cause-effect chains, and it works of a sort. Searching for an optimal point, i think is underestimating the complexity of the problem and the number of factors that go into the natural, fluid understanding others have.

It's a logical inference. Those with really high AQ scores have really awful social lives (They have aspergers, so of course) while those with really low AQ scores tend to have excellent social lives. Do you think there's a magical discontinuous jump where it goes from "not sucking" to "sucking royally"? That's ridiculous -- there's going to be a curve, and a corresponding association between awful social lives and high AQ scores.



I see. You should find some way to verify that as it is in direct contradiction with past statistical runs on the AQ. Kon pointed out that in previous studies, the false positive rate with NT controls was something like 2%.[/quote]

Kon didn't check the original research. Here's the original research for everyone's perusal: http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/doc ... tal_AQ.pdf

In particular, notice how 7% of the control males scored above 32. For females, a score above 32 is a fair bit more indicative though still a bit sketchy.