Thousands of GIRLS may have undiagnosed autism because they

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Interesting theory.

I wasn't overtly autistic when I was younger--I was mostly shy, bookish, didn't really approach people until they approached me, and so on. The social problems started to come up more when I started school--and I was also frustrated with the way that academics were structured. I would start to have meltdowns in school due to the sensory stuff, but it was written off as "acting up" or "being dramatic." I've since learned to recognize when a meltdown is coming on and step away, as well as to "fake" some NT behaviors, so I know firsthand that it can be difficult to diagnose in girls and women. Our interests and general behavior aren't "strange" enough to warrant attention. So it's exciting to me that more and more research in the area of AS in females is being undertaken, because so many of them need it.

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What a story though! All those years of drugs, and "therapy!" For what? Just the expense and waste of time! But I'm glad that you were able to extricate yourself, I believe that there are tens of thousands of people on the spectrum that have been grievously harmed by these "doctors."

Did you have actual therapy, or did these "doctors" see you for 15 minutes every month to refill your prescriptions?

These "doctors" are the same people that so many right here on WP depend on for their dxs, and meds... and imo when anyone presents a problem to them, they are going to prescribe drugs, and make a follow-up appointment. ...And it could be a relationship that is almost impossible to break. Just like you, the breakups come when insurance changes or some big life change happens in the patients life gives them a new perspective.

Congratulations to you for finding a helpful psych, and for the weight loss too![/quote]

I am sure that kind of thing happens to a lot of people on the spectrum. I have personally talked to a few other people who have been in similar situations. I imagine I could have easily spent my whole life going to those sessions if I hadn't eventually got frustrated by my lack of progress and felt somewhat at odds with my diagnosis (for years I'd had lots of thoughts like: is it possible to be born depressed, since I've been this way my whole life? Am I really depressed if I feel generally positive and enjoy lots of things, even if they aren't what other people my age enjoy? Why doesn't the medication make me feel any different whether I take it or not? And other things like that).

I did have actual therapy (weekly hour long sessions) for years, and also several years of just going in for short visits and medication refills every three months. The therapy wasn't very helpful for me because it was looking at my issues from the position that I had the skills to socialize and behave properly and just wasn't doing it for whatever reason. So instead of actually teaching me things like how to have a conversation or how to handle sensory issues, it was stuff more like "just talk to people and soon you'll get be friends" and other vague things like that. Honestly though, I can't say that it was all bad, because sometimes it was nice to have someone outside of my family to talk to about things. I just wish I could have been properly diagnosed so I could have got some help with my real issues earlier and not been medicated and at risk for side effects for so long.

Sorry if all this is hijacking your thread. I guess it's getting off-topic. It's kind of nice to tell parts of my story to someone though. So thanks!

Am always glad when this subject is brought up in the media or research, because so few people seem to understand or know about the different female presentation of autism ( incl aspergers ), and it's so frustrating when people say "oh you can't be on the spectrum because ... ".

My experience is that I poured probably as much energy and concentrated attention and a fairly high IQ into studying, learning, and copying/producing elaborate social behaviour as the "average" male on the autism spectrum probably pours into their technical, mathematical or other classic autist "special interests".

I think that I took totally literally the various many pervasive social constructs on what female gender identity "means"/involves, ( even if for years I continued to unconsciously deny to myself that I was "really" female because the trad socially-constructed female identity seemed so terribly limiting, and longed with all my heart to be a man, until I got pregnant at 19, and had an abortion, which I couldn't really ignore ), and, *having* a female brain, even if an autist one, I was probably more aware of or neurologically programmed to pay attention to/notice social signalling etc than the average autist male.

So I learned how to "do" skillful "socialising", most of all with men, which society "told me" ( and I believed with fervent autist wholehearted naivety ) was the peak/summit/highest expression of "being a woman", such that within certain limited parametres, in certain situations, and for certain limited time periods I could pull off the most convincing and successful super-social behaviour, but it took/takes huge amounts of energy, and didn't allow me to do very much else at the same time ... ... ...

I wish that I had put even half as much energy and concentrated attention into a skill that I could have based a career on ... because well-honed charming social skills, including smiles, effective eye-contact, gestures, etc aren't really any good for earning one's living except as professional courtesan/companion/femme-fatale/escort/prostitute/concubine, something that as a middle-class university-educated woman living in the 20th century I didn't feel were appropriate or desirable career pathways to follow ... :lol ... though I have ended up doing the nearest acceptable version of that, having spent the last 15 years as a full-time home-un-schooling mother and part-time housekeeper to a son and his father ... having failed ( over the previous 15 years ) to find any other sort of work which I could "stick" for more than a few months ( except very boring unchallenging part-time ones ) ...

I was brought up by a stay-at-home full-time mother in the 60's and 70's which almost certainly influenced what I perceived, in typical autist black and white fashion, the female gender to "be". I imagine that girls growing up now are seeing far fewer examples of this "kind" of woman.
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I've chatted about this to a number of experts I know or have met in the UK, and one thing that frustrates them about female ASD is that it is so heavily under diagnosed. Apparently the biggest problem being that they are dismissed as being OCD or Bipolar instead of being properly investigated for ASD. There is a cultural tendency to dismiss female symptoms as being 'silly female issues' even though similar symptoms in boys are treated as warning signals.

When my daughter was a toddler we were very concerned about her behaviour but were dismissed every time we discussed it and in the end took their word for it that she was fine. I now regret accepting their word for it, as my son who is two years younger was subsequently diagnosed with Autism. After he received his diagnosis I was tested and diagnosed with Aspergers within three months. So we re-evaluated my daughters situation and went back to the doctors and demanded an assessment, she is now on the waiting list for diagnosis (which for children in our area is currently an 18 month wait). The only reason they agreed to look into my daughter is because I and my son were diagnosed so there was a genetic possibility of my daughter being ASD too. My Daughter is now 9 years old.

Since getting her on the waiting list, my Daughter has now started self harming, she scratches and bites herself when upset, and I'm scared that eventually it will be compass points and razorblades
If they had taken her more seriously when she was younger would they have been able to prevent her evolving into self harm? I don't know, but they have certainly lost a lot of time in which she could have been receiving help and therapy

There is an interesting article about autism in females on the NAS website : Autism in Females

I really need to research female Autism a lot more - I've been concentrating too much on me and my sons autistic traits and not looking enough into the different traits my daughter displays

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Autistic dad to an autistic boy and loving it - its always fun in our house

I have Autism. My communication difficulties mean that I sometimes get words wrong, that what I mean is not what comes out.

After having had a bad experience broaching the subject of possible Asperger's with my family doctor and the first psychologist he sent me to, I was more prepared when I met with a second psychologist of my own choosing. At our first meeting I pleaded with her to take into consideration that I am female, have a high IQ, and was 57 years old--not to make her judgment based upon how I comported myself outwardly, but to allow me to unfold for her my history and inward experience. She immediately acknowledged that, yes I did not readily appear to have Asperger's upon her first meeting me, but all of these factors certainly could have a bearing on that. She agreed to give me rather thorough testing and evaluation. It gave me good hope.

A person with Asperger's who has spent a lifetime bending all the resources of a rather good IQ towards appearing as normal and typical a female as possible is probably going to have had a certain degree of success.

In my case, I was at that time, however I looked, a few weeks away from total burnout and a rather abrupt early retirement.

I haven't met many autistic girls. I only know two personally. There may be a diagnosis problem, or it's just that it's more common in males. On the other hand, Tony Attwood said the traits for Aspies are more accepted for girls than they are for guys.