Wrong Asperger's Self-Diagnosis

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I´ve been wondering the same about myself lately. Basically, I´m sure I must be on the spectrum, as too much fits for me not to be. If I were able to go for a diagnosis, it would be more to see where exactly I lie on the spectrum. However, I wonder how many women get a diagnosis of PDD-NOS...(or, for that matter, "Depression")! Again, not so much is known about women with AS- it´s basically a new subject. I think of PDD.NOS as being almost the same thing as AS- (except the name is more cumbersome)- basically, it´s a way of saying "atypical Asperger´s Syndrome". As Asperger studied only boys, it could be that most women present in a different, or an "atypical" way. Maybe that´s also why there´s this ridiculous male/female ratio- (with far more men being diagnosed).

I'm torn on getting a professional diagnosis. I had been diagnosed with clinical depression when I was about 14 or 15, went through a few years of taking meds and going to therapy, but nothing really changed as a result of all that "treatment" until I had a bad experience with Effexor. At that point, it occurred to me that my problems were being treated like some kind of temporary aberration, like it was just an overblown case of teen angst, and that by taking some pills and talking to people, it'd all go away eventually. I even thought that might be the case for a little while, but every year or so, I'd have a huge breakdown and just collapse under the stress and anxiety of everything going on in my life. The last 13 years or so has been a constant cycle of rebooting my life and starting over again.

I think the initial diagnosis back then was somewhat accurate, but I don't think it was comprehensive enough to account for everything going on. What makes me so apprehensive about being diagnosed now is that so much time has passed, and I've learned how to overcome some of my earlier difficulties over that time, that receiving an accurate diagnosis seems nearly impossible.

I have gone in for a diagnosis (at the age of 18) to a child psychologist (I was on the brink of adulthood, in theory) who was not a specialist in ASDs, unfortunately. I was self-medicating with marijuana, which I still profess to be a viable and enjoyable symptom and anxiety reducer, provided you don't overdo it.

She was not able to rule it out, and said if I were to return to school I would qualify for assistance related to ADHD. I do not believe that I have ADHD, and I am POSITIVE that I have Asperger's syndrome. I have done thorough, no, extensive research, and am ready to walk into a specialist's office and receive my diagnosis.

I'm not seeking a diagnosis to provide any sort of closure, certainty, or anything like that, because, like I said, I am positive that I belong to this demographic (and I have never felt more at home in any place, odd this has to be a group of social ret*ds [term of endearment, I'm sure y'all realize]). I would like a diagnosis so that I can seek state funding from the Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS, formerly Texas Rehab Commission) so that I can go to school and begin a lifelong career in forestry, maybe be a certified arborist, as this is my passion.

Unfortunately, I find it difficult to even hold a sh***y job for more than a year, because I just get fed up with everyone and they don't have the patience to deal with an 'unmanageable' employee. Even more difficult is 'selling' myself to a prospective employer on the basis of my abounding over qualifications, because of reasons I'm sure you can all sympathize with.

I'm hoping and praying that this avenue will work out for me, and I suggest that others begin to go down the same path to a satisfying career and life. *crosses fingers*

DARS just received a few billion dollars in federal stimulus money, and I am racing to get it. I also hear that when they refer you to a specialist, you don't have to pay a red cent.

Long story short, get the diagnosis, then people can't give you s**t, or tell you the same old stuff you've always heard like 'you're too smart to have a problem' or 'if you just got your act together you can do anything you want.' I'm tired of that jive, I want the government's money!! !

I would probably be thinking that the doctor doesn't know about aspergers or if it was an adult going to the doctors, thinking that the doctor thinks it's only a 'childhood disorder'. I would probably feel annoyed with myself that I wasted all that time researching aspergers but relieved that the doctors first impression of me wasn't that I'm socially inept.
I would probably just go home and continue to wonder why I am the way I am.

The way you described that, it sounded as though you were going to a GP for an AS diagnosis. Even if it was a general psychiatrist, they'd have absolutely no idea--and that statement comes straight from my psychiatrist. After I started researching AS and mentioned it to my psychiatrist, she told me it never would have occurred to her, since she's not a developmental psychiatrist. She works mostly with adults with depression and anxiety problems. (A lot of psychosomatic mind/body interaction kind of stuff, but I think that largely boils down to depression and anxiety anyways.)
Particularly if it's an M.D. that you're talking about, they've studied medicine, not psychology. A psychiatrist's primary field of expertise is in biology. And they know about what they work with. If it's not someone who works with AS, how would they know? A chapter in a course fifteen years ago?

Probably someone said this, but IMO it's more likely that the doctor doesn't know AS than that your self-diagnosis is wrong. If a doctor has neve rheard of AS, he may not think of it when examining you. Or he may have stereotyped views of AS that you don't meet, or believe AS only happens in children, etc. Depression and anxiety can also co-occur with AS, so it doesn't mean you dont'have these.

I don't have great skills at demanding things for myself. Low self confidence. I suppose if a Dr. told me this, I'd feel defeated, go home, and further obsess about wtf is up with me.

Self diagnosis is difficult. You aren't capable of observing yourself in the same way that another person is; this is why many clinicians will ask to talk to family/relatives, or others who knew/know you about your behavior.

Since the advent of websites like WebMD, many, many people have experienced symptom of various diseases and ailments and decided they have them; sometimes they have something much worse, or sometimes they have nothing at all. It's like internet-fueled hypochondria.

There are numerous disorders/syndromes which have poor social skills as a symptom. I once thought that I had lung cancer due to some symptoms I was experiencing and read about on WebMD; it turns out that I did have a problem with my lungs, but it wasn't anything related to having lung cancer.

If you go in to a clinician's office because you suspect you have Asperger's syndrome, and you're told you don't... you may not have it. You may want to seek a second or third opinion, but it seems rather strange to build up so much of your identity around a disorder that you become depressed because you may not actually have it.

You can have poor social skills and depression and OCD or ADD/HD and not have an ASD.

While it is, of course, true that you can't observe yourself the same way someone else can, it's also true that you can observe yourself in ways that someone else can't... Particularly if you've been in therapy for many years examine every detail of everything that you do.
It may not be possible to be completely objective when it comes to examining one's own behavior, but after years of doing so with therapists, going through all the therapies, gaining the insights.. things not getting better because the base problem is not about insight.. perhaps talking to family members, questioning what is actually wrong with you.. there's a depth that an outside person really just can't get to. Someone else may be able to examine my behavior, but they can never know, for sure, why I do anything that I do. There are some disorders that have similar features, or look similar in certain situations, but have very different causes, or are only applicable in a narrow set of circumstances.

Professionals misdiagnose psychiatric illnesses extremely frequently. Read any of those studies about journalists checking themselves into mental hospitals just to find out what would happen?

I simply caution people that self diagnosis is a very slippery slope. If you convince yourself that you have one thing but you really have something that's easier to treat (like social anxiety disorder or ADD/HD), you're only doing yourself a dis-service.

I am always careful to acknowledge that clinicians are imperfect, and yes Thomas Szaz and associates have certainly proven that it's very easy to fake your way into a diagnosis. And given my background in anthropology and particular interest in concepts of disease, sickness, and illness, I'm also careful to acknowledge that the way something is described may change over time.

For example, because I was diagnosed during the late 1980's, early 1990's (pre DSM-IV) I was not diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. However, I have been diagnosed with it since. I didn't change, but the way we (as a culture) thought about disease and illness did. Our concept of autism expanded.

That said, I still am not going to encourage people who are actually having difficulty with life that may be the result of an ASD to be content with a self diagnosis. That's not going to qualify you for any help or accommodation, and your self diagnosis may prevent you from getting help for what you do actually have. My life would be a lot easier if I could just take antidepressants and something for ADD rather than having to cope with executive dysfunction caused by NLD and AS.

That is true.. but by the time an adult diagnoses themselves with AS, they've likely already been unsuccessfully treated for anxiety, depression, and ADHD, or at least not satisfactorily treated. Somebody doesn't just wake up one day and go "Oh gee, I think I might be autistic!" (Well.. maybe occasionally they do.. but the majority of the time it's more than that.) Somebody will be researching their symptoms because they keep being treated for various things that just don't make any sense, because they keep getting therapy and it only makes things worse, because they're sick of being blamed for not "trying hard enough" every time therapy doesn't work out. AS doesn't just suddenly pop up out of the blue. It pops up when you realize that maybe it's NOT your fault that all the treatments for depression and anxiety and ADHD haven't fixed you, and then you find information on ASDs and realize that you've found something that actually explains your problems. That maybe you don't need a laundry list of different diagnoses, and that treatments for a dozen different disorders that are just symptoms of a primary problem makes no sense.
It does seem likely that on reading about AS, a parent might think their kid has it when they have something simpler to treat, but an adult who comes across AS and thinks it describes them has probably already been through treatment for at least depression and anxiety, possibly multiple times.

Or, sometimes it "pops out of the blue" because a relative tells us about AS and thinks that we might have it.

While I am sure that there are a ton of people who have been unsuccessfully treated for co-morbids, some of us simply have never needed to do that. Then again, while it seems fairly obvious to me that I have quite a few autistic traits (well, now it does, at least), it's very questionable that I currently have a disorder. I certainly don't need any sort of diagnosis to get along in life; I'm doing just fine. So I think I'm autistic without having an ASD. (Someone reading this is probably screaming, "No! No! No! You have it all wrong!")

It's fascinating for me to discover aspects of my personality that I never before thought were related. I've always known that I processed the world differently, but I guess I never realized the extent of it before.

So basically, you're a geek. (BTW, I've redefined the word "geek" to mean "aspie without major dysfunctions." Coming from the daughter of a math professor and an engineer, it's not an insult.)
But if you have traits without having the disorder, you don't have the disorder. I was addressing it in the context of the accuracy of self-diagnosis. In saying that you have traits but not the disorder, you're not diagnosing yourself with the disorder, so therefore.. it's not self-diagnosis. It can't be self-diagnosis if you don't diagnose yourself with anything.

Since we're talking about dysfunction, how is "geek" (as you describe) different from high-functioning autism? Is autism the disorder itself, or can one be autistic without having an autistic disorder? Is disorder and dysfunction really the same thing?

It's quite possible that I would have met enough criteria for some kind of PDD for many years of my childhood. I imagine that I learned to cope very successfully. Is it possible that I am autistic by nature yet no longer have a disorder?

Diagnostic criteria have to include significant impairment--otherwise there would be no point in diagnosing something. A significant portion of that is just seeing a shrink. (I'll use the generic term "shrink" to include psychiatrists, psychologists, neuropsychologists, etc.. don't ya love my technical terminology? "geek" and "shrink" ) The necessity of getting help has outweigh time, money, effort and stigma that would all be involved in getting a diagnosis.
The dysfunction is what makes it a disorder.
Yes, I think someone can be autistic without having an autistic disorder, so I think it is possible that someone who was once impaired by it but has learned to cope with it would be autistic but not have an autistic disorder. Of course, at that point it wouldn't be possible to diagnose it since diagnostic criteria all include significant impairment. It's also true that clinically significant impairment is not the same as impairment, and impairment can vary by environment as well. If you have AS-type relationships, maybe you'll never find a need to look for professional help. (By AS-type relationships, I mean like those people you can be with while doing your own thing.. so you have the benefits of being alone, but not being lonely.)

Some people I know think that I'm autistic because I used to talk to people a lot about things they weren't interested in. I don't really do it anymore, but I used to. Another thing was that I tried to be friends with people who didn't like me in the past, but I don't really do that anymore and I'm pretty good at reading between the lines and recognizing when people don't find what I'm talking about interesting and also recognizing when people don't like me personally. Is the fact that I used to talk to people about topics they didn't find interesting and tried to be friends with people who disliked me definitive proof that I have autism, or might there be other issues involved. I was homeschooled so I think that might have damaged my ability to acquire social skills, could that be it?