How do you view your Diagnosis?

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I've probably already asked this before, but it's been on my mind a lot lately. With every diagnosis comes a hard time (I'm betting) for the individual who may have a difficult time accepting it. The acceptance may or may not come with time, but I'm noticing that it's different for everyone. As much as I'd like to deny it, I'm not as okay with being an Aspie as I'd like to admit (deep down). I only tell close friends and will come to tears whenever I have to discuss it in great detail - with my therapist, mostly. It's probably because I feel like I have a lot of shortcomings to overcome relating to my Asperger's.

On the contrary, a few of my friends who are also on the spectrum are perfectly comfortable with who they are. My dad even works with people who have disabilities, and he remembers a boy whom he worked with a while ago - he was about my age, in college, and talked about how having Asperger's wasn't a big deal to him. In his exact words, "I'm so busy all the time, I forget I have it sometimes."

Though I was diagnosed nearly 15 years ago, I'm still having a hard time accepting that there's more to me than a diagnosis - that I'm a person with strengths, weaknesses and a certain drive to succeed. I want to be comfortable with who I am, but I hate to admit it will take a little work to get there. For those of you reading this, do you feel like you're comfortable with yourself, diagnosis and all? How do you regard your diagnosis: is it a minor consideration in the way you live your life or do you feel dominated by it?

I was given a diagnosis so my parents can get me the education I needed and to give them power over my school to stop them from putting me in a class with kids with behavior disorders. I was getting into fights with kids because they were picking on me and I was having freak outs in class. Now my diagnoses feels useless because I don't feel affected by it and I feel I don't even have it most of the time. I know deep down I have it but I just don't think about having the symptoms or what I'm doing is AS or not. Even my own husband doesn't really think about it and sees me as me.


But thanks to my diagnoses, I can use it to get a job where my husband works except it be in another building. He works through a company that gives people with disabilities jobs. I decided to just go to them for work because I am sick and tired of not working or not working much and places won't hire me for some reason. I probably need to apply for work every week every day to get higher chances of getting hired.

I've only known in the past year - at 46 - that the strange cluster of traits and eccentricities I exhibit were and are and have been since birth - an ASD. I am dx'ed with Aspergers.
I felt relieved at first and glad that there was a reason for the way i had been my whole life.

ANd months into the process...well...I feel down about it and very grief stricken at times. i feel as if it all makes sense but that it is also a bit of a nightmare...that I might wake up and find that the things i have always felt were so insurmountable will in fact be "conquerable" and I will "overcome" them through sheer force of will and fortitude. I've tried that approach my whole life> it ever worked and I tended to end up failing at anything that was too taxing for me.

I live ok now. I am a decent person. i try not to hurt myself or others. I need to spend most of my time on my own. I get burned out by too much exchange and communication.

I feel sad about it. I am what I am. I do not want to change it at all. But i find it really hard. And i try to stay positive.

Some days, especially when my goals and dreams seem a long way off, i wish I could be different in my ability or capacity to take on more in the world.

Ouch. XD;; To me, that sounds like it's something that's always on his mind if he's not busy. And that's sort of where it's been since my mom told me about my diagnosis.. riiiight at the back, nagging me. D: Didn't notice it at first, but it's still there....

I see it sort of like... kind of a good thing, because it has allowed me to do a lot of research and find out more about myself and other people and a whole lot of things. Like you though, it still bothers me, and I'm not a strong enough person to be immune to its effects. Like, you've seen how people become sort of hypochondriacs because of a diagnosis, right? Recently I have seen it starting to happen to me. So I have even told myself not to spend too much time on WP, and just live my life like normal without much input from the autism community. (I'll get off right after this, I swear, lol)

I want to sort of iron it out in my mind somehow so I can stop thinking about it and just be all zen and stuff. But another thing that makes it hard is that it's also kind of a dirty secret, something I can't tell anyone about because of the stereotypes and what it might make other people think, and the relationships it might permanently change.

This pretty much sums up my own feelings. I think in some ways it was a blessing to be diagnosed so late. No allowances were made for me so I've had to learn things the hard way. I think my mother would have coddled and babied me had she known and would've made things harder for me in the long run.

I don't really think about it. Sure, it explains how I behave in many ways, many ways which are important to the majority of people (our greater species is social after all; a primary social disorder, and it being recognized by people is a good thing for understanding. People need not take offense if I don't look at them, that I don't interact with them, and I don't reply how they innately expect of their social species), but since I haven't known any different since the beginning, it...only comes up when I find that I fail at something that's primarily associated with this disorder (it's a reason, not an excuse; an excuse is a lie, whereas a reason is reality).

Which might sound strange as I post here so much, but ASDs as a whole are a passing interest for me (all of the various labels), so I don't apply myself to most things I post.

I Was at first really relieved when I got my Dx , but then, when I saw it all on paper with lots of recommendations for cbt , social groups, help etc, it made me feel really useless. I thought I was fine, very happy in myself, had a good life. The only reason I wanted a dx was to make sense of my teenage years and growing up. The Dx on paper it looked bad, all negativity, none of my triumphs, and things that I am good at. They said I was rocking in the interview too...which I never knew I did. The whole paper kinda hurt and upset me.

I'm over it now though, and I will use this dx only for work & study related purposes. And for benefits. I have only told my family.

I was diagnosed when i was about 2 or 3.I didnt know much about it.I do remember going through the whole therapy thing sort of, and having an aide in kindergarten, grade 1, and grade 2 and then going to the resource room in grade 3 for about an hour everyday in school.I was then mainstreamed and thought I was just normal, but for some reason the other kids ignored me or some made fun of me.I wasn't aware of my Dx until I think the 9th grade when my parents told me.I didnt believe it at first until I saw the papers.I didnt tell anyone at school about it because I felt I was fine at the time due to my acedemic marks.I went on through school and graduated not thinking much of my dx as well as working for 2 years in a grocery store in Vegreville.After moving to Red Deer, befriending someone outside of the college, only to have that person dump me off and call me a creep, etc....I started to question things.After much loneliness and frustration this past year, I started to come to terms with myself, and started looking up autistic tendencies, then stumbled upon WP on google.After reading and posting here, I started accepting myself and the diagnosis more and find reasons as to why I am finding things hard socially.The loneliness hurts, but the fact that I know the root cause of it and that it is not my fault, I am more accepting of it and relieved.

I was diagnosed when i was about 2 or 3.I didnt know much about it.I do remember going through the whole therapy thing sort of, and having an aide in kindergarten, grade 1, and grade 2 and then going to the resource room in grade 3 for about an hour everyday in school.I was then mainstreamed and thought I was just normal, but for some reason the other kids ignored me or some made fun of me.I wasn't aware of my Dx until I think the 9th grade when my parents told me.I didnt believe it at first until I saw the papers.I didnt tell anyone at school about it because I felt I was fine at the time due to my acedemic marks.I went on through school and graduated not thinking much of my dx as well as working for 2 years in a grocery store in Vegreville.After moving to Red Deer, befriending someone outside of the college, only to have that person dump me off and call me a creep, etc....I started to question things.After much loneliness and frustration this past year, I started to come to terms with myself, and started looking up autistic tendencies, then stumbled upon WP on google.After reading and posting here, I started accepting myself and the diagnosis more and find reasons as to why I am finding things hard socially.The loneliness hurts, but the fact that I know the root cause of it and that it is not my fault, I am more accepting of it and relieved.

I was diagnosed when i was about 2 or 3.I didnt know much about it.I do remember going through the whole therapy thing sort of, and having an aide in kindergarten, grade 1, and grade 2 and then going to the resource room in grade 3 for about an hour everyday in school.I was then mainstreamed and thought I was just normal, but for some reason the other kids ignored me or some made fun of me.I wasn't aware of my Dx until I think the 9th grade when my parents told me.I didnt believe it at first until I saw the papers.I didnt tell anyone at school about it because I felt I was fine at the time due to my acedemic marks.I went on through school and graduated not thinking much of my dx as well as working for 2 years in a grocery store in Vegreville.After moving to Red Deer, befriending someone outside of the college, only to have that person dump me off and call me a creep, etc....I started to question things.After much loneliness and frustration this past year, I started to come to terms with myself, and started looking up autistic tendencies, then stumbled upon WP on google.After reading and posting here, I started accepting myself and the diagnosis more and find reasons as to why I am finding things hard socially.The loneliness hurts, but the fact that I know the root cause of it and that it is not my fault, I am more accepting of it and relieved.

I was diagnosed when i was about 2 or 3.I didnt know much about it.I do remember going through the whole therapy thing sort of, and having an aide in kindergarten, grade 1, and grade 2 and then going to the resource room in grade 3 for about an hour everyday in school.I was then mainstreamed and thought I was just normal, but for some reason the other kids ignored me or some made fun of me.I wasn't aware of my Dx until I think the 9th grade when my parents told me.I didnt believe it at first until I saw the papers.I didnt tell anyone at school about it because I felt I was fine at the time due to my acedemic marks.I went on through school and graduated not thinking much of my dx as well as working for 2 years in a grocery store in Vegreville.After moving to Red Deer, befriending someone outside of the college, only to have that person dump me off and call me a creep, etc....I started to question things.After much loneliness and frustration this past year, I started to come to terms with myself, and started looking up autistic tendencies, then stumbled upon WP on google.After reading and posting here, I started accepting myself and the diagnosis more and find reasons as to why I am finding things hard socially.The loneliness hurts, but the fact that I know the root cause of it and that it is not my fault, I am more accepting of it and relieved.

Mine is a different situation: I'm self-diagnosed. I'm not sure at this point in my life if I would come away with a professional diagnosis, for many of my AS traits faded in adolescence. It's been about 2 months for me since discovering this about myself.

Most of the time, I accept it as part of who I am... an explanation for many of the quirkier things about me that I didn't see in my peers growing up. It's nice to know that I'm not completely unique in this regard, that there are others out there with similar traits.

Some of the time, though, I doubt whether I really am on the spectrum, where the dividing line is on the spectrum, and whether it really is significant for me to know on which side of the "line" I fall. I think there a bunch of us here who have the traits so mildly (stronger before in my case) that's it ultimately doesn't matter.

I've spent all of my life not quite fitting in. Wrong Planet, while much closer than some things I haven't fit into, still doesn't quite fit as nicely for me as it does for some.

I happily embrace my DX (even if it's only self-DX at this point).

Learning about AS brought a lot of closure it issues I've struggled with my whole life.

I'm not "happy" to have AS, but knowing there is an explanation...an answer to the "WHY" I've suffered from for years...it's helped me find peace about stuff I was constantly hard on myself about.

If I was DXed as a youth or teen, I probably would have had more anger issues over the DX (why did this happen to me) itself. However, having suffered the pain that AS has caused and never knowing what was going on, the pain of the past is water under the bridge and obsessing over it really doesn't change anything.

I started out with self-diagnosis. That was enough to edge a personal situation back into manageable outlines, which was important at the time.

A few years later, adjusted to the general framework but unimpressed by anything that appeared possible within it, I came across a researcher who was forbidden by his ethics board to consider anything I had to say unless I was a registered Aspie. It took six months, and a few consultant's fees, but I became one.

Currently I wrestle with a work environment infested with people who - mostly undiagnosed - pepper the ASD spectrum. Being diagnosed gives me a centre of gravity in those interactions, even if it's one so far un-engaged with by my employers. I work with professionals on my personal presentation and my self image. Who knows - perhaps I'm just making a fool of myself, but perhaps I'm coming up with ways to deal with a lifelong disorder that has stolen most of the chances I might have expected a slice of.

Um, tory_canuck, you posted that 4 times.

Anyway. When I was first DXed at 11, I was very intruiged and curious, I wanted to know more because it was like I was discovering more about myself. So when I first found out I was kind of loud and proud about it and told my friends until I was 12 when I started to get a bit more embarrassed about it the more I researched. As time passed I felt very embarrassed and turned it into some sort of deep dark secret that no one must even mention. Also the teachers at school kept on patronising me and making me out to be worse off than I am (I was DXed as mild-very mild but the teachers treated me as if I was mild-moderate). So when I was in year 10 (14/15) I was in denial, and was convinced I was misdiagnosed and that I was normal, and my social life was kind of worsening too but I still kept saying I was normal. In a conversation with my AS best friend I even told him I "refuse to be 'autistic'" and that "I want to scrap this stupid diagnosis", and he was like "but why?". When I got to year 11 (15/16) I was more accepting of it after doing some research, and decided it wasn't all doom and gloom, and my AS friends seem to be OK and content with their DX so why can't I. Then I joined this site, and now I don't really care, I'm indifferent to it all.

Although it does often feel weird to think of my self as having "aspergers syndrome", so I often shorten it or make up my own code words when discussing with friends or writing on here, something about the full name just makes me feel really strange. And I don't tell anyone (unless they have it themselves or they are in a high positiion e.g. a teacher), it is kinda mentioned on facebook because I joined a group about neurodiversity, but I have never told my NT friends (except for one because he's known me since we were 7 and noticed the lack of eye contact anyway) because I am still sectretive about it.

I can't say that I'm comfortable with my diagnosis of AS because there are many times when I wonder if I really do have it or if I was misdiagnosed. However everyone seems sure that I do have AS so it's probably just me who doesn't notice it too much in myself. Sometimes I think that I'm subconsciously faking my symptoms but when I think about how I was like in my childhood, AS makes sense.
My life isn't dominated by my diagnosis, in fact it doesn't even come into consideration for the most part when deciding if I should do something or not.