What did a diagnosis do for you?

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Though what I've read about asperger's syndrome seems to describe me very well Im very confused about how to think about this. I feel like Im reading about myself, the quirky traits im proud of as well as the challenges Ive faced, but I don't really know what to do with this information. What good does a diagnosis do? What does it change about your self understanding and is it a good thing? I feel like now that I've found this information I can't just walk away and forget about it but what is going to a doctor or psychologist going to do?

I suspect that some people here have been in my situation so Id really like to hear about any experiences or opinions on the matter.

And the idea of a fake aspie confuses me. People are obviously seeing themselves described in the symptoms. Where are the lines drawn between aspie and non aspie? Does anyone have know of any clear differences aspies and people who just seem to think they are? (Or is this just a bunch of nonsense)

If you have been diagnosed do you feel there was a point to it? What did it do for you?

It allows me to talk freely about it without having to worry about the ethical dilemma of wrongly changing peoples perception of aspergers.

It gives me a logical explanation of why I am the way that I am. That is enough for me.

Other than that, it is also helping me get necessary things at school to help me perform better on exams and such.

It gave me the terrific feeling of knowing that there was a name for what I was, and that there were a lot of other people like me. It also lets me say "a psychologist diagnosed me, and I trust him more than you" whenever some jackhole insists that I don't (or can't) have AS. Aside from that, it hasn't helped much. I've been in therapy for years, and aside from the fact that I like my psychologist quite a bit, just "talking it over" does nothing to help.

Well I'm not officially diagnosed either, though surprisingly one time I was visiting my brother and him getting aggravated with me he asked me if I had Aspergers. I think he heard of it from that guy on Boston Legal.

It would explain a lot though. Either I have it, or I don't and have something else remarkably similar. Or maybe a handful of conditions that combined are very similar.

At this time I don't feel like spending the money on being evaluated and I'm not sure what benefit I see in doing so. In the meantime stumbling across this and the Look Me in the Eye Book has been helpful already. It causes one to reflect and consider if there is an underlying reason for certain social difficulties. Also it is strangely comforting to know you're not the only one like this.

I suppose a therapist could offer further assistance, but for now I'm getting by.

Also I personally don't have an interest in presenting the Diagnosis to family or to potential employers.

I now get a discount on public transportation because of it.

It gave me something to put on my SSI application.

Also, closure.

Sometime last year I started to realize that other people didn't actively struggle and keep trying to learn all these social ins and outs of everyday life. I just thought that everyone was in a continual learn mode because of all those kungfu movies and deep philoshopical treatises that state that one learns throughout their life. Here I thought they were just reinterating the obvious. They were actually trying to teach people to reopen their minds and actively learn. Sure people passively learn new things all the time, or learn needed skills for work, whathaveyou... but to actively seek out a new subject and dive into it... no where near as common.

After my daughter's dx, the dominoes all sort of fell into place real fast.

I'm one of those fake aspies. I've been looking for that line and haven't found it yet. I beleive I'm somewhere near it though. I'ts been said that everyone has some ASD traits - and I think lots of people on the spectrum have some very NT traits as well... where to draw that line is still a point of much debate and DSM wrangling. I think people would be more comfortable with a dx that didn't say; pick some from column A, some from column B and some from column C... but I doubt that it is possible.

People will just need to be satisfied with the 'it's just a difference' explanation. I'm okay with that.

I was seven when I got my diagnosis but was mentaly around 5. It had no idea what it meant and was so in my own world at the time, I didn't care. I always knew I had AS but since I was told I had it so young it was like being told I had brown hair or was adopted. I didn't see anything wrong about it and didn't care.

at the time it crushed me under a burden i never wanted to carry. i was one of the type of people who was bothered by mental illness thinking of them as less then human.

then i found out i was what i hated, what i feared, and i hated myself.

it took me years to recover from hearing that, and even know i wish they would have said i had a week to live.

after i was dxed my productive life just crumbled i used to fight all my tendencies, now i just let myself be consumed by them. i still don't know if i'm grateful or angry, i didn't even know why i was being asked all this stuff at the hospital, they gave me a paper and i thought it was a test. i don't even remember why i was being dxed to begin with, all i remember was hearing i was a mental case.

so i had a typical "mental illness hating personality" before that point.

i'm sorry if i offended anyone but it is the truth.

i now post here to help to deal with what has been dropped on me. i'm still trying to accept it.

I was told I was learning disabled that I had ADHD but I knew I was not learning disabled I went through an entire decade screaming I not learning disabled but they never listened to me they ledt me in special education classes. Finally when I went for evaluation they told me I had Aspergers and when I mentioned the ADHD the psychologist said he saw no signs of a learning disability. I felt vindicated, it is good to know you are right when a whole slew of people are wrong. When they retested to see if I should stay in special education classes they never told me if I was still leaning disabled they just put me in remedial classes then my senior year they put me in normal classes. 10 Years of BS over nothing.

The only good thing I would get from a diagnosis would be proof so that I could stop doubting myself. It's so obvious to me that I'm an aspie; it explains so much. There's no way I can't be an aspie, but yet I still can't help but question myself.

Now, finding out about AS, that's a whole different story. I'm not exaggerating here; the only thing it could compare to is finding proof that God does or does not exist (or something similar to that). It was by far the biggest discovery I've ever made, in fact nothing else even comes close. So many things did not make sense before, but that has all changed. I understand myself so much better now. It's the equivalent of giving a blind person a working pair of eyes.

It lets you come onto wrongplanet and moan about NTs . Seriously though I've found a diagnosis allows you to forgive yourself for some of the traits associated with AS, it can also make you aware of other traits you may have been unaware of, say if you were unconsciously compensating for them. This can help you learn coping strategies and just make life generally better. All this is possible without a diagnosis of course, but a diagnosis is kind of a fast track route.

I presume most inaccurate self-diagnosed aspergians will be people who don't have biological deficits, but for whatever reason struggle socially. Self-diagnosis does have the danger that it might dissuade someone from learning the social skills they lack, or stop them confronting any social anxieties they may have, but if they can identify with AS individuals and benefit from the discussion here I'd say they have as much right to be on this forum as anyone else.

My doctor told me about 4 weeks ago that she thought I was probably had aspergers. When I was young grades 1 and 2 I was in and out of therapists as they tried to find out what was wrong with me. I didn't talk at school, had bad coordination and struggled in school. In the end there was no diagnosis as i moved to another city and did not go back to a therapist.

My entire life I continued to struggle but was able to get by. It wasn't until I was talking to my doctor that I looked into things. I really had no plans to go to a therapist until my wife persuaded me to. Just so we would have some answers. It didn't take to long but last week I was officially diagnosed.

I don't whether it makes any difference to me that I was diagnosed bu just makes sense when I look back on my life. I dont think I would have gone for a diagnosis if my wife and doctor hadnt persuaded me too.

I was fifty-two when I self-diagnosed. In general, I was content to leave it at that, until a researcher told me that his ethics committee wouldn't allow him to use my evidence unless I had a formal diagnosis. It took me nearly a year from there to line up the ducks.

Since then, though, I've become a little more activist - I've reached the conclusion that undiagnosed autistics are systematically discriminated against by the world at large, and that undiagnosed autistics are some of the leaders in enforcing that discrimination. And I'm not happy with that situation.

You guys who are diagnosed in childhood have it pretty easy, because by the time you reach adulthood some of the barriers will have been torn down. Just to get diagnosed in childhood means some of the barriers have been torn down, but to get to functional adulthood from there means getting past the part where autism is something we should be ashamed of. That's an attitude that's dug in deep, and it's going to take some effort to shift it.