Getting un-diagnosed

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Simple question:

Let's say I have an AS diagnosis. If I learn excellent solid social skills (better than most NTs), can I go to my doctor and get un-diagnosed?

Likewise for ADHD (let's say I learn great time-management, impulse control, and other skills, in addition to reducing the ADHD at its core, by meditation, exercise and such).

Last I checked, that wasn't possible. You might function better than a lot of aspies, but you'll still have AS.

A poster with more experience relating to the NHS is going to have to answer your question, I think I've seen 2 other people with the same question (I can't find the threads) from the UK lately.

Sorry I don't think you can be, I would hate to be diagnosed in the UK, aspies seem to have it very bad there, with discriminatory restrictions on their lives.

Interesting question. I'm not sure why you wouldn't -- they could always chalk it up to a misdiagnosis, couldn't they? Those happen all the time. Although I don't know how things work in the UK.

I only recently found out that I was diagnosed as a young child, but my dad isn't sure where he put the papers, so I'm taking steps to have myself re-evaluated. My symptoms have become significantly less intense since childhood, so I wonder if I would still qualify for a dx -- and if not, if that would be considered an "un-diagnosis" of sorts.

Here they could always conclude that the first diagnosis was a miss-diagnosis, but they would obviously never say that you were cured.

Only way to get undiagnosed is if you never had it to begin with which means you were misdiagnosed.

This is exactly why I started this thread, and why I never tried to get a diagnosis.

Would they actually do this if I ask them to? After all, they are technically lying. Also, a vital part of the diagnostic criteria of AS - ineffective social functioning - is something you can change, therefore "cure" should be possible?

Does this come from an authority, or is it just a guess?

It is not lying. They would assess you again and if they concluded that they do not think you have AS that's it fair and square. But you can not be cured, it is in the definition of the disorder. One would either say that you never had it to begin with OR that you have become so good at hiding your disorder that todays diagnostic tests are not good enough to detect it anymore. Remember that most people in the field think that in some decades you can take a simple brain-scan and they will be able to spot your asperger's in some way, like for example a lack of mirror neurons. But we are no where near that yet.

While all ASDs are considered life-long conditions, the disordered (and thus the diagnosis) part should be changeable. For any disorder in the DSM, one's functioning must be impaired and/or there must be personal distress. If your functioning is no longer impaired, then you will not meet the criteria for a diagnosis.

If you find that you no longer meet the criteria, I would suggest going to a different doctor to be reassessed.

I'm pretty sure that significant social impairment is a mandatory criterion for DSM-IV. Psychologists admit that social skills can be learned. Therefore, if I learn them, I will no longer pass that criterion, thus technically 'curing' myself of AS. Isn't that obvious?

I think you can, if you got misdiagnosed.

Its not forced to be a misdiagnosis

That rather insults the efforts a person may have made imo.

What is your aim? to not be defined by a book or condition? I think you achieved that already

Imagine that you are an actor, and you are playing a doctor.

You can rehearse the role, talk to many doctors, learn a lot about how doctors talk, and eventually become knowledgeable enough about how doctors behave that you may be able to convince people that you are a doctor. You may even be knowledgeable enough to convince another doctor, as long as the extent of your interaction is minor enough.

But if you are playing said doctor, the motivation behind why you acting the way you act versus the motivation behind why an actual doctor acts the way they act is fundamentally different. You act like a doctor because you want others to perceive you as a doctor. A doctor acts the way they do because that's the way that a doctor thinks.

Being able to avoid diagnosis is not the same as being "cured" of it.

depends what you think will benefit you

Not to intrude on the subject at hand, but out of curiosity, what sort of restrictions apply to Aspies in the UK? Seems pretty terrifying.