The wrong label...

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For those who want to skip the ramble and get straight down to answering the question:

Has anyone here been given the wrong label diagnosis wise and what kind of effect did it have on you and your life?

I am still not convinced that I am on the spectrum. Something does not feel right about the potential label I await diagnosis for. It does not fit properly and its making me uncomfortable.

I have similarities to people on the spectrum but my reasons for being the way I am are different...

1 I become very intense about my interests...but I have many interests and I jump between them. I don't become fixated with one particular thing and if I do its out of a temporary need to do so. I have so many interests that I have to narrow them down as there are just not enough hours in the day to do them all. I do collect things related to my interests but then so do a lot of people.

2 I had developmental differences growing up, but other than being emotionally immature and too idealistic as well as over sensitive (according to the psychologist who tested me as a child) emotionally my development was advanced compared to that of my peers. In other words my development was ahead of theirs, yet autism is a developmental delay. Something does not quite fit...

3 I started school early because I was considered to exceptionally bright and was no in need of extra help tuition wise. In fact I struggled at school because the work pace was too slow. I consistantly asked for harder work to do.

4 My difference in development meant I did not fit in with my peers...which makes sense. I may have been the same physical age as them, but my mind was older, I was older....of course I didn't relate to a 5 year old when I had the mind of a much older child! Ergo I did not fit in and was bullied.

5 I can struggle with some social cues but its mild...and its usually with the very sutble ones based on some social rule I have never yet learned before, rather than obvious ones and ones I am familiar with.

6 I have a hugely different belief system to most people which is another reason why I don't like to spend much time socialising in todays society. I don't believe that any life can be truly worthless (i respect life and other living organisms far too much for that) and abhor living in a society that harbours such a way of thinking and yet claims itself to be good! Have a think about whether any society that can devalue life like that is really good or kind or even advanced. Barbaric is the word that comes to mind when I think about todays prevalent beleif systems.

7 I don't like rules...i bend them and f**k with them and ignore them or I just don't use them as I see no need for them in many ways. But only if it's not going to hurt anyone. I like friendly congenial atmospheres and environments and I don't like to harm, upset or hurt other living critters, unless I am trying to shock them maybe ( I used to sometimes say strong stuff to try and make people think...they don't think...they live blindly and they don't think). Usually I go out of my way to be polite and helpful in person. I am quiet an shy and don't often cause a disturbance. I don't need rules to govern me or tell me how and when to do things, I can figure that one out myself.

8 My thinking is not black and white...everthing is relative to me. IE it's not always wrong to lie..sometimes lying is beneficial such as to protect someone from harm or to save a life. In other instances lying is wrong, especially where it causes (rather than prevents) harm coming to someone. My moral development was one of the areas I was in front when I was growing up, so I judge differently to others as a result.

However, I can be shy and I am introverted. I do prefer working alone so I can use my own methods and do things in the way I prefer (not because its better than other peoples methods as such but because I prefer it and its more suitable for me). I will work in groups if necessary but I tend to find I get bullied, ignored and generally treated badly even though I try to go out of my way to provide a contribution that will benefit the group as a whole (ie during a drawing class I took recently (see my blog for the results of that lol..but bear in mind I am new to art as I usually focus my attention on all things academic and will be doing an accountancy course later this year along side a few art classes to balance things out lol http://notquitevangogh.blogspot.co.uk/ ) people were having trouble finding good samples of still life drawings. There were lots of paintings, but not many drawings so I took in a book with plenty of them in for people to make use of so they could complete their assignments) and although in this instance they thanked me, that is rare. I am also quirky but in harmless ways..I just like to find creative ways of going about things. If i can't do something the traditional way, I make my own way up of doing it.

Ie At school if I struggled to work something out in math the way the teacher wanted me to, I'd find my own way of arriving at the right answer. However, I was expected to use their method and to show my working out, ergo I used to arrive at the answer first using my method and then pretend that I had solved it the way I was supposed to when writing the answer down. This used to create a rather strange effect in that my answer would be right but the working out could easily be wrong. It confused the teacher no end lol. I found my way easier and could come up with the answer more quickly, often without the aid of a calculator.

But shy and introverted and a bit quirky does not autistic make...although it makes me look similar.

Add on years of abuse from people and the emotional toll that has taken and that could also explain my social difficulties even if they look autistic on the surface.

I do have physical sensitivities but those are mild and I like having them as not only am I sensitive to negative sensations I get a whole lot more pleasure with the pleasent ones too...It all balances out. Plus my sensitivity is partly (as one of my tutors put it) what allows me to spot things that other people miss and make connections that they failed to observe.

I also have an excellent memory when I was physically well (before the CFS type brain fog years) that allowed me to get A grades in exams with no revision...i don't consider that to be disordered...I consider that to be a bonus!

I am dubious about taking on an autism label, as whilst i don't feel neurotypical (I really don't relate to the average female much) I am worried that taking on the wrong label will be detrimental for me. Yes I need some support as I am not able to work due to my social frustrations (stemming from my differences, others lack of acceptance of those, bullying and my inability to find other humans who can understand me...) and my sleep problems (which are being ignored whilst they fixate on the social stuff..if I worked and didn't spend my time so isolated at home, did they consider that my social skills might improve? Ah but I can't work with my excessive daytime sleepiness and CFS type symptoms when they flair up as quite frandly I feel too damned ill..perhaps they ought to think about resolving those? Although the paleo diet helps wiht most of it, things have not been fully corrected yet, especially with my tendency to fall alseep all over the place..outside, at home, on the bus, at the opticians...you name it, i've probably napped there) but I still dont' feel as though they are focusing that support in the right place. If so it's not going to be beneficial to me.

They seem to want to offer me no end of academic support though..thanks but other than making use of any extra monetary allowances I get for being disabled at the present time, I don't need special teaching aids or similar thank you...its the one area i was naturally good at...

My art is another matter though lol, that apparently takes more practice lol. I am used to working with text books, theory and getting 97% on physics papers, not drawing things with bits of burnt willow twigs...

question:

Has anyone here been given the wrong label diagnosis wise and what kind of effect did it have on you and your life?

I was diagnosed with autism as a child and I wish I was never diagnosed. I was held back in school for "emotional reasons" and that totally ruined my life.

That made the schoolwork way too easy for me. I was extremely bored in school. I also got way too much help. I think that contributed to my extreme laziness and low self-esteem. I eventually fell behind in schoolwork. That made my IQ drop to the average range. Since I'm still in the "average" range no one really sees this as a problem.

Having an aide constantly follow me around also ruined my social life for life. If I didn't have an aide the other students probably would have thought I was just a bit quirky. Since I did they knew right away I was "special." Since they knew that I was "special" every single person I met treated me differently. This caused a lot of social problems for me. I could never truly be part of any group. I was just a pet.

When I got older I no longer had an aide following me around. That made me extremely happy. I started noticing that people were treating me like a normal human being. That was a nice feeling.

I'm still living with the aftermath of having an aide when I was a kid. I have a lot of trouble getting close to people. Especially people my age or groups. I'm extremely scared of becoming their pet or child. I'm also socially awkward because of social isolation.

I often have no motivation to wake up or do anything. Mainly because I have an extremely empty life with no friends, school or work. I can't get all of that because I have no motivation and I have no motivation because I don't have any of that. I'm just stuck in a catch 22.

I don't know if I was correctly diagnosed or not. I don't think that really matters. I think labels should serve people. The autism label doesn't serve me, so I avoid using it to describe myself.

Yes, I was labeled shy and although exceptional teachers did go very far in their efforts to protect me from peers, the lack of supports allowed for negative behaviors by others I couldn't see for what they were.

I also think as far as other kids goes, they can tell who is different without any help from adults. Their response depends on the child's differences a lot of course, but more so, the attitude adults have of inclusiveness, or not.

So yes, bad behavior by teachers and aides is bad. Not so much the ASD label.

As far as therapists go, it's the same. Inexperience and bad behavior are bad things, whatever a person is having trouble with. Lack of an ASD label when one doesn't understand social stuff and struggles with communicating and understanding means repeatedly being confronted about how one is pretending, simply because the professionals can't grasp one is only minimally able too lie and manipulate and assume intentional manipulation is standard rather than something carefully taught and practiced with coaching (example is not directly telling boss their latest pet idea is bad, not saying bad things about boss just because others are without careful consideration of possible consequences).

With theory of mind issues, it's really confusing, really disturbing being misperceived in any direction. And no simple label perfectly fits very many people, sometimes we have to make do with something close, that helps some.

Labels don't hurt people, people hurt people. Maybe it's also true labels don't help people, people help people. Sometimes a particular label helps, sometimes it hurts, but it's because of what people do with it. I don't think it's the label.