What if I was misdiagnosed?

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I'm wondering what if I was misdiagnosed?...I don't know what to think. It would be good if there could be something like a brain scan to check for certain but I don't know if people with ASD have different looking brains.
I don't want to be making a huge disservice to people who are on the spectrum if I've been misdiagnosed.

The guy who diagnosed me spent a lot of time assessing me though and was very thorough but, it could be a mistake. Maybe he was bias...

If I can fix most of my ASD related issues, does that mean I don't really have it?

Or that I have adapted?

Or that even people with more severe impairments than me could fix issues with a lot of effort?

I think since the brain has plasticity I could do almost anything I put my mind to. At the same time though if I actually succeed would it mean I was never on the spectrum?

Look at it as a means to an end. If you have the issues indicated by the diagnostic criteria, and the diagnosis will help you get what you need to mitigate them, that's good enough. Diagnosis is meant to solve problems, not tell people who they are.

Some would say so, but there is good evidence that some people adapt to the point of being subclinical, moving from an autism diagnosis to BAP.

This seems a likely explanation to a reduction in severity of symptoms, if there is no Dunning-Kruger effect at work.

Your experience cannot be extrapolated in such a way. Some change is possible for some people with autism. More than that cannot be said on the basis of that observation. To do so is no more rational than concluding that all people with autism will have a severe decline and increase in severity of symptoms because some people do.


"Almost anything" could mean a lot. This seems unlikely. Could you develop Savant abilities by trying hard? Doubtful. How about the kind of hand-eye coordination and motor neuron responsiveness of a top Formula One driver like Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel? If you tried really hard, could you learn the split second braking, gear-shifting and acceleration those drivers display? I think not.


Since a very few people with thoroughly documented diagnoses have then lost their diagnosis, success in the goal of losing diagnosable symtoms would not necessarily mean that you had never been autistic. But observations of such change do not support any general claim that all autistic people are capable of any particular degree of change.

Whether you have autism, or you don't have it, your task in life is to do the best you can with what you got.

You have to be Starfox, more than you have to be an autistic person, or a nonautistic person.

A reduction in anxiety will reduce one's dependency on routine, make one less sensitive and socially inhibited. It's possible that some people are diagnosed with ASD when they really should be BAP (or not even that), with more focus towards anxiety or mood disorders.

Forget it, starfox. You are an aspie. Otherwise you wouldn't post here about your social struggles, as you wouldn't have them in the first place.
You've given us enough evidence that you're on the spectrum. I've read and posted in your other thread about misdiagnosis. You said you never learned to socialize and used lame excuses for this, such as that you were never told that you have to learn to socialize.
Sorry if I sound harsh, but I think all this wondering is consuming too much time and energy.
Stop worrying and start living.

I'm there with you. I think about it a lot and more so with my upcoming reevaluation. It doesn't matter in the end what neurology you have though, you're you and nothing is going to change that. Just do what's comfortable and healthy in and don't worry so much about what you could be labeled as. I'm only getting reevaluated myself to get access to better support like accommodations from my college. The brains plasticity is evidence of free will, you might be born with certain basic programming, but that doesn't define who you are.

You don't have to accept the label of "Autistic" if you don't want it. You have every right to define yourself. If knowing that you are Autistic will help you to accept and love the parts of yourself that have been diagnosed, and to get help to change the parts that you don't like about yourself, then that is as correct as the diagnosis needs to be. Your diagnosis is to serve you, not to serve others.

I wonder what in the world does "define" a person if not something as fundamental as neurology.

One could be autistic, yet grow up to write a book of etiquette.