My results are in... I'm in the club :)

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First, thank you again to everyone who gave me encouraging words about going for my assessment. It helped a lot.
I was literally shaking yesterday morning, overdoses of adrenaline, but it all went well in the end.

Apologies if this is long- don't feel obliged to read it.

So I am on the spectrum. She said that from my description of my childhood, that at that age I would have been at ASD level 1, but that my experiences and special interests have given me extra "tools" to cope with life and on a day to day level I'm managing life very well and therefore do not need the extra support which is part of a level 1 diagnosis these days. However, when I get into difficult or stressful situations, these tools get depleted and I move back towards being more autistic. She said if Aspergers was still an official diagnosis that's where I would be but due to cuts in funding it's been removed.

She talked about how there have been tests with brain scans on people with Aspergers and NT people, and that NTs use a different part of their brain for some of the Theory of Mind questions and imagining how people feel outside of their experience. And some people with Aspergers can answer those kind of questions, but they do it using the part of their brain for logical problem solving and reasoning. This made a lot of sense to me, and I do tend to think of things very logically, and I get frustrataed when people behave in an illogical way.
So thinking along these lines, the fact that I have done Sign Language which involves learning a lot about facial expressions has been helpful, studying English literature helps me understand metaphor, studying drama helps me think more about subtext- but these are things that I work out consciously and by context and process of elimination.
She also pointed out that my traits seem to lie in certain areas- a lot of it is social and special interests. I do have some sensory issues, but they are mostly to do with how things feel, and she did spot that I was fiddling a lot.

It has helped me understand myself so much. It makes sense of everything. I feel like I finally know who I am and how I am supposed to function. It's like I've been trying to work some kind of machine all my life, and I got it to go but it never went smoothly, and now someone has just handed me the instruction manual. So now I know not to worry about the strange noises it makes, because that's what it's supposed to do, and no I shouldn't try and use that bit to do that task, it won't work just put extra stress on the gears.

I thought it might be interesting to some people as a slightly different presentation, and I hope that some might relate to the feelings of relief I'm now experiencing. I think it is mostly just about me having a chance to talk about myself because I just found out some interesting and cool stuff.

Congratulations! It seems that you got what you wanted ... information about yourself.

No longer on the outside looking in, but the whole time you knew what was inside. I hope, confirmation is as rewarding as you hoped it would be.

Hurrah! I was wondering how it went.

I don't like the sound of Asperger's being removed as a diagnosis due to funding cuts though...what does it cost them to say 'yes, it's Asperger's'? Pfft. Anyway, I'm really pleased for you that it went well.

Congrats on getting some clarity on your life!

Yay, Goth Fairy! I'm so glad it all went well So do you feel like I did, drained but happy?

I suspect a slightly imprecise choice of words on the part of the assessor.

Aspergers has been removed from one of the two reference manuals, (DSM) and also removed in the draft of the next edition of the other (ICD 11 beta).

It reads as if the assessor was using the DSM as their reference. The DSM has two roles imposed on it which don't always fit well together. One is the diagnostic role, hence its listing or core symptoms etc, the second is the gatekeeper to statutory and insurance benefits, which is shown by the three severity categories.

It raises paradoxical situations with assessments of Adults. Scoring an adult against the core traits can show without much doubt that the person is Autistic. But, especially where there is average or above average intelligence in combination with helpful circumstances in employment, the efforts and workarounds the person has made to compensate for the weaknesses and Autistic profile creates mean that there is no obvious impairment to clinch a diagnosis at any of the three severity levels.

I could see my own case raising contradictory result s depending on when I took a Clinical assessment.

When I started work 32 years ago, we were recruited based on our technical knowledge and outlook. The most recent move I made in the firm was being poached between departments on the basis of a big success. So, no difficulties in the gaining and keeping employment, so low chance of impairment to go with the profile to get diagnosis at any severity level.

However, firms now include various BS group exercises in their recruitment procedures. Many more open ended hypertheical questions as well. So if loosing my job and going through current recruitment processes finding another, I could foresee many more difficulties gaining employment. Thus, a clinical assessment under these circumstances would probably produce the same autistic profile and this time a severity level, probably level one.

Strictly the profile and a severity level is needed for official diagnosis ( owing to the DSM's secondary gatekeeping role) .

It leads me to humour. I will suggest I have Schrödinger's Autism. That means I am Autistic and Not Autistic and it is only the circumstances if observation and assessment which cause it to collapse into one state or the other.

Actually though, my brain in Autistic, and it is some good fortune plus learning and workarounds which have allowed me to wing it for so many years.

Congratulations for finding out you are in the "club".

I like the machine analogy. So aspie of you.

Welcome, Goth Fairy. I like the machine analogy too.

Congratulations! Now you know more about yourself.

Welcome to the club Goth Fairy! Your handbook and complimentary pin will be mailed out shortly

Thank you everyone! Especially rowan_nichol, you clarified that very well. I think she did say it a lot better, but it got a bit lost in the retelling, especially as by the time she told me I was feeling rather overwhelmed and my brain went fuzzy on the details. She did say that it was in terms of getting benefits and support services. I'm sure it will be a lot clearer when I get a written report in a few weeks.
I also love the idea of Schrodinger's Autism.
Drained but happy on the day, I felt like i was drunk when I got home, I could barely see straight. The next day at work was completely different. I work in a school and I usually stop and say a few words with the lollipop lady on the way (that's the lady who helps kids cross the road for you Americans- we call her that because her stop sign looks like a big lollipop) and then as I walk away I usually have a bit of a stress moment where I go over the conversation in my head, stimming my hands and maybe repeating a few words out loud. But yesterday, I talked to her, and felt it didn't matter, and as I walked away the stress moment didn't happen. I just felt so much more relaxed, like I knew how I was meant to be.
Also, it was fun to find out that being a goth has helped me cope a lot, and the assessor did say she sees quite a lot of goths. She asked me and my partner about it. She also said being bisexual was six times more likely with aspie women, which I am- or rather pansexual, but I had to explain to her what that meant.
So thanks, I feel like I have a kind of welcome hug from you all except not a hug because that would make us all a bit uncomfortable. Some kind of other zen connection

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