Faking autism and Faking aspergers

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I don't think most of the people who actually stay here research the possibility up to "I got a high score on the AQ test" and leave it at that. I was personally convinced before I ever took that quiz, or any of the others in that particular thread.

The other thing is when someone takes quizzes like that, they usually do so for a reason. The rate of positives among a population that takes the quiz because they think they might be autistic may differ from the rate of positives among a randomly selected population.

I'mma start by saying I didn't read the first 19 pages of this thread.

I was misdiagnosed as depressed/bipolar/"emotionally sensitive" for 20+ years before receiving a correct diagnosis.
I didn't know anything about Aspergers or Autism until that time, but I am certainly glad that other people are able to glean knowledge about Autism, confer with others here about whether it's a fitting diagnosis, and actively pursue it with professionals.

Labelling things has a bad connotation, but for me labels are very important in understanding concepts holistically.
Even if there are a few self-DXed people running round these parts, and even NT's professionally-diagnosed as Autistic,
IF it helps them understand themselves and the way they process and relate to themselves and the world, and they're able to use that understanding to better function, I couldn't care less.

Someone who thinks people "fake" Autism "to get sympathy" must have had a completely different experience of people's reactions and understanding of Autism than I have.

True. Self-selected populations are different from randomly selected populations, and the false-positive rate is probably less. How much less, though, I don't know. I still think the amount of neurotypicals among the "30-40 AQ" crowd is probably quite large, especially considering the association between depression's impact on increasing AQ scores (According to RDOS) and the rate and severity of depression among habitual internet users. Also, there's the elevating impact of introversion on AQ scores and also social anxiety disorder, which probably describes a large percentage of habitual internet users (especially forum users). Actually, considering the probable influence of introversion, depression and social anxiety disorders on AQ scores and the association between forum use and those qualities, the "false positive" rate among forum users might actually be *higher* than I thought.

IMO the idea of faking autism/AS "to get sympathy" is LAUGHABLE. There are so many things that are relatively easy to fake, and that get far more sympathy than this does. Headaches, back pain...people feel sorry for that kind of thing, and there are no objective signs of it that you can point to to say someone's faking or not. A low functioning autistic kid might get some sympathy FOR HIS PARENTS, but an AS kid is likely to get seen as a behavior problem, brat, smart but socially weird kid, whatever (I know, I've been there), An AS/autistic ADULT??? Get real! Someone pointed out this thread is 3 years old and was meant as some kind of attack...it sure seems like it to me.

~Kate

My perception here is that you seem to be focused on the idea that people determine they might be autistic primarily on the basis of taking one of these quizzes - is this correct?

It seems common among people who are both autistic and trying to figure out if they're autistic to research the possibility exhaustively. The quizzes are just one set of things that may not even be a factor in the investigation. I didn't conclude that I was autistic just because I scored in the "typical autistic range" for nearly every test in the scientific tests thread. I had already been investigating the matter, reading, talking to people, doing the research. I don't remember when I switched my label from "don't know" to "self-diagnosed" but it was at least a few weeks after I first joined, and I first joined three years after I first suspected I was autistic - and that suspicion came from reading other autistic people's writings, not from taking any quizzes.

What I meant in my post was that a lot of people approached this like I did. There are people who ask "I scored 32+ on the AQ, am I autistic?" but I don't think they're the rule. I don't think they hang around for very long because, ultimately, they probably don't relate to a lot of the things discussed here that go beyond social difficulties, or even the way the social difficulties are discussed.

Last edited by Verdandi on 14 May 2011, 3:26 am, edited 3 times in total.

Yeah, the details are in the thread if you want to read the whole thing. I found this thread in December or January (and a few others like it, aimed at the same person) when I was trying to figure out if it was possible I was faking autism to myself. I concluded it was unlikely, but I found it fairly disturbing that a small group of people would focus so much on trying to discredit one person for - as far as I can tell - no reason at all. Mostly an attempt at internet bullying.

Sure, exactly. I'm in total agreement.

That is an interesting thought. I actually decided that I had it straight away after reading about it. I went from 0 to self diagnosis .

Have had professionals agree too so it was not entirely dumb doing that .

Well, I was more:

Reading about it -> self-diagnosed -> denial for three years -> forced to face it again -> self-diagnosed -> officially diagnosed

I self-diagnosed myself with Asperger Syndrome for about 1 year (age 20) before I got the official diagnosis (age 21) from both a Psychiatrist and a Psychologist (who specialized in ASDs). I heard about Asperger Syndrome when I was 18 because a classmate told me he read a book called "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" and he said that I was immediately the first person he thought of when reading about the main character's (an HFA/AS boy) thoughts and writing style. I read the book when I was 20, and his writing style mirrored mines very strongly, it was as if I could've been writing that account. I did a LOT (and I mean A LOT)of research on the internet regarding Asperger Syndrome, and it explained so many things. My traits were definitely more severe when I was a child and a teenager. It explained the following behaviours, especially when I was a lot younger:

- Mild speech delay, reached "on par" with NTs at around age 5
- Watching the same movie 6 times in a row for several months straight
- Not responding when my name was being called
- Hate of soft touch, but enjoy firm touch
- Very restricted diet, comfort in eating the same foods again and again. Always eating the same foods at certain restaurants.
- Reduced awareness of danger, nearly got lost from my parents (forever) in a shopping mall in a foreign country (when I was non-verbal) coz I was "wandering off"
- Very strong tendency to take things literally
- Seeing lots of detail in everything, innate difficulty in seeing the big picture (reduced Central Coherence)
- Difficulty reading facial expressions and body language while talking to people, automatically focusing on the words only (mono-channel processing)
- Flat affect
- Trying to make sense of everything by detecting patterns and sorting into neat groups.
- Hyperfocusing, difficulty shifting between tasks
- Not engaging in "typical" playing and communication styles with other people for social connectivity, instead being alone most of the time or talking to people in monologues


While there are a lot of people who are claiming to have Aspergers just to elicit sympathy and to attract attention or to excuse their behaviours when they are actually NT or have a Personality Disorder or Dissociative Identity Disorder etc, there are also other people who read the symptoms and resonate with it in their past experiences very closely. Unfortunately it is expensive (especially in America) to obtain an adult diagnosis, not to mention lots of them being misdiagnosed with other conditions instead such as Bipolar, Schizoid Personality Disorder, or even Schizophrenia!! !

My past negative experience with that Country Victorian person claiming to have AS made me wanna sweep all self-diagnosed Aspies as frauds, but then I look at myself and realize that I used to be one of them as well, so the reality is that there are many shades of grey...

I do not think it is particularly helpful to resurrect a very old thread that starts with talking about people who fake Asperger's and Autism, and then turn it into a thread saying people who self diagnose are largely NT. It suggests to me that people who self diagnose are actually deliberately faking Asperger's when they know they do not have it. These are two separate issues, and linking them in this way is not helpful.

As a self diagnosed person I have gone through a lot of processes to get where I am, and it is part of a journey. At some point I hope I will get a professional diagnosis. But there seems to have been a lot of this sort of thread since I joined WP. It does not make the place feel very welcoming to me, and maybe to others who are still on a journey to professional diagnosis.

I understand this could well be possible. My mother used to work in a Institute for Special needs in the 1970s and she used to come across "clients" who were eventually found to be normal but were so desperate to be committed as intellectually handicapped they passed themselves off to get free board, 24-7 medical care, nurse on call and 3 meals a day..

Closer to home I realise self DX people calling themselves Aspies (like myself) will be always viewed with suspicion. While many will choose to go down the road for formal diagnosis I think it's up to the individual to make that decision.

The issue is where people are indeed "faking" their condition for financial or social benefit then the authorities need to intervene and charge the individuals with fraud.

I got 43 on my AQ

That is the problem I have with this and similar threads. That, and what seems self-evident to me: casting aspersions on someone else's diagnosis (self or otherwise) is on its face Internet diagnosing, which anyone qualified to diagnose knows is not okay to do, ethically, intellectually or from a patient-care standpoint. I find it extremely irritating and I really, *really* wish people would dispense with this second-guessing of other people. It's nothing more than an attack, really, because none of us (even the professionals) can know the diagnostic status of other posters.

~Kate

There is a high rate of misdiagnosis where people are ASD but have been classified and medicated for other things. I was one of them. Due to me being from an older generation, the rarity of access to doctors who even knew about it during my childhood, and being female I was missed for years. I've had lazy doctors who look for the most popular answers or were just not listening, also I've had the problem of masking very well. I did not know anything about Autism or Aspergers until late in my life and if I didn't have the courage to ask my current doctor about it, I would never have been diagnosed. I also told my doctor to make sure that it is really the case, because I want to deal with my problems, not go running to hide behind a false situation and be harmed again by incorrect therapies and medications which have been a nightmare in my life and made my situation much much worse than it should have been. I know there are some people who romanticize the diagnosis and stereotypes but I really do not think anyone intentionally wants to fake it for attention. If there are some that do, that has to be way below 1\68th of a percent. I think there is a good amount of confusion now due to people being affected by the internet culture, video gaming and whatnot. Making the assumption that people are being fake reminds me of the argument that people who are on disability allowance would rather be there because it is so much better than working. I have a legitimate disability and am diagnosed as ASD and living below the poverty line is no fun. I cannot afford a lot of the basic life things and have several limitations on my freedom as an American citizen. Lets work on helping change the system so people have access to diagnosis, because if there are a number of wannabes out there they will be discovered and those who have been missed will finally get needed explanation and hopefully start to find the supports they need.

Wow - I can't even imagine. That is the first I have heard about anything like this.