Have You Ever Wondered If You Were Misdiagnosed?

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From the very moment I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, I've wondered off and on if it was a misdiagnosis. In support of a diagnosis are my psychometrics: On the WAIS-III adult IQ test, I had a fullscale IQ of 116, a verbal IQ of 135, and a performance (nonverbal) IQ of 94. My diagnosers remarked in the diagnosis documentation, however, that I had an excellent understanding of social interaction in verbal/written form. My social skills are poor: I have no close friends and do not have a girlfriend. I did have trouble with things like learning how to ride a bike, tie my shoes, etc. I have some obsessive interests: Asperger's syndrome itself, French, politics, and writing. I do have some sensory differences: skin that tends to feel itchy most of the time, ability to hear high-pitched sounds but occasional trouble hearing the content of what someone is saying, discomfort with the feel of cotton and rough fabrics, and color blurring when I see striped shirts and such things. When I was a kid, one of my stims was twisting the hair on the back of my head; now one of my primary stims is pacing. I also dislike change in my routine in that I get intensely nervous around unfamiliar people in unfamiliar places. Personality-wise, I have a large amount of anxiety, shyness, obsessiveness and compulsivity, low self-esteem, intellectuality, creativity, and an occasionally derisive attitude.

On the other hand, I can read the emotions from a person's facial expression fairly well. I can't read emotion from eyes alone very well, though. I am intensely interested in making friends and having a girlfriend and very much enjoy any positive social interaction I can get. I do have at least some theory of mind and empathy because I can reassure and cheer people up. I would also say I might even be a closet extravert because I do spend a great deal of time socializing (online mainly) and do not enjoy too much "downtime"; I'm also fairly creative and somewhat spontaneous; but this is manifested in less useful forms sometimes (i.e., impulses like binge eating) due to my lack of face-to-face social interaction.

I did some research into what psychiatric disorders could easily be confused with Asperger's syndrome and autism, and these are my findings:

+ Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
+ Oppositional-Defiant Disorder
+ Conduct Disorder
+ Schizophrenia
+ Depression
+ Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
+ Social Phobia - General Type (Social Anxiety Disorder)
+ General Anxiety Disorder
+ Schizoid Personality Disorder
+ Avoidant (Anxious) Personality Disorder
+ Obsessive-Compulsive (Anakastic) Personality Disorder
+ Narcissistic Personality Disorder
+ Antisocial (Dissocial) Personality Disorder[/list]

Hell yes! There's a load of syptoms that I don't suffer from; sometimes I wonder if my psychiatrist got confused between AS & shyness.

I actually feel that I'm more autistic than others perceive me to be.
I'm very adaptive and I have good language skills, but those things just obscure my condition to others, they don't really help me that much.
I guess that it's different for everyone, but I think that there is some bad psychology at play here- I have, and always have had theory of mind- but it is theory of mind, it is intellectual rather than instinctive.
And as for aspies being uncreative, that's bulls***, we are creative and we are boring in ways that aren't synchronized with the ways that they are creative and boring, that's all... And aspies not feeling lonely is willful ignorance, some don't, but many do; NTs may have empathy, but they don't like to use it much.

(ah...forgive me, bitter and twisted aspie rant)

When I first read about AS, I knew right away I had found something that made sense to me.

NeantHumain, I have read that one of the signs of aspergers is a deviation of 25 points or more between the verbal and performace scores the weschler IQ tests, with the verbal being the higher.

I would be interested in seeing what mine are today. I was given the WISC-R twice, both times I got different scores, and when I look at the scores from the first one and the second one, the gap between the two scores was getting bigger.

The more i study AS, the more i think it is a spectrum in itself

This study http://psych.colorado.edu/~tito/sp03/7536/Baron-Cohen_97.pdf tested people's ability to read emotions from faces. I was able to tell most of them from the pictures of the whole face and just the eyes. Just the mouth was actually the toughest. My sister, on the other hand, had no problem with even the mouth ones. I again wonder if I was misdiagnosed.

The picture of arrogance reminds me of the face of the psycho girl the day I saw her by coincidence a couple of days after we'd decided not to talk to each other anymore except hers had a smile with it.

NeantHumain, I know what you mean. I had doubts too, but the more I learn about AS and the more I learn about how it affects me, the more certain I am of being an aspie.

Really, the vast majority of studies and what has been written is based on a small sample of children. Children develop whether they have AS or not, and they all develop in the NT world. We AS adults made it through the maze, learned what we could to get through. What is left, the residue, is the kernel of AS, in my opinion.

I was raised with family always telling me 'what the hell is the matter with you!' and 'don't act stupid' and 'do it yourself' - so I learned to be independent and I'm thankful for that. I've been modestly successful and proud of it. I live alone with a cat, have very few friends, get sensory overwhelmed easily, am still clumsy and have balance problems (that sometimes mean falls and broken bones). I never feel lonely. My mind is always occupied with a dozen interests in this bubble that I live in. I get pleasure from the weirdest interests. People who know me like me, though they find me odd. I don't understand most jokes, comedy programs make me sick. I like mysteries, tragedies, dramas with substance. On the job front, I did well technically then bombed when I got into management. Makes sense, right? I never do well in groups and never will. My house is messy but just the way I can handle it. I know I'm crippled in several sensory and social ways that just don't get better, but I learned enough to live my own aspie life. And I enjoy it too.

What Coyote wrote is interesting to me. Maybe AS is a spectrum in itself.

I think that I have adapted very well to having AS to the point that I can hide it most of the time - but it takes so much effort that I am tired all the time . . . but when I look at my basic behaviors - I have no desire at all for romantic relationships, and only a minimum desire for anything like friendships - and I am really not good with people at all - then I read Temple Grandin's books and Edgar Schnider's books and feel like I'm looking in a mirror . . . it has to be AS . . .

But, it is also possible that psychiatrists can make mistakes - if you don't feel like this is the right diagnosis then by all means get tested again!

I know for me the more I read the more I think 'Ohhhhh - my life makes so much more sence now!'

I understand most jokes; whether I find them funny is another matter entirely. I recall it was noted in my diagnosis that I showed a somewhat disgusted look in class when other people tried to make jokes. It was also noted that I did not spend much time looking up from my notes in class. Heh, I usually copied down the notes and just drew until the end of class.

The guy who came over to my house to interview my family and me was the school district's psychologist. This guy was a definite Mr. Rogers type: Ultra-conservative, he even dressed the part. I did not want to talk to this guy, and I did not want him prying in my business. Why should I have done such things as make eye contact and use facial expressions for this presumptuous guy?

I've pretty much always been interested in making friends and having a girlfriend (yes, I was interested in girls even in preschool!). I had a few friends actually until about 4th grade. I'd say my ability to understand what other people might be thinking and feeling can be pretty good at times. As an example of my theory of mind abilities, I was explaining to my very NT dad (he exhibits signs of adult ADD rather than AS) the plot in the movie The Last Samurai because somehow he had managed to get confused about the characters and such.

absolutely. all the people i know with AS vary widely in their manifestations of characteristics. however, ASD is just that. and i'm not getting into the "is AS on the autistic spectrum or completely separate" discussion, thanks (hint).

Had a time of thinking, "No, I'm just highly gifted and highly sensitive"; also: "I'm just being an INTP/Five". Those things don't really help though, certainly when a more obviously autistic mode of functioning kicks in. Then the doubt goes in the direction of "Is it really Asperger's? Isn't it 'classic' autism?" Now those questions seems a bit irrelevant, because all of it fits (also don't believe in a difference between AS, HFA and LFA anymore, as much for personal pragmatic reasons as for "political" ones).

There's definately a lot of autism in this brain (sensory mess-ups, obsessiveness, socialization difficulties); and also some handy circuits to bypass it, though probably never completely. It's like you have these "software programs", such as emotion, empathy, verbal thinking, picture thinking, imagination, fine motor skills, "echopraxic" motor skills, whatever, and whatever you try there's always one or more missing. Edgar Schneider says autism is about a missing faculty, meaning what he calls "connective emotions", but in here it really differs which one it is. The problem of having too small a head to have all these things within reach at once seems to fit with autism; narrow focus and all that.

Yes I Have!

I have not been diagnosed but to me thats not the point,
the main point being much of the conditions listed i have,
now what i do have can be talked over and get others input on as well as watch others write about there own, so i can better understand my self and others, and to improve my self with my new understandings.

I just had a very autistic moment a few minutes ago. I dropped a cup, and without thinking, I said "ouch!" when it hit the floor.
The more I learn about AS/Autism, the more it fits.

I fit into the criteria of AS almost perfectly. The only part I don't fit with is the sense of humour bit. I actually understand sarcasm and dry humour faster than a lot of NTs I know. Actually dry and clever humour is my favourite kind.

I was diagnosed with ADD when I was nine, and my mum said she always knew that wasn't the only thing that was different about me. I started feeling really different from my peers when I was eleven. I'm seventeen now, and was diagnosed with AS about fourteen months ago. I am definately an Aspie!

I've done that before!