Questioning the evaluation

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I'm 57 years old. A few weeks ago I was given an evaluation at the autism outpatients' clinic and was told I clearly had Asperger's syndrome. However, I am not convinced that I do, at least not in the way it is usually described. So I am looking for an alternative explanation. Maybe if I as briefly as possible list some symptoms someone on here might have an idea what I could look for as an alternative diagnosis, because I haven't a clue.

1. Finding it exhausting and even unbearable to be with other people, as a permanent state of mind. This goes right back to early childhood. Serious difficulties being with people at all. Always craving solitude and often getting it.

2. As a child and teenager regularly trying to be alone in my room for hours to wave elongated objects in front of my eyes.

3. Being unable, as a young and not so young adult, to date girls because I couldn't understand how to do so. Very few friends and often none at all. Unable to function in group situations.

4. Spending 35 years sitting alone as much as I conceivably could learning foreign languages obsessively, ie up to 10 hours a day if possible.

Those are some of the wierd things. There have also been normal-looking things, such as completing university, holding down (mostly part-time) jobs abroad and even a few relationships.

So the autism centre said I have Aspergers. I myself only believe something like: "The ways in which this person (namely me) deviates from the norm look vaguely autistic rather than, say, manic depressive or schizophrenic or whatever."

I don't know what other diagnostic options there are. Maybe there aren't any. I have no problem with a diagnosis of mild autism, except if it isn't true. I can't believe the definition of normal is so broad that it includes me, and I can't believe that the definition of Aspergers is so broad that it includes me either.

Stimming, check

Obsession, check

Collecting, check

Social axiety, check

Welcome, you're one ofof us...

Spend some time learning about aspergers and us aspies...you're definitely an aspie

None of the normal things you listed preclude you from being on the autism spectrum. Many people on WP have jobs and relationships.

At age 57, if you are diagnosable by the autism clinic, then you are highly likely to be autistic.

The part at the end where you say you don't feel like you fit in with either normal or aspie, I often feel that way myself!

And once they give a diagnosis, it's dogmatic. It might just as well be etched in stone. You might be feeling some of that. And, it might seem like it would be the beginning of a conversation and a dialogue. But it's really the end.

Services for adults on the spectrum are very scant. That's why I think we should make network groups and advocacy groups, primarily on our own. Good-heart professionals can help out, but they can't run the show. At least that's the way I think it should be.

And I think either way is perfectly fine!

If someone is a 'bridge person' or 'aspie friendly,' they can be a very positive, contributing member of Wrong Planet.

Thanks for your concise feedback. That's what I had hoped to hear. I don't see any other explanation either, but I hate accepting conclusions too readily and somehow I still have doubts. Thanks for the welcome, too.

Are there parts of descriptions of ASD that seem to contradict your experience? One odd thing is that most of the professional descriptions are written from an outside-in view. Also, the amount of visible weirdness that people display is very broad.

They seem to make a lot of not being able to read body language. I can't say that I would ever independently have come across the idea of thinking "Oh s**t! I can't read body language" or anything like that. And i probably can read body language. i mean if someone points at something I know they're pointing at something and if someone turns their back to me and slumps i think "Oh, they're not interested in talking and probably feel depressed." In general I would say that the perceptual dysfunction aspect of ASD doesn't generate an "aha!" effect in me in the way that instinctive social flight mechanisms, stimming and obsessive interests do. Also, things like not understanding jokes and taking everything literally aren'T things where I'd say "Yes that's me exactly". OK, sometimes I've taken things literally and not understood jokes, but it's hardly been an issue as I suppose everyone does that sometimes, whereas they don't have difficulty just being with other people at all like I do. It's like trying to hold an air-filled balloon underwater all the time, and I still stim at 57 and when I don't chain my mind to my obsessive interests I drift off into dreamland and end up pacing around and talking to myself.

Your description seems very Aspergian to me.

I was diagnosed at age 53. It's something of a game changer.

For me, the "ah ha" moments came more from reading first-person accounts of ASD people. I.e. as far as body language, one example that jumped out was not being able to tell if someone is getting bored when I'm talking at them, and only noticing when the person blows up. The blowing-up is so overt than I can detect that someone went wrong, but it didn't occur to me before that I was missing signals that most people pick up before the blow-up stage. I think it can sometimes be a matter of if being hard to realize what you're missing when you've always missed it.

As far jokes and sarcasm, some seem to have no trouble at all and even be talented with it), and others are totally lost. And the same for sensory stuff. The most severe description I've heard of that is "swirling, scrambled senses," but some others have little trouble (i.e. can drive) with that. The range of this stuff is so vast it does almost seem like different conditions lumped together (and there is research into sub-groupings, but I'm not hugely informed about that).

I'd say read the forum and check out the archives and see what you think. If you click on people's avatars you can see if they are officially diagnosed or not, if you want to take that into consideration.

Consider that aspies are different e.g. one can really sensitive and another insensitive so there is no one set of traits that affects everyone the same-some traits are contradictory. If you are high functioning you can probably mask traits well/have coping strategies. I have had doubts but feel happier having a diagnosis. I did test them about how easy it was to diagnose as someone else evaluating me wasn't sure They said they were a lot more experienced at it and saw more cases. You could try asking for the reasons they gave for the diagnosis/how easy it was to make decision - but you do seem to be describing traits. You could also ask about their experience in diagnosis and what diagnostic tools they use. I was told there is no such thing as "mild" aspergers you just get diagnosed so there would have a diagnosis whether someone was very high functioning, or struggled a lot with it. My doctor said if I wasn't diagnosed I would be just the other side of the line on the spectrum and I don't think I stand out.

The way you are really analysing the decision comes across as quite aspie too! In the nicest possible way.

It's not a bad thing to be diagnosed. It is not like it is a terminal disease. There are a lot of strong points from having aspergers such as spending 10 hours learning a skill can be very useful, or having a good attention to detail. It can help to be diagnosed as you can get adjustments that make things easier, or if you are aware you can make adaptations yourself.

I suppose if you don't notice something there's the question how you notice that you don't notice it, so the not noticing may be there even if you can't detect it yourself. But somehow the very fact that one wonders whether a symptom is true of oneself is enough to show that it probably isn't. I detest the idea of trying to find a non-existent symptom just to meet a diagnosis only because the rest of the diagnosis fits and one needs some form of closure. That seems ridiculous and I don't want to do it, so there seem to be only two options (a) find an alternative diagnosis or (b) decide the symptoms in question are inessential. Trying to follow point (a) was the motivation for writing the opening entry in this thread. As for point (b) that's a more general question.

I agree with you that this whole area seems like a collection of different syndromes lumped together.

(As regards noticing boredom in others, I earn money teaching people foreign language skills - a completely unsuitable job - and concentrate like a hawk on noticing signs of boredom. I can't stand it if even one of the students in a group is ever bored even for one minute. It freaks me out and produces a bad alarm reaction in me, so that often I'm unsure what exactly to do to deal with such a "gigantic" problem. That's after years of experience.)

I think also a lot of things in everyday life you get better at with age. When I was fourteen one of my school colleagues who I thought I got on OK with set some football hooligans on me in a secluded place to beat me up because he couldn't stand hearing my ridiculous monologues any more. I was really shocked at the time because I could have been badly injured. Later, people invented the concept "dorm monologues" to refer to my monologues. Another person at around the same time pointed out that I disrupted social events to "hold forth" on topics of interest to me. At around 22 (ie 35 years ago) I got the monologuing under control, though people often told me that I tend to ignore someone completely and then talk without stopping once I start. I have to slam on the brakes when I notice this happening.

I don't know if everyone is the same but I activate my social skills module when I enter a room with someone in it and switch it off again with relief once I have escaped.

Wow, I'm sorry your school colleague did that. That was way out of line on his part. And showed lack of social skills. Couldn't he just have told you, hey, time out, enough of the monologues. Obviously, he could have. But he went the adolescent destructive route. And I guess can be written off or partially excused because he was an adolescent. I'm glad you weren't seriously hurt, although obviously you could have been.

It may have been my late 20s that I realized that I held forth on topics (although a female friend at age 26 also taught me some valued social skills).

This is the yin-yang. This is the two sides of the coin. This holding forth also makes me a potentially better writer and artist, as well as an entrepreneur or scientist. Now, am I open to learning new skills that might be helpful with ping-ponging back and forth and appreciating people where they are? Of course I am (and reminding myself that such skills are inherently imprecise). And, at the same time, I want to keep my intellectual skills and my curiosity.

Halligeninseln, what I read about you here reminds me more of HFA than Asperger's.

The latter describes me too, anyway...

Ojani,

I don't really know. The border between the two is not so clear to me. I tend to see it as all one continuum, with Asperger's just being mild to not so mild autism. People seem to differ so much within the spectrum. I read a great article on the internet called Attention, Monotropism and the Diagnostic Criteria for Autism, which would make Aspergers and autism just different forms of the same thing.

I didn't know that the things you highlighted were more characteristic of HFA. The autobiographies of people with autism that I've read seem to indicate much more basic confusion about the world in childhood, about what the hell's going on, whereas Aspergers seems to be more a drawing away of interest from the social and variable towards the unsocial, repetitive and fixed.

One thing I don't really understand is that at around late teens I turned my solitary autistic stimming into learning behaviour, so that ever since I somehow learn languages by stimming them into my head. It has probably not been so great for my intellectual and personal development that I do that so much since it has given me a great excuse to do nothing about my autistic tendencies. Earlier in childhood I used to stim over football statistics, which fixed them in my head as an unintended by-product of the stimming. So I've never really memorised facts in the way Asperger's people are said to do, but stimmed in a rather low-functioning sort of way.

When I see films of low-functioning or even extremely low-functioning autistics I don't feel that they are fundamentally different from me in terms of their rocking and flapping. They seem to be just much more extreme versions of the same continuum.