Undiagnosed Aspies; do you ever feel lost?

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I sometimes feel like I don't fit in anywhere; I don't belong with the NTs because I'm too different from them, I don't understand them, but I don't belong with the aspies either because I don't have the piece of very expensive paper that says I do. I feel like I'm just stuck in limbo, between two worlds with no real niche to call my own. Anybody else ever just feel like you're floating in the middle of nowhere?

Yep, I feel the same way.

I'm diagnosed and sometimes I feel that I'm "not autistic enough" to be on this forum, that it must have been a mistake, my diagnosis. I swear she'll change it back any day now. And since my insurance has gone kaput, I can't even talk to her about this...

So yeah, you're not alone.

Sometimes I feel lost but then I just boot up my gps and I'm all set.

But anyhoo. I feel you on that. I feel the same way sometimes. I'm still learning about it and hearing other people's experiences but I believe my only issue is really social. just understanding people and trying to decipher sarcasm.

I used to have an iq over 130 when I was in 6th grade but I was kicked out after that year and sent to schools where some of the kids my age were still having issues with basic math and spelling. totally stunted my education and I really struggle with math now and many other things related to school. Makes getting a degree nearly f'n impossible. I feel like if I could have been diagnosed properly all those years ago maybe things would have been different.

but here I am now still undiagnosed. I really don't feel like I need a professional opinion on it now that I'm an adult. It won't change anything in my life if I have someone with a degree tell me what I already know. They call it a spectrum for a reason. you can't fit us all into the same mold. Maybe you are just where you need to be. That's how I feel about myself. Even though I'm an aspie as most of us are on here i'm my own aspie. No one has exactly the same experiences as me and that's the way I like it.

Sorry that was so long.

I feel lost a lot, too. Like, no one else is really all that like me, not even those with [insert diagnosis I've received here].

Then again, who is really like anyone else? That would be boring!

I was undiagnosed until I was 63, and then it was almost accidental, and not expensive at all. I don't think it's expensive for the kids who were diagnosed at school, either. Anyway, there was no such thing as a diagnosis for Asperger's until I was late middle-aged, and I was clearly not "Autistic", since I spoke and read early and well and didn't have the sensitivities or the tendency to scream (though I did have the "temper tantrums" now called meltdowns). And I always felt like an alien, on the wrong planet. The Fifth Dimension (I think) came out with the song "Gemini Child" when I was a young adult, and I happen to be a Gemini, but it was immediately my theme: "Gemini child, woman grown: lost in a world not her own...." so I blamed some of it on being a Gemini, some on the clinical depression, which _was_ diagnosable then, and some on my high IQ. I think there were some other things to blame, too, but you get the idea. I wanted friends, and usually had some (especially since I had a lot of cousins), but not many. It seemed as if I relied first on my cousins, then on my roommates, then on my husband, to make friends for me, just riding on their shoulders, so to speak. It's been much harder since I was divorced.

How can anybody call themselves an Aspie if they've never been officially diagnosed?

There are many many people on here that have not been officially diagnosed that still consider themselves an Aspie. I've done the research and know how I feel and how I act and there is no doubt in my mind that I am an Aspie

If you have a runny nose and a sore throat do you need to go see a doctor to be Officially diagnosed with a cold? When you have no health insurance you don't really have a choice but to do research on the internet.

Perhaps the best diagnosis is knowing yourself.

I too went through school during the time of lost information that led to no diagnosis. I know I was a conundrum to almost everyone around. I could design my own plane with my own designed airfoils at 12 but couldn't tell anyone how I knew how to do it, how it worked, or why I wanted to.

In my head I was telling them... no one ever understood me though. They all though I didn't want to tell them and was just lecturing them to make them feel stupid.

Literally I went years being told I was too smart for my own good. I felt so dumb though.

Now I could get any diagnosis I wanted. Give me a little time and I can pretend to be almost anyone from anywhere... Been playing that game my entire life. With that knowledge what would a piece of paper prove to myself?

The only real damning evidence I have (other than knowing me) is that when I finally figured it out (was traveling a lot and seeing people from socio-geographic regions I have never met or been to so my method of intellectually knowing how to act wasn't working and I couldn't hide it anymore) and mustered up the courage to ask someone they responded that everyone had talked about it for years (tying back to my childhood) and just were afraid to tell me.

Do I feel lost? like a sock in the dryer....

That said I am now finding myself. I suggest you look inside you and decide if you are happy with where you fit in.

That said I know I would need help if I didn't have the gifts to go with the curse... If you are in need of those get the piece of paper. Don't let society continue to beat you up for being different by not letting you even admit you are...

Yes, that's why I'm currently on my way to a diagnosis - finally.

Also, I sometimes feel like I'm not autistic enough. Like.. I'm too weird to call myself a NT, but not autistic enough to complain about my meltdowns or consider myself part of the community. It's like being stuck in between.

I think this topic speaks to me and a some of us on here, I was gonna make this exact topic. I joined not long ago and I'm like glued to these forums, once I get interested in something I can't stop trying to figure out whatever interests me. Before it was the VW forums I was constantly on, now I'm either on there or here during slow work days and off of work if I'm not gaming. As you can see by my signature that it says I have both traits, and I can really cope even though in my head I feel really akward sometimes. I can't get my thoughts out right when I explains things sometimes and end up mumbling or stuttering something. I don't feel like I need a diagnosis, since I don't have the funds to pay for that and I don't feel like I need anyones help, but coming on here I seem that I'm not alone and I like that. I might never know if I am AS or not so I've been questioning myslef and asking my family and first off they didn't think I had anything, but I never told them much. All they saw was that when I got into computers that was about all I wanted to be on in highschool. I has 1 good freind that went to church when I visited often, but never went to any parties or anything. They asked me to join football since I was not bad physically and they thought I'd be really good, but for fear of the crowd at games I never joined and sometimes I regret not doing some things. Well thanks for posting this topic, I could go on for a while.

Yes, I feel quite lost. I KNOW that I am not NT and do not fit in with them. I can identify with the issues of people who have a mild case of AS/HFA because they rhyme with my life. I actually do want to get an official Dx out of the way, but I have no insurance and make only slightly more than $20k a year and a Dx would cost too much for me to be able to afford it. I basically see myself as an aspie with an asterisk, an asterisk that leads to a footnote in my sig that says I have no official Dx. Since I feel I am not totally legit, I don't feel I have the right to completely identify with it and do something like, say, put a bumper sticker on my car or wear a tee shirt about it. I don't want to be disrespectful to those who have a Dx in case it turns out not to be the case. So, in a way I am in a limbo between finally knowing why my life has gone as it has and having to start back at square one again.

Thanks for all the responses guys, it's good to know I'm not alone on this point.

That very expensive piece of paper would make my life so easy right now? I had the DX as a child, lost it in adulthood after I got it confirmed because it seems that free mental health clinics do not give a s**t.

And I lost credibility with my small circle of friends/family because they think I lied. I would give three pounds of flesh for the paper. Seriously. Invisible disabilities are a b***h.

I pursued and got diagnosed very recently as having a mild degree of Asperger's, added onto previous my diagnoses of moderate ADD (nonhyperactive) and dysthymia, but I didn't get any expensive piece of paper as my prize. Was I supposed to get one?

I can't see why one would want to call themselves an Aspie at all. My thoughts during my diagnosis were: