Poll about how you got your diagnosis...
It's like I know there are depths that I'm not seeing in other people; I can only see the shallows, whatever they choose to say or put on their faces, but I can't tell WHO and WHAT they are, just what they delilberately reveal, if that makes any sense. I don't know what they're thinking or feeling. I can guess sometimes but I don't know. It's lonely.
ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,245
Location: Long Island, New York
Kind of like this. Always knew I was different. I was told by a employer in the late 1990's,thought to myself that is a weird way to bully me, ignored it, Around 2005 I thought the "Bones" character on TV was a Female version of me read about Aspergers by reading about her so I probably was which was something that was mildly interesting but that was it. 2013 Siblings staged intervention, here I am.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
I was the same as a child. I was thinking that what I do is 100% normal and I was not aware of my own feelings, I was just telling logically what is happening around, without naming how I feel. When I was 17 year old and my grandma told me she suppose I have AS. I refused it, I couldn't believe I am really lacking something. I was still thinking my problems are because other people are being illogical, not because I just can't see their logic.
It finally came to me when I was 24 and seen an AS article in the web. I was in a stage of my life when nothing was predictable anymore and people around me were getting into relationships I couldn't understand. They were also finding jobs, moving out of their houses or going to university as if it was nothing. I was still depending on my parents, living in my family home and fearing the change. I started to work - thanks to my parents - and realized I just can't stand some sensory input other people seem to be fine with. Nothing was easy anymore.
You can't really figure out some things when your life is predictable and there is no real expectations for you. You won't realize you fall back untill all your peers make a huge step forward and you still stay where you were as 13 year old and can't figure out how could they possibly jump so far.
The Asperger traits explained everything.
I was old enough to know myself and my own feelings and some experiences made me acknowledge other people don't feel the same way as I do. I gained the ability when I was 21 year old. I still have trouble naming my feelings but at least I am in tune with them now and I am able to learn what causes them and how to calm myself. And I read enough to tutorials in my life to finally recognize other people social cues - as long as I focus on them.
Weird story for me. When I was younger I was repeatedly dx'd with a form of autism from various people but my parents didn't think I was "stupid" so they refused to acknowledge them. They didn't understand what autism actually was.
When I was 19 I was suspecting myself of having ASD, I went to get tested and I only scored above the threshold for not having autism with only one test, and that was one point above the threshold. So then I got dx'd.
Parents were weird about it but after they learned what ASD really was they were pretty understanding and we joke about it all the time now.
So I guess I'm both? LOL
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IQ:134
AspieQuiz Score: 159
AQ: 43
"Don't be That One Aspie..."
I suspected myself after I dicovered the Intense World Theory of Henry and Kamilla Markram. Before I didn't accepted that I might have Aspergers, even a coworker told me that I'm suspect because my odd behaviour.
SoMissunderstood
Velociraptor
Joined: 18 Mar 2014
Age: 59
Gender: Female
Posts: 481
Location: Sydney, Australia
I was diagnosed with having 'mild autism' as a child when I would bang my head against a wall for hours until it bled and screamed whenever I was picked up or hugged and refused to play with other children...but nothing ever came of it...
....until my mid 40's when Social Services (Centrelink) wanted to find out why they had to keep paying me benefits because I couldn't hold down a stable job for any more than a few weeks and so they sent me off to doctors and psychiatrists for tests...
It didn't take long for a few diagnoses to be made including Asperger's disorder, bi-polar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (yup, I got all of them).
I was pretty oblivious until my kids' diagnosis. I kept saying to people "but that's not abnormal, he's just like me". Then people would look at me funny. Eventually I got the hint and went for a diagnosis myself.
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AQ score: 44
Aspie mom to two autistic sons (21 & 20 )
Where's the "neither" option. I was a kid when I got diagnosed and my doctor didn't tell me "You have Asperger's." My psychologist started to think I may have it so she brought it up to my mother and then referred us to a psychiatrist who specialized in autism spectrum disorders and took me to him and he diagnosed me with it but not right away. I knew nothing about it. I just thought I was there to get on the right pills and to get better so I wouldn't be sick anymore.
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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses.
My parents had me tested at 7 and it was discovered I had Asperger's. They didn't tell me right away, though. I first saw it on a computer that that been left on - there was a letter and it said I had Asperger's. Only later did they tell me.
As for how someone with Asperger's could know they had it - having Asperger's doesn't mean that you are completely blind to the social interactions going on around you. Most people with Asperger's, especially as they get older, are capable of self-analysis and of noticing other people's behaviours in comparison with their own. That is, they can notice that they are different.
I would never have known if my child didn't show signs. That was hard, seeing all sorts of things that were familiar from me growing up but in the present, and I wondered a bit but felt like I didn't fit. I wasn't looking for a diagnosis, though. I was told by my psychologist when I was overwhelmed trying to sort out what was up with my daughter and with life. I didn't understand or like the diagnosis, but eventually I came to understand the rest of the world saw it, sometimes it's better to try to be who I am than deny what the world sees. Now I'm grateful to him.
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