I'm Not An Aspie. I Lied During My Assessment.

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I re-read my assessment report and in it, there is a big, stonking lie. I told the psychologist, who assessed me that I regularly say things that offend people, (I was assessed in 2009). Well, I don't. I might have told my mum, when I was younger, that I didn't want to be like her and I may have asked a lecturer why she didn't wear make-up, but that's about it.

When I did the Austism Test and my initial result said that I had NT & ND traits. So I changed my answers, so that I had more ND traits. I also bumped up my AQ score.

Given that I lied during my assessement and that I don't have any typical aspie traits, such liking lists/organisation/systemising/being good at maths, etc, I can't be an aspie. I'm just an anti-social loner, with a very good long term memory.

You don't have to be autistic to not make any friends. I can read people's emotions. I don't have meltdowns - when I'm riled with someone, I can become vicious. Maybe the only reason I don't socialise is because I don't have any money, or friends; it's possible to not have any friends, even if you're an NT. It's not because I become exhausted from interacting.

I read a blog post about sensory overload and the author was comparing her dislike of a certain food, to eating raw chicken. I hate peas/celery/cooked onions/cucumber, bit if I ate a pea, I wouldn't think I was eating chicken. I've never had a meltdown if I ate some candied peel. I'm ok with bright lights and I like playing my music loud, but not too loud, so as to disturb the neighbours. As I onky have one type of sensory overload, I can't be an aspie.

Yes, folks, I lied. No biggie. If I was an aspie, I would have never lied/over-exaggerated. But I did.

Alrighty.

Of course Aspies never lie.

Why are you posting this?
Would you like us to grab our torches and pitchforks?

I feel I am very similar. I went to see a psychiatrist who specialized in autism. In his assessment of me he said I might have Aspergers or a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (not otherwise specified) ; he couldn't really tell although he leaned more towards a PDD.

I do know that one of the things that my psychologist told me before my assessment was that he actually did things during the assessment to determine whether I was lying to him. I suspect it's harder to cheat a true test with a psychologist intended to detect autism/asperger's than assessment most of those online tests.

Sensory issues aren't universal. As far as I know, I don't have them (although I have nothing to compare with), nor have I had anything that I can conclusively call a shutdown or meltdown. And don't think for a minute that nobody on the spectrum has ever told a lie.

That said, one other possibility if you really don't have ANY other ASD traits is that you might have Social Communications Disorder. With the elimination of Asperger's in the DSM-5, most people with Asperger's were given the definition of level 1 ASD. However, there is also the alternative diagnosis of Social Communications Disorder if there is no past or present evidence of restricted or repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities (which were not required for the old Asperger's diagnosis). You can find details of SCD here: https://aspergers101.com/social-pragmat ... -disorder/

Don't assume, though, that just because you don't have obvious aspie traits that you don't have ASD; they are often quite subtle, and not all have to be present.

Aspies aren't always completely incapable of lying.
Diagnosticians don't just go on what the client says about themselves, as a rule.
Why did you lie?

I'm wondering why you would do that? There aren't exactly a staggering array of beneficial things about getting to have it officially confirmed that you have a disorder that only gets the diagnosis because of impairments to normal functioning. Who would actually WANT to be a person considered to be "impaired" as opposed to functioning? Also, it still carries some degree of stigma; people still don't even understand it if you try to tell someone; you can get discriminated against even though by law people are not supposed to do that. I lost paying work/a client for admitting it.

And yes, there are pretty much no welfare benefits unless you have classic autism/severe autism. I would be willing to bet there are no people who managed to lie, get a diagnosis they shouldn't have, and cheat the system. If someone wanted to cheat the system for disability payments, it would be far easier to dream up a physical ailment to lie to them about. I don't believe anyone would choose Asperger's to become a benefit cheat, lmao.

It sounds like something people might try but I seriously have a feeling it's not as easy as that -- as someone else said, a qualified assessor will actually build things into the assessment that are designed to catch out lies. They make it so that you don't even notice those parts of the mechanism, if you will.

What I think may really be going on here is that you are on the spectrum, your diagnosis was done properly, your assessor did in fact find you to have autism, but now, because you feel that you don't have some of the things often mentioned here -- some of which are not even required for the diagnosis but simply known to crop up a lot among autistic people -- you are trying to rationalize yourself out of your diagnosis, for whatever reason.

You may feel more comfortable believing that it's all a mistake and you don't have it; you may be in denial. If you're basing this ONLY on the fact that you are missing some of the habits and needs of SOME autistic people then that is a little bit rash and simplistic as an approach.

Plenty of us are not good at mathematics or the sciences in general -- whoops, there goes our Sheldon status. Some of us are artistic instead of the math professor.

Plenty of us are of an emotional, feeling type rather than the logical, unfeeling stereotype -- whoops, soe of us lost even more Sheldon Cooper points there.

People on the spectrum are not all cookie cutter. There are diagnostic criteria which, if not met, means no diagnosis, but all around those are other traits that actually vary and not everyone has them.

Let me give a hypothesis. She's felt different all her life, and had stumbled on something that would explain those differences. She really badly wanted that explanation to be proved true, because if it weren't she would be left with no explanation. Story seem familiar to anyone?

So, she went into the assessment not with the intention to lie, but with a strong desire for a particular outcome that may have lead to a bias when interpreting her life. I'm sure psychologists deal with this type of person all the time. She said in her original post:

"I told the psychologist, who assessed me that I regularly say things that offend people, (I was assessed in 2009). Well, I don't. I might have told my mum, when I was younger, that I didn't want to be like her and I may have asked a lecturer why she didn't wear make-up, but that's about it."

That actually doesn't look like a lie to me. The fact is, these things are rarely black and white. It seems to me that she's interpreting a particular shade of grey as black rather than white. I don't believe many neurotypicals would have asked a lecturer why she didn't wear make-up. How often does this kind of thing have to happen before it's considered "regular"? Probably more than once, but I'd be surprised if there are many people on this forum who offend people every day.

Leeds_Demon, It's a shame that a detail which causes you such uncertainty made it into the specific text of your diagnosis, but I don't believe that the psychologist would base the assessment on this alone. We don't know for your interpretation of this detail at the time was wrong, but even if it was, it seems to me highly likely that you would have received the same diagnosis anyway even if you had answered "No" to the same question.

It may be familiar to some here, I'm sure, but not to me, pal. I was in fact the opposite case. Your first first sentences apply to me -- different all my life, stumbled upon something that seemed to explain it.

But the second part, sorry, nope. I was actually extremely upset when I "stumbled upon" Asperger's as a thing.

Quite the opposite to "badly wanting that explanation to be proved true," I instead was horrified and went straight into denial ---- and this wasn't even diagnosis, this was literally me just "stumbling across" it, recognizing myself, and going NO NO NO NO.. . . . that can't be it.. . . .

I stayed stuck in that for the next almost-ten years before seeking an assessment.

Not ALL of us out here "badly wanted" for THIS crap deal to be "true."

My take on this person is that she's going through her denial NOW instead of before.

OP also started the "bog standard" thread, which could explain further.

Yep, I still don't really understand that "bog standard" thread. I've been reading it and don't really know what she's getting at.

I actually don't even know much about that phrase and although I know it's supposed to mean "ordinary" it still doesn't mean anything to me. And I can't figure out what it means in the context of her post.

If I recall, the question typically goes something like "People often tell me I say offensive things." And one is supposed to answer true or false, or some spectrum ranging from "never true" to "always true".

What has always puzzled me about this is, what if the person offends people and the people don't inform them they were offended, or what if the person never has the chance to offend people because they never interact with them? Would this not throw off the scoring?

In the context of that thread it means nonstereotypical.

She's saying she is not stereotypical enough to be Aspie.
This thread is a continuation of the theme.

I see now; thank you for that.

I see how it ties with this thread too now -- so she's unduly married to the idea of the stereotypical traits. If she had at all been spending any time here reading threads, she should have noticed by now that it's not a one-size-fits-all.

But then again that seems like rigid thinking and is another indication her diagnosis was correct.

I just really think this person is trying to find ways to deny it to herself, just because she's not the stereotype.

Does imposter syndrome apply to neurodiversity? I got here by faking it, even though you just did your best and got a certain result.

I would feel a little honored if a Munchauasen Syndrome sufferer found little old ASD worthy of faking.

Can you imagine how hard it would actually be to fake all this stuff though? Especially to sustain it through multiple sessions and sections of an assessment, with experienced professionals who have probably seen a lot.

I still don't think anyone would bother to even pick autism spectrum disorder to fake. Where are the upsides? It's not even something that gets sympathy if you're high functioning. Derision for uncanny valley effect: yes.

There's a lot more out there than just autism. The whole neuro-deverse thing. I've come across those on a general support forum, who did not have autism itself, but whatever else that was just a disabling. We even started a sub-form called "Island of Misfits". We could all relate to one another quite well.

I think when it comes to a person who's not autistic getting an asd diagnosis, maybe it's a for lack of a better term kind of thing to try explaining whatever neurological issue they do have. Maybe "bog standard" can be translated as neuro-diverse. Or maybe NAFU (Neurologically All F***ed Up).

I consider all NAFU my brothers and sisters of the f***ed up brain disorder, whatever it may be called.