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Hawthorn
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04 Jan 2023, 6:31 am

Hello all,

First post here following a recent diagnosis, though been going through the process for a couple of years. Delays caused by the pandemic meant it took a long time to get assessed.

I’m looking to see if anyone has experienced something similar how I’m feeling at the moment, and whether it’s normal or not.

I’m 35 and have a senior role in a company, I live with my wife with a baby on the way. Hopefully not to sound boastful but I think most people would describe my life as successful so far.

Looking at my assessment report, I have met 10 categories used under the ‘DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder’. In the blurb it says that previously my diagnosis would have been called Asperger’s.

I’ve experienced many of the symptoms of ASD for my whole life, some causing me a lot of difficulty. However, I am a private person and have buried these I think fairly successfully to onlookers. In addition, I think my interpersonal skills have developed to a point where I successfully operate in quite a political environment at work. This only really breaks down if I get angry or exhausted, when I get feedback about being too direct etc. I can compare this to two people I’ve managed in the past who, though excellent employees, I don’t think could have navigated the same situations as I have.

The above, combined with the surprise of my mother after my diagnosis because of her feeling that I read people really well, has made me feel like maybe something went wrong in the process. What if I influenced in some way or cheated the system? It has actually left me feeling less sure of my ASD than before I was diagnosed.

I’d really appreciate any thoughts on whether this is something you’ve experienced, whether you think I could have tricked the process, or any relevant links you might have with supporting information.



Dengashinobi
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04 Jan 2023, 7:13 am

I've changed many work environments and although I've had problems in most of them, at some I did perfectly fine. It depends at the social dynamics maybe. Sometimes the right people take a liking in you and their social status protects you. Or simply you are useful and people want to be on good terms with you. I'm sure you are also very careful yourself. You own social status may play a role too.



rse92
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04 Jan 2023, 9:28 am

Because you are successful the diagnosis must be wrong?



skibum
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04 Jan 2023, 9:31 am

Hawthorn wrote:
Hello all,

First post here following a recent diagnosis, though been going through the process for a couple of years. Delays caused by the pandemic meant it took a long time to get assessed.

I’m looking to see if anyone has experienced something similar how I’m feeling at the moment, and whether it’s normal or not.

I’m 35 and have a senior role in a company, I live with my wife with a baby on the way. Hopefully not to sound boastful but I think most people would describe my life as successful so far.

Looking at my assessment report, I have met 10 categories used under the ‘DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder’. In the blurb it says that previously my diagnosis would have been called Asperger’s.

I’ve experienced many of the symptoms of ASD for my whole life, some causing me a lot of difficulty. However, I am a private person and have buried these I think fairly successfully to onlookers. In addition, I think my interpersonal skills have developed to a point where I successfully operate in quite a political environment at work. This only really breaks down if I get angry or exhausted, when I get feedback about being too direct etc. I can compare this to two people I’ve managed in the past who, though excellent employees, I don’t think could have navigated the same situations as I have.

The above, combined with the surprise of my mother after my diagnosis because of her feeling that I read people really well, has made me feel like maybe something went wrong in the process. What if I influenced in some way or cheated the system? It has actually left me feeling less sure of my ASD than before I was diagnosed.

I’d really appreciate any thoughts on whether this is something you’ve experienced, whether you think I could have tricked the process, or any relevant links you might have with supporting information.
Welcome to WP. You can't "trick the process." The diagnostic testing is designed in a way that what they are looking for cannot be faked. Many Autistic people are like you. That is why so many don't get diagnosed until later in life. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 47.


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Benjamin the Donkey
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04 Jan 2023, 9:51 am

I definitely fulfill all the criteria. Despite this, I learned, through trial and error, to "mask" very successfully. Then at age 50, my brain said "no more" and it all fell apart in what I discovered was "autistic burnout."

Relative success in life and masking doesn't mean you're NT.


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Hawthorn
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04 Jan 2023, 9:59 am

rse92 wrote:
Because you are successful the diagnosis must be wrong?


Apologies, I don’t think I said that and I didn’t mean to come across that way. I mentioned it because what I have read of ASD so far in books, what I’ve experienced with previous colleagues who have been diagnosed, seems to suggest that doing my job isn’t typical. That is probably an incorrect characterisation, but is why I asked the question of the forum.



rse92
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04 Jan 2023, 11:02 am

Hawthorn wrote:
rse92 wrote:
Because you are successful the diagnosis must be wrong?


Apologies, I don’t think I said that and I didn’t mean to come across that way. I mentioned it because what I have read of ASD so far in books, what I’ve experienced with previous colleagues who have been diagnosed, seems to suggest that doing my job isn’t typical. That is probably an incorrect characterisation, but is why I asked the question of the forum.


I'm still not getting it. You also wrote "It has actually left me feeling less sure of my ASD than before I was diagnosed." What does that mean? The same thing -- I'm successful. How can I be autistic?

N.B. I've been a lawyer for over 35 years and was for many years a partner in New York City at two major international law firms. I regularly handle financing transactions involving hundreds of millions of dollars; I'm closing one tomorrow. Over two years ago, I was diagnosed with ASD. Not only did it answer a lot of questions for me, but i realized that I succeeded (twice -- I lost everything and was to hell and back in my late forties early fifties) despite my ASD. It's possible my ignorance of my autism worked in my favor. i knew i was screwed up. I just thought it was in a general way.

You do not know what other people see. You can only mask so well.



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04 Jan 2023, 11:18 am

Welcome to Wrong Planet! I hope you discover it is the Right Planet for you.

It is the AutismSpectrumDisorder. It encompasses a wide spread of people, capabilities, and severities. I sometimes amuse myself by finding lists online of famous people thought to possibly have been on the Autism Spectrum. If even ⅓ really were on the Spectrum then there are some very impressive folk.

When I first suspected I might be Autistic I thought I'd done pretty well despite it. Then I did that search. My ego took some time to recover.

Oh, and remember that one Autism trait many of us have is "special interests". Certainly those famous folk had "special interests"...science, acting, business, art, writing, music, etc. Presumably your "special interests" led you to where you are.

And, yeah, sometimes there is some luck. But the old saying is "When Opportunity knocks, answer the door!" If I hadn't answered the door (several times!) my life would not have been as successful...probably also true of you.


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04 Jan 2023, 12:36 pm

But where was the motive to get diagnosed with ASD?

I've sometimes wondered whether I might have stretched things a bit during my diagnosis. My motive would have been to get out of certain expectations of me at work. But the only things I wanted to get out of were the things an Aspie couldn't reasonably be expected to do properly, things that I was struggling with, and I had a very real and (I think) rational fear that without a good excuse for being unable to do them, I'd be in trouble. Take the DX away and it's hard to explain why I had any difficulty with those things.

I didn't feel it likely that I'd get any disability money from the government out of a diagnosis. There was potentially a little bit in those days, but the amount would have been tiny, and as I've come to expect from the benefits people, when I applied I was rejected, probably because I was too logical about it and didn't ask my doctor to supply any "supporting evidence" - I simply thought that irrational because my doctor had never seen me in action, so how could he possibly know anything about the matter? Surely they'd realise that and ignore anything he wrote?

I think I erred on the side of giving positive answers to the AQ screening test simply because if I'd not scored high enough they'd have abandoned the deeper testing that follows the screening test. And I've always felt that those AQ questions can't be answered accurately anyway. They're so reductionist, subjective and forced-response that I could have given any of the possible answers to a lot of them without lying.

As for the in-depth testing, that was mostly question-and-answer, and there were a couple of moments when I thought "better not say that in case I lose points." For example, I possibly exaggerated how much my life is dominated by routine. In reality I get bored with too much repetition and tend to break out of it, and even when I've created what looks like a rigid and detailed protocol for performing a task, I often notice myself doing it slightly differently from the protocol, or making minor changes to things that I never explicitly included in it (protocols are never entirely complete and comprehensive). But I think that's just my perfectionism and completism making too much of tiny matters. On the whole, there's a lot of routine and repetition in my life, and I doubt anybody has ever functioned entirely like a sausage machine in everything they do.

There's also the element of corroborative evidence in the DX - evidence not taken from the client but from people who know the client. In my case my parents were dead so the only source other than myself was my wife. I certainly didn't put any words into her mouth or lead her testimony in any way, and I rather resented some of the things she said about me and the way in which she expressed them.

And how did I even come to ask for the diagnostic test in the first place? My wife suggested I might have ASD, I didn't particularly believe her but I saw no harm in looking so I found the Aspie-Quiz online and did that. At the time I had very little idea what the questions were looking at, being such a new subject to me, so it was a blind test. The result was "very likely Aspie." I was somewhat shocked. I don't see any evidence for fudging there. At that stage I didn't want that result.

ASD is a spectrum disorder, so it's always going to be possible to make a seemingly convincing case for being wrongly diagnosed with it. If we look for evidence of not having a given ASD trait, we'll usually find it. But maybe a good question is: which assumption - "I have ASD" or I don't have ASD" - makes your behaviour and experiences more clear? If I assume I don't have ASD, suddenly a whole gaggle of things about me cease to make sense. If I assume I have it, I understand myself rather better.

Anyway, if you're in doubt about whether or not you're an imposter, I suggest you try applying the above tests to your own case and see what they tell you.



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04 Jan 2023, 1:02 pm

I have been a regular on this site for almost a decade now. Doubting ones own proffessional diagnosis is fairly common.

You always have a right to seek a second opinion. You should discuss your doubts clinician who diagnosed you.


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04 Jan 2023, 1:15 pm

Hawthorn wrote:
rse92 wrote:
Because you are successful the diagnosis must be wrong?


Apologies, I don’t think I said that and I didn’t mean to come across that way. I mentioned it because what I have read of ASD so far in books, what I’ve experienced with previous colleagues who have been diagnosed, seems to suggest that doing my job isn’t typical. That is probably an incorrect characterisation, but is why I asked the question of the forum.

Don't believe everything you read. There is no cookie cutter way to be Autistic. There are Autistic people in almost every single kind of job that exists.


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04 Jan 2023, 1:48 pm

In my experience it would have been very difficult if not impossible to trick the system. I had a very comprehensive assessment arranged through the Neuropsych department at my former university. It was a very clinical and objective exam with standardised tests on my verbal and non-verbal skills, and other factors where I had no idea what the right or wrong answer was supposed to be. There was very little if any subjective interviewing, apart from me writing 188 pages about myself for the developmental history questions. I don't even think she read much of that, but she had to keep it on file (in an underground bunker somewhere, I'm sure.) I was dx with ASD Level 2 just before I turned 50.

I've heard it's normal to have imposter syndrome because we lived our lives for so long unaware. I almost said "thinking we were normal", but in my case I knew I wasn't normal. I just didn't know what to call it. I researched anxiety, depression, social phobias, etc., but nothing seemed to fit especially because of my sensory issues which I didn't think relevant at the time.

I had a successful life too on the surface level. I was very successful in school, had a great career, bought a house, got married, had and adopted kids. Everything might have looked hunky-dory on paper but behind the scenes and internally, I was freaking out from the day I was born. My seemingly-flashy life turned to hell and fell apart one piece at a time when demand exceeded my capacity, but also prior to diagnosis. I've been rebuilding ever since.

Your life may not fail like mine did, but at least you're aware of your autism. Whether your mother understands or not, I think it's safe to say your diagnostician knew what to look for and that you're on the spectrum. Autism is such a personal, inward experience it's hard for third-party people to know what we're going through by observation alone. It's even harder when they love us or see our strengths, because they don't want to label us as disabled.

Welcome to the fray.



rse92
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04 Jan 2023, 2:24 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
In my experience it would have been very difficult if not impossible to trick the system. I had a very comprehensive assessment arranged through the Neuropsych department at my former university. It was a very clinical and objective exam with standardised tests on my verbal and non-verbal skills, and other factors where I had no idea what the right or wrong answer was supposed to be. There was very little if any subjective interviewing, apart from me writing 188 pages about myself for the developmental history questions. I don't even think she read much of that, but she had to keep it on file (in an underground bunker somewhere, I'm sure.) I was dx with ASD Level 2 just before I turned 50.

I've heard it's normal to have imposter syndrome because we lived our lives for so long unaware. I almost said "thinking we were normal", but in my case I knew I wasn't normal. I just didn't know what to call it. I researched anxiety, depression, social phobias, etc., but nothing seemed to fit especially because of my sensory issues which I didn't think relevant at the time.

I had a successful life too on the surface level. I was very successful in school, had a great career, bought a house, got married, had and adopted kids. Everything might have looked hunky-dory on paper but behind the scenes and internally, I was freaking out from the day I was born. My seemingly-flashy life turned to hell and fell apart one piece at a time when demand exceeded my capacity, but also prior to diagnosis. I've been rebuilding ever since.

Your life may not fail like mine did, but at least you're aware of your autism. Whether your mother understands or not, I think it's safe to say your diagnostician knew what to look for and that you're on the spectrum. Autism is such a personal, inward experience it's hard for third-party people to know what we're going through by observation alone. It's even harder when they love us or see our strengths, because they don't want to label us as disabled.

Welcome to the fray.


I don't think he is talking about being an NT imposter. He thinks he may be an ASD imposter, diagnosis notwithstanding.



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04 Jan 2023, 2:31 pm

rse92 wrote:

I don't think he is talking about being an NT imposter. He thinks he may be an ASD imposter, diagnosis notwithstanding.


Yes, that's what I meant. A lot of autistic people or people with Aspergers experience Imposter Syndrome after they're diagnosed. He was wondering if it's possible his diagnosis was wrong. I'm just saying that chances are, his diagnosis is correct and success in life doesn't mean we can't be on the spectrum. I hope I explained it properly.



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04 Jan 2023, 2:54 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
rse92 wrote:

I don't think he is talking about being an NT imposter. He thinks he may be an ASD imposter, diagnosis notwithstanding.


Yes, that's what I meant. A lot of autistic people or people with Aspergers experience Imposter Syndrome after they're diagnosed. He was wondering if it's possible his diagnosis was wrong. I'm just saying that chances are, his diagnosis is correct and success in life doesn't mean we can't be on the spectrum. I hope I explained it properly.


Level of agreement 100%.



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04 Jan 2023, 9:57 pm

rse92 wrote:
IsabellaLinton wrote:
rse92 wrote:

I don't think he is talking about being an NT imposter. He thinks he may be an ASD imposter, diagnosis notwithstanding.


Yes, that's what I meant. A lot of autistic people or people with Aspergers experience Imposter Syndrome after they're diagnosed. He was wondering if it's possible his diagnosis was wrong. I'm just saying that chances are, his diagnosis is correct and success in life doesn't mean we can't be on the spectrum. I hope I explained it properly.


Level of agreement 100%.

I agree also.


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