Misdiagnosis and Need to Find New Outlets

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Although I was diagnosed as meeting the "Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's (DESE) criteria for a student with Autism," I am beginning to believe it may have been a case of confirmation bias: The observers saw what supported a diagnosis and ignored what didn't or interpreted ambiguous things in support of a diagnosis.

It is true that I show some of the outward signs of Asperger's syndrome, but this is coincidence. I most likely do not share the same neurodevelopmental difference most people with AS have. I actually believe my social adjustment difficulties are the result of a complex interaction between many different, independent causes, resulting in some behaviors that resemble the autistic syndrome.

I was born with a bump on my head because of delivery problems (the doctor was late and my mom tried to wait). Bullying, starting early on at daycare and continuing late into elementary school, also probably played a role in traumatizing me and leading me to develop obsessive-compulsive symptoms, intense shyness, and self-esteem problems—none of these really existed in my early childhood when I was outgoing, carefree, inquisitive, and happy.

I have made great efforts to overcome those problems and make friends and get a girlfriend since fourth grade. I have tried following all the advice out there: If one way fails, try another way and don't give up. I try to keep a positive attitude as best as possible. I try to act confident and approachable instead of depressed or sullen. I try to be kind to people. Unfortunately, I must have missed some of the essential parts of developing friendships because I was being bullied and learning to avoid people at the time instead.

I am going to try to come on here less and continue trying to find good offline outlets for my desire for social interaction and fun. I really need joy in my life, and I don't get very much of it from doing things on my own, especially when I have to do things alone most of the time every day.

The thing is I seem to have very different problems besides the most basic ones of having social difficulties than most of the people here. Some people are too sensorily overwhelmed to interact; some prefer minimal social interaction; others prefer to be blunt and wonder why they have problems.

When I first read this, I felt a bit of enthusiasm about your being confirmed as "one of my own kind." I can be so NT like that. I probably could have easily been misdiagnosed with a PDD were it "in" where and when people were wondering about me, but I got an ADD diagnosis first, and that stuck. It's my sensory profile that I see as the biggest sign of not being on the autistic spectrum. I also never had problems with body language that I can tell...my verbal and visual-spatial skills were both pretty typical. Social skills were low, but it's unclear where in the pipeline that originated. The stories of my toddlerhood suggest that I was naturally disconnected from people - lacking separation anxiety, wandering off on my own...whatever caused THAT could be what led to my temperamental similarity to many autistics.

For a long time, I looked to the ADD diagnosis as an explanation for much of the way I was, and analyzed myself in terms of it, but in recent times I've been seeing it as rather inadequate, and have been off meds for over a year after having been on them at low to moderate doses for 11 years (hopefully without too much damage beyond that done to my wallet). The myth was useful in its day, but eventually outlived its usefulness. So I now see my future in creating my own myths to improve my life.

Good luck in finding your outlets. My preferred path at the moment is to look to my own mind for relief, but that's just a function of the values that have attracted/hijacked me.

Neant, not to sound jerky or anything, but I've met you. You're as Aspie as they come. And probably a good mix of NLD and ADHD, too.

Have you stopped enjoying your Aspieness? What happened to all your former enthusiam?

It sounds like me, you became AS because of your childhood. You probably don't remember, but chances are you had traits then too. I've never met you, but just form your posts you seem very AS to me.

I think you shouldn't worry too much about whether you are or are not an aspie. The final report is only important if you wanna ask someone to be patient with you because you have difficulties with certain things, but the funny thing is, you could probably ask them with no pretense of special disability and if they're nice they'll probably help you. Besides that you should bother yourself about whether or not you are an aspie, just know however you act isn't weird, and you should enjoy whoever you are, however you want to be.

How is this possible? I was under the impression AS was a neurological difference one was born with.

If it were due to a hard childhood in social situations, he'd have PTSD and just maybe be introverted or something like that. Very different.

Aspergers is not caused by the environment-- i.e., human interaction or the lack of it, unless one were deprived and developed RAD. But that's from a really early age and only similar in some ways.

why the sudden retreat? do you think you are an NT?

Pick whichever identity you like more.

I think my AS may have been caused by a defect in my birth. My mom admitted to smoking sometime while she was pregnant with me. I was born a week late and I was not breathing when I was born. It took about 30 seconds to revive me. I have 3 older sisters and 1 older brother, they were all born normally and they don't have AS or any signs of autism.

There is an overrepresentation of prenatal, obstetric, and postnatal complications in the Autistic community. I kinda suspect that's what causes most of our auttiness. And the genetic component I think is a susceptibility to such complications.

But this is as yet only my own hypothesis, so take it as it is.

I was reading over the old DSM-III, and under Infantile Autism it notes predisposing factors can be things like prenatal Rubella exposure, encephalitis, PKU, meningitis, and the list goes on. These are of course the more extreme. But they can certainly cause brain damage. Which goes with my "brain damage" hypothesis.

I ask the question: If Autism can be caused by these more obvious forms of illnesses causing in turn brain damage, then why are the same areas/functions of the brain not affected similarly in the more classic cases without obvious cause? Why do those cases not merely represent a subtler or less noticed form of damage to the growing system???

It seems obvious enough to me that that should be something to be looked into. And yet nobody's bothered. Am I the only one who sees this?

This also provides another problem with eugenics. What if someone is susceptible to these causes but as yet Fate would have it they would have ended up not receiving brain damage or had such complications? In those cases, the parents will be aborting the exact fetus which they want: an NA.

My point being, what if these genetic markers only note a susceptibility and not "fate"? It's well-noted that amongst monozygotic twins, there is only a 50% chance of the other twin developing autism if the first twin does. This means there is much environment at play. However, if those twins had been tested, BOTH could have been aborted, the desired child along with the autistic one.

People are so illogical and hasty. It's ridiculous that no one's considered the genes to be only a susceptibility and not an outcome. Or maybe they have considered it. But they don't bother.

My birth was fine, if a bit late. My brother, OTOH, was not breathing when we was born. In his newborn pix from the hospital, you can see that his skin has a bluish tint. He's as NT as they come.

Don't know what RAD is.

All I know is that I was clearly ADHD as a child, but AS wasn't exposed until my life started going crazy. Before that huge depression at 12, I was normal besides my ADHD and OCD. Or maybe I wasn't, who knows?