Are those of us who avoided diagnosis in childhood lucky?

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Hello,

I'm new to this forum and through some research of my own, I believe I fit the diagnostic criteria of Asperger's syndrome when I was younger. I've taken quizzes as my current self and usually score in the High Normal range or Borderline level (usually high normal though) for autistic spectrum disorders, but if I took the test given my 7-year-old answers, I would've undoubtedly been on the spectrum.

As a kindergartener/elementary student, I had the following "symptoms"(what are considered "warning signs" of Asperger's online):
-Temper tantrums when I didn't get my way(this stopped sometime between 1st and 3rd grade; now I am considered very calm)
-Really strong attention to specific details(I used to love spotting hubcaps on cars as a toddler/little tyke, and later could identify every car and its make/model by appearance in 3rd grade)
-Loved to put little toy cars into patterns and line them up by things like hubcaps and year; loved to memorize different countries/bones in body
-Messy handwriting/desk and poor drawing/art skills; not the best organizational skills
-Very strong mathematical ability, especially speed at repetitive tasks like "Math baseball"
-Was called "absent-minded professor" by 2nd grade teacher; could focus intensely yet often got lost in thought
-Some form of "tick" with gestures

It seems like if I were taken to a psychologist then, I almost certainly would've gotten an autistic spectrum diagnosis.

Furthermore, my kindergarten teacher apparently told my friend's parents that she thought I had autism, yet either did not tell my parents or my parents didn't take the issue further. Personally, I thank God for not being taken to a psychiatrist at that point.

The interesting thing, though, is that I would consider my childhood very good by all accounts. I had a good number of friends, most of whom I am still friends with to this day. My autistic tendencies have definitely abated to some degree. I currently am a high school senior with a 4.71 GPA, #1 class rank, 2310 SAT, and National Merit Semifinalist. I'm certainly no king of social skills, but I have actually been commended for good interviewing skills and have good eye contact/presentation skills. I still have intense interests [mainly politics/math; I'm one of the few staunch conservative/libertarian "nerds" that I know ], but I always can focus on getting schoolwork/other activities done. I still have some "ticks" occasionally, especially in more pressure-filled situations, and while I can understand body language/facial expressions(I'm a lot better at the latter than the former), I've still been told I take things too literally and logically. Regardless, I don't feel that my residual Asperger's has harmed me in any way socially or school-wise and (hopefully) will be able to lead a successful life as an actuary (or other career like computer programmer, economist, or engineer; I haven't decided yet).

The reason I'm posting all this is because I had never heard the term "autistic" until I was in 9th grade. Then, someone who was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome suggested I might have it. Note that this person is not representative of all autistic people. He is an absolute gadfly and goes up to random people to intentionally piss them off (often using his Aspie-ness as a tool for them to get away with saying whatever they want).

When he told me that, it HURT. When I saw that people diagnosed with Asperger's had a 75% unemployment rate, I felt pretty darn sad until I realized that number only applied for diagnosed Aspies. It also didn't logically make sense, given my success in school and generally favorable opinion held by adults about me. I did think, however; if I was told about this earlier, would it have become a self-fulfilling prophesy? If I were told I had autism in kindergarten, I may be in special ed classes or have become a hermit due to the stigma of the diagnosis. It just scares me what could have happened.

Sorry for the EXTREMELY long post. I was just curious what others thought of this phenomenon and wanted to give as many details as possible.

tl;dr
I am doing pretty well for myself but have autistic tendencies, which were stronger as a kid. I think things would've been much worse if I were diagnosed. Is there an element of luck for those of us who manage to sneak by undiagnosed?

More specifically, do people who would be classified on the spectrum at a young age be more likely to no longer fit the criteria at an older age if they are not told about/treated as if they had an ASD?

I'm just curious if anyone has thoughts on this......I'm not trying to offend anyone, just proposing a question.

I believe that the treatment for autism causes horrific problems for our young,diagnosed people.

To answer your title question, speaking personally, I was lucky not to be identified as ASD as a child. In my case, with very abusive parents who used any perceived defect to constantly berate me on a daily basis, this would have been just one more stick in their armoury and never-ending abuse growing up and I may well have become a teenage suicide.

I think the answer to your question though will vary according to the personal experiences of people. I can see on WP that for many posters, earlier diagnosis could have been a significant advantage.

Interesting. Could you elaborate what this "treatment" consists of? I was just referring to the stigma of the diagnosis on a young person, thinking they're "diseased", as well as the horrifying stats like unemployment figures of those diagnosed with the disorder. The other thing is isolation to special ed classes could reinforce trauma.

Are you referring to special ed classes/therapy sessions, or are there other treatments I'm not aware of?

I personally am of the opinion that Asperger's should never have become a diagnose-able disorder, due to the upshot of the talents it provides as well as the harm of a diagnosis(it's not like real cures are available anyways).

Complete opposite for me.

I scraped by until I finished high school, then after that my life fell apart. I'm in the 75% category of unemployed aspies (is that stat really true?). I didn't get my diagnosis until this year - I'm 39 now. My childhood couldn't possibly have been made worse by a diagnosis. It might not have made much difference, given the ghastly family I had the misfortune to be a part of, but it certainly couldn't have made it any worse.

I wish I had the therapies my oldest had instead of the wacky crawling I did.
I can tell comical stories about these therapies but they didn't help me. I was still hyper and clumsy.
"I think I have dyspraxia but wrongly diagnosed as adhd"
I really think on the depends on the type of therapy.
Too many parents believe anything they read on the net.
Its just easy to get caught up with magical thinking.

Uh, no I wouldn't say those of us that weren't recognized and diagnosed in childhood are, as a whole, lucky. I will admit that there are a lot of instances where, like in your case, a child would qualify for a diagnosis while young and then "grow out of it" in a sense. I also think that since they screen so young, NTs with some autistic traits will be falsely tagged for autism. I believe a diagnosis can be somewhat detrimental in these cases, but there are also a whole lot of people like me who weren't recognized and diagnosed as a child because our issues due to autism didn't improve and might have even gotten much worse as we grew older. I believe the people in the latter category are by no means lucky to have not gotten diagnosed as a child, but maybe people in your situation are lucky.


If I had been diagnosed as a child, then I wouldn't have the same level of struggles I did throughout school as I'd have more supports in place. I wouldn't have been diagnosed, undiagnosed, rediagnosed by multiple different doctors with mood disorders and a slew of other things that I do not have. Not having that would mean that I wouldn't have had a truly traumatic experience when I was hospitalized after a meltdown that people weren't able to recognize as such as I wasn't diagnosed.

I do not think you'd be saying this if you were still very much impaired by your autistic tendencies... just my opinion

It all depends on what comes after the diagnosis honestly.

You see parents that take the diagnosis as a 'he's disabled, poor thing, must overprotect now' ; others who don't know what the hell to do and are too ashamed/stigmatized to get over their own social circle issues to help their kid...and those that take an active role in providing the social training that makes up for a lot of the stuff AS kids naturally miss during their developing years.

There are therapies that teach how to socialize properly,by NT standards. I do not have a socialization problem with other Autistics. It just comes naturally. But our young people are trained to act NT [because being autistic is not as good?] and that our stims, our beautiful stims that comfort us, gets our creative juices flowing, and can bring us a type of joy that few NTs' over the age of 3 are capable of experiencing, need to be supressed.

Our young people are taught to be "compliant," and that I think has much to do with why the vast majority of our people have been sexually abused.

They have heard from experts [until recently] that they are without empathy. They have been taught to quash some of their most incredible autistic atributes, such as authenticity, honesty, and integrity.

I had enough problems as a child. Thank god I was never "blessed" with all the "help" that the younger autistics received. I doubt I would have survived.

Saving a child from "treatment" ? It depends on the treatment which the child is being saved from. Some like the methods which have been used at the JRC are plain nasty and wrong. Other treatments might not be so bad.

I think I was diagnosed at 14. I'm glad I wasn't subjected to some "treatments" like ABA, which sounds rather horrific.

But I think your ideas about diagnoses causing all of our problems are unrealistic. I wasn't diagnosed particularly early, I didn't get any "treatment", I wasn't in special education, I didn't receive any accommodations. I'm still part of that 75%. I still can't maintain a conversation with anyone. I'm still as autistic as I ever was, and I'd still be just as f****d up if AS wasn't a recognized disorder.

Me being properly diagnosed at age 2.5 has been very beneficial to me and my parents.

It probably depends on the individual. Someone who is able to function pretty normally despite having autism might benefit, because they were never considered impaired and so they avoided being mistreated as a result.

Some people would benefit greatly from proper treatment though.

I have actually been wondering this exact thing for a while, but I just never asked on here, as it seemed like there were too many variables to come up with a definitive answer one way or the other.

For me, I'm not sure. I didn't do well in school (sort of). I got good grades, especially on tests (homework was usually incomplete or not handed in) but had behavioral problems up until 6th grade, mostly due to severe meltdowns, and rather than being helped, I was bullied by peers and teachers. My mom said she could tell I was a good kid, and she was mad when they treated me like I was a delinquent, which was pretty often. My mom said my grandma at one point thought maybe I had autism, but my mom didn't know, and the doctors never checked for it, so I was never diagnosed.

More recently, I had a huge burnout at university, where I got so overwhelmed that I dropped as many classes as I could, and didn't attend the rest. I just stayed in my dorm and survived for 2 months. I had no idea this would happen to me there, but if I'd been diagnosed surely I would have been more prepared.

In general, I have been mistreated by a lot of people, including family, because of difficulties which I now know are very common for autistic individuals. I wonder how my life would have been different had I known why I was having these difficulties, because at the time I was just being called lazy, stubborn, annoying etc.

Last edited by L_Holmes on 28 Oct 2014, 1:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

In the book I'm reading, they mention that you "can't truly live unless you know who you are" and without knowing you have ASD, you could be living under a false pretense. Though honestly, I don't believe in the 'treatments' for ASD, so as long as you simply know you have it, what your tendencies are and the like, it makes life easier without everyone telling you you're strange and weird and wondering why.

I agree. I think the best "treatment" is just awareness really, and learning coping methods. So in a way, the diagnosis itself is treatment.