Does anyone disagree/reject their diagnosis?

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I know what you mean. I've been thinking on the same lines. One day I think it makes sense, on another I reject it.



This 'pride' thing is not universal. Asperger's is not an elite group. A diagnosis is not a medal. Some people get to accept it and live well... but this pride thing, I don't like it, personally.

In the end, don't worry to much. You got some answers, some explanations. Learn to live with your limitations, which battles are worth fighting etc.

Good luck,
stick around,
peace out.

Sometimes I wonder if I am really on the spectrum. But my husband is positive sure I am on it and says he can tell. But me everything I do is normal and I can't see any difference. I am also not textbook and I am aware everyone with autism is different but lot of times I can't relate but I feel that way with anxiety too and OCD, also can't relate to other people with it, nor to people with ADD but that doesn't mean I don't have them either. But however reading that one blog about hidden autistics helped me feel better because I could relate. I am normal out in public but around my husband I act autistic. He has noticed how I hide in public but at home I am my true self. Sure I still get my moments in public. I even act normal around my parents but I still get my moments around them. Sometimes I realize I am on the spectrum and other times I wonder how am I even on it. But I know I have something. I have known I was different since age three and have been saying at age ten-twelve I wasn't normal and my parents kept telling me I am normal. I wasn't aware I had a disability until I was 15 and I didn't know disability could be invisible. But yet I was in special ed growing up and still was and I never thought I had one. Some people can tell I have one just by how I interact and process things because they know what to look for.

Then seeing online about how people get misdiagnosed with autism and how doctors will purposely misdiagnose it and it makes me wonder what if I am one of those kids who got the false label. Doesn't help at all. but I am one of those people who gets easily paranoid about stuff like I read something and then think oh no what if that happens to me so I go to Europe and keep my purse on my chest because my uncle got me so worried about thieves there and mom telling me there are lot of them there or how I kept worrying about getting a heart attack if I get too stressed out. Then mom had to explain to me I need to have a bad heart for it to happen. Oh yeah I would not move to the north part of town here because I was told it was filled with crime and people always break into your home and car and I did not want to be the victim of theft. Even my parents support my belief by telling my husband they had a house there and they couldn't make any money off it because renters kept moving out due to it being broken into so many times. They had to keep paying for the damage so they just sold the darn home. My husband never kept trying to get me to find a place to rent there and move. Then I find out it's not really true and it's just a legend. Yep so me. Then I worry about what if I am just mislabeled so I could get the help in school or what if my psychiatrist made a mistake about me being on the spectrum. There is also a argument about people not having autism if they "outgrow it" and there have been things about autism I have outgrown. Sometimes I wonder if it's possible to be just slow in developing and then you catch up by the time you're an adult but you were just slower than your peers in developing so it seemed like autism. Plus symptoms over lap and I sometimes wonder what if it's something else, not autism. Plus also how people seem to be redefining the spectrum and changing the definition of OCD and the spectrum regarding the obsessions and routines. Mine has been blamed on both and I have been told OCD was part of autism. I don't even have the stereotypes of OCD and I don't even need to check locks over and over and light switches and I don't have to go up the stairs a certain amount of times and I do step on cracks and not care where I step. Only stereotype I have had about it was excessive hand washing but I got over it when my mother bought me lotion for my hands and told me they were so dried up and cracked because I had been washing them too much. That ended it. I was also obsessed with cleaning too like a typical OCDer but that is also a stereotype of it. Not all of them are neat freaks and so obsessed with cleaning and wanting things perfect.

Or maybe just trust the psychiatrist who specialized in it and accept the label and quit worrying over the what ifs and ignore what I read online because I could mind as well start worrying about what if my parents were one of those parents who went label shopping because I was just a brat instead and they needed me to be special needs so they have an excuse and be told they didn't fail as parents because I have a label now. I don't even obsess about what if I was one of those kids misdiagnosed with ADD. I can wonder all I want but I don't dwell on it. It's just at the back of my mind and I see it as a wonder.

Oh this thread helps me feel a lot better too. Glad to see I am not the only one who questions their own autism and then wants to reject the label.

Yeah, I think I would've hated having a label as a kid. OTOH, maybe it would've lessened some of the bullying that resulted from being unlabelled but detectably weird. And, maybe there would've been some help for depression that went unrecognized/untreated. I find it hard to figure which would've been the better option, though.

As far as being older, there are decades of difficulties with no explanation, and trying to improve, and "do the right thing," but it's not working out the way it's supposed to (i.e. exhaustion that doesn't lessen, etc.), and having weird experiences that other people don't relate to.

...And then one day you get directed to reading stuff that freaks you out because it's like someone followed you around and took notes on your life -- about the stuff that no one you've ever talked to or read or seen in a movie related to. So, it would be a huge relief, I think, to have some real answers, finally.

Regardless of the label, you won't be changing at all.

When I was first diagnosed (a couple months ago) I went back and forth as to whether I agreed with the diagnosis. Part of it was because I didn't follow the "textbook description". Personally, I fit the bill except I don't really stim (at least not in an obvious way) and I don't need sameness, a strict routine, and black and white thinking to feel stable. I still have some cognitive rigidity but this is where my personality trumps the AS.

Anyway, in retrospect, I definitely went/am going through the grieving stages. Sometimes I was in denial. Sometimes I was angry at myself for being a social ret*d. Sometimes I was "bargaining" with God (I'll relinquish my high IQ if I could connect to people. Please???"). Sometimes I felt more lonely than ever, thinking that no one could possibly understand me. Sometimes I wish I had an obvious disability such as blindness or needing a wheelchair so people could see that and help me.

Now I'm to the point that I'm ok with it. But diagnosed or not, there are the same issues to address in my life. I personally would rather keep the label so I can continue researching and finding support. Ever since I've been diagnosed, I've found that I'm not alone. For example, I discovered that one of my old high school friends is a fellow aspie, and I got to talk to a girl (social work major) who was working with autistic/AS adults about my experiences. I wouldn't trade either of those events for the world and I don't think that would have happened if I rejected the diagnosis.

This.

Every bit of this.

I have gone through all those thoughts and feelings abou my diagnosis, too.

I was diagnosed with autism at a young age, and the label didn't help me with bullying one tiny little bit. At the same time, I didn't "hate" having the label as a kid (meaning, while I was a kid) because I was told that I have autism at too young of an age - so I didn't really understand what it meant, and I also didn't understand it was a disability for the longest time. People picked on me because I was very strange, weird, and different. Although my autism diagnosis wasn't known of by all the kids, it was known that I spent a lot of time pulled away from the normal class, with the special ed. people, and that only got me picked on more.

I don't know which I think is better - early diagnosis or later diagnosis. For me, there was a lot of "help" for me as a kid which was more traumatizing than anything. There was some good help, but for the most part it did more harm than good. I got held back many times just because of the label - not in grade levels, but held back from joining honors classes, AP classes, all sorts of stuff. Hopefully this is becoming less of a problem for people with HFA or AS as time goes on.

I saw my psychologist in yoga class today, and she asked how I was feeling about "everything". I told her that I'm still mixed all up.

I don't understand how everyone can have so many different flavors of autism. If one person over here doesn't have sensory issues and this person over there doesn't have physical clumsiness or unusual prosody and yet another person doesn't have obsessions/fixations, what is the commonality they share? Social isolation? OK, but aren't lots of people socially isolated? And even this doesn't seem to be universally shared. Some people here have friends and significant others.

Doesn't everyone feel like a weirdo sometimes? Like their difference is more "different" than other people's? How do I know that my alienation is deeper than someone else's? Maybe other people are simply stronger than I am, less self-absorbed. Why do I need to classify my difference in any particular way? Isn't it enough to just know I am different and just move on?

So I'm all confused again.

Well, that's the thing. ASD doesn't really exist, it's more or less a diagnosis like fibromyalgia, chronic pain, etc. Sure there's pain, but from what? In my case, I have NVLD, nonverbal learning disorder. It makes my verbal IQ really high, but my nonverbal really low, like 130/80split, and it pretty much means my right brain hemisphere is messed up. But, for all intensive purposes, it is Aspergers, as it causes the same issues, but the cause of my Aspergers is NVLD. But, for most people, they cannot pin down the concrete cause in their brain wiring or whatever that is causing their Aspergers.

As far as if you got it or not, it's sorta irrelevant, you can only use it for introspection. There's very little real treatment for an adult with NVLD or Aspergers. So, unless you're going to use the diagnosis to attempt to change your life in some way, ignore it if you don't like it.

The person who needs some kind of help must feel the need, if he/she is an adult, imho. It's often the case with autistics, but it's not a rule.

I think when your difference is too much in specific ways in comparison to others it's no use to hide your traits before you. It's better to accept it and work on it, labels can help in that process. As I see it, after you've learned a good deal about yourself and how specific traits play out in it you can still "move on". The new knowledge you've acquired is now a part of yourself, just like the label.

Perhaps if it's you who finds it out it's better for your ego. You could fly under the radar but allowed to join a quaint community. It simply sounds better.

*sigh*

If your symptoms interfere with your everyday life, you get diagnosed. If they don't, then you shouldn't be diagnosed. That's the line between what is considered "normal" and what is not.

It really is that simple. This pseudo-philosophical "all psychology is subjective" crap need not apply.

For me, "Aspergers" is just an umbrella term that means I'm neurologically divergent from baseline humans in such a fashion that daily existence is a pain.

I've been recently diagnosed with aspergers by my new psychiatrist, and my family members laugh at the idea that I could be autistic. But I have this feeling that I do have it. It would really explain why I was so aloof and strange as a child, and why I have a lot of difficulty fitting in socially (which is not made any easier by my social anxiety). The strange thing is even with my aloofness and my periods of being in my "own little world", I didn't seem to have any trouble making friends as a kid. Now that I am older, making friends and fitting in socially feels impossible. I don't even know how to go about making friends, or what friends even do together. I don't know if I've lost my social skills due to long term isolation, or if I'm just "wired this way". I am really torn between "I must be an aspie" and "Maybe it's just my social anxiety, and I have just lost my social skills". This is a really frustrating place to be, and it's causing me a lot of stress. I wish there was a way to find out for sure whether or not I have it.

I do not disagree/reject it. I do not have to like it and I like my Autism to just go away. but I am what I am and I know I can not help that.



Maybe and or maybe not??

For me I was diagnosed in 1988 at the age of 14. But that one was put under the rug. My parents or I did not know that I was tested for this in 1988. I was having a lot of test for stuff all the time (none stop at times.) as a kid. and was in the custody of the Kansas SRS at that time. So this one some how got by with no one knowing.
But it shows up in 2009 out of the blue. I got 14 out of 16 and you just had to have 8 for a diagnoses.
2009 (Re-evaluated.) diagnoses with Asperger's and a very high IQ. But that test was Deleted.
2010 Retested and Re-evaluated due to errors on the 2009 test and IQ test. And they say I have just Autism and not Asperger's.

So I was diagnosed young age 14 in 1988. But I did not know to 2009 at the age of 35/36.
I may have been diagnosed young but I did not know that I was to I was way older. and I still like to escape it.

Nailed it. If you need help, get diagnosed, but it's not a "real diagnosis" like if you have cancer. You can go to 10 different psychologists can get 10 different diagnoses.

Whether or not you "really" are autistic is a matter of personal identity and it's all shades of gray anyway.

I'm not even sure I need a diagnosis to get help. Maybe it will help if I should ever have to communicate my "issues" with a new professional, though. My therapist will soon retire, and at that time I will need to decide if I should retire from therapy too, or continue with someone else. My psychotherapist has provided excellent supportive therapy, but I have this feeling that I've been an "interesting study" to her this whole time. Someone else might not find me as interesting. I don't know if having an autism diagnosis will help or hurt me in finding a new therapist. But it may be a useful shorthand.

My psychiatrist prescribes drugs to help with individual symptoms, like my racing thoughts. He doesn't seem to care about specific diagnoses, but just treating symptoms. So I'm not thinking his approach is going to change much. He doesn't seem to like my psychologist. He probably will disagree with her conclusion just because it came from her.

As time has gone on I've started to feel less belonging in the Aspie crowd, though as they say, once you're diagnosed it is effectively for life, and whilst my social skills have improved since diagnosis, they'll never be to the average NT level.