Hi I am new and have so many questions

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Hi everyone. I am new here and feel a little nervous. I am 57 and have never been diagnosed, though TBH I have been wondering if Apergers is my issue for a while. But it was when my husband recently asked me if this sounded like me that I really started thinking hard about it.

My first question is ... is there a benefit to getting a diagnosis. And if so how hard is it. I have taken an online quiz posted somewhere on this site and come out 37 out of 50, and much of what I have read resonates (a lot). But I am mostly functioning ok. Most people don't suspect (I think?) though some have hinted around. Maybe I am not passing as well as I think, lol.

But I have always had a job, have had the same job 19 years, I have a PhD, a fancy title and a staff, and keep my s**t together most of the time, etc mostly through the use of extreme spreadsheet & extreme Evernote.

So I think a shrink will look at me and ask what exactly is the problem here? So I would answer, I have meltdowns in airports. Which happens like once or twice a year. Or like in heavy city traffic on my way to jury duty, which happened the day my husband asked me if maybe I should look into this Aspergers thing. And a shrink would say, that is an anxiety disorder. Maybe I have that too.

The other issue is a lifelong feeling that I am - seriously no joke given the name of this board - on the wrong planet, trying hard to figure out what normal people do and then fake it hard. It is hard work and I am tired. I have been conscious of this at least since I was in fourth grade.

But will a diagnosis help with all of that? What exactly is the benefit of therapy? Will it help? And I have heard that getting an adult diagnosis is near impossible, so wonder if the frustration is even worth it. Thoughts?

BTW my user name was supposed to be CatieCat but I made a typo. I actually hate riding in or driving cars ...

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

There are an assortment of folks with PhDs and other such degrees here — this is a thread where the topic comes up from time to time:

viewtopic.php?t=200144

Hi and welcome CatieCat ! I guess you have to ask yourself "Do I need one, to clear up any uncertainties? Will it improve or enhance my life by providing any services that might be of benefit?" Many go undiagnosed throughout life, some, like yourself get through, flying under the radar most of the time, albeit taking its toll at times on health. Only you can decide whether you want or need a diagnosis. Well done for being relatively successful, maintaining employment etc. Good to have you with us...

It can be useful to put a name on what you have. You may be at that stage in which an official diagnosis will only confirm what you already know. The name Aspergers isn't that useful in that few people know it well enough to understand how to better interact with you. It means that you have widely varying cognitive abilities and more information is needed to know what you are good at and what you are poor at. I think a lot of people have difficulty dealing with the complexity of autism in someone who can excel at a career.

A diagnosis means you can now take steps to reduce stress. Perhaps avoiding environments or situations that are stressful. When I had a partner it was a major stress relief to just rely on my partner to keep track of making it to appointments. Bright lights or loud noises are common sources of stress. Or you can take steps to reduce stress without a diagnosis.

Many older adults with autism can easily relate to stories and experiences they read online.

Been there, done that.

Welcome to Wrong Planet! You can stay and visit for awhile.

Your first question was "is there a benefit to getting a diagnosis. And if so how hard is it."
From my perspective I didn't see much benefit in undergoing an official diagnosis. I think an official diagnosis may take several days. Also Aspie (those with Aspergers Syndrome, similar to High Functioning Autistics) manifest differently between males and females. Therefore if you seek an official assessment, you might want to be tested by someone who understands the differences. The other factor in making a determinations on being tested is how well you are functioning. It sounds like you are doing well, so maybe an assessment is not as important.

According to your narrative, you experienced a few panic attacks. Aspies experience significantly more stress than the average neurotypical (NT). So much so that it should almost be our middle name. Stress unless it is vented from our body can transform into distress. One form of distress is called panic attacks. I think it is important for every Aspie to become familiar with the science of stress and the process for relieving stress. I will recommend a couple books to help you along in the right direction. This is not a complete answer but a good start.

"In An Unspoken Voice" by Peter A Levine describes how the brain deals with stress.
"The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process" by David Berceli describes one method for venting stress.

The lady who wrote Autism in Heels had several of her kids diagnosed before realizing that she also had autism.

An online quiz is a useful place to start, but if you want an accurate diagnosis you would need to have it done by a professional who understands autism in females.

Thanks all for your answers. I am processing all of this.

Please forgive me for typing a lot below. I'm going to break it into two posts - I can be very verbose, especially in writing.

This post is about the issues I have. The next one will be about whether therapy can help with them.

I know that the quiz isn't a diagnosis. I'm not even 100% sure that Asperger's / high functioning autism is my issue - there is some resonance there, and some things that seem to fit but others don't. I read somewhere that language delays was super-critical in diagnosis, and I didn't have language delay. I actually learned to speak very early, and was reading pretty well at 3 years old. But I did learn to walk late. I'm still pretty physically awkward and drop things more than other people and tend to walk into things.

The biggest issues for me are sensory. I get very quickly flooded when in too-bright, too-loud, or echo-y places, especially when there are a lot of people around. If I could eliminate that one thing, I'd be maybe a little quirky but mostly OK.

I also have visual oddities such as effectively no depth perception. I'm also terrible at things like map reading and get lost a lot - thank goodness for GPS, but even with GPS it is possible to get hopelessly lost. I actually called my husband once from New York City - can't think why I was there on my own, but I totally freaked and couldn't even read the map on my phone - I had to read some street signs to him and he talked me towards the right subway entrance. I felt like a helpless little child, but OTOH I am glad he was there and calm and could help me.

I also tell people that I have poor hearing, but I don't think I really do have poor hearing. But I can't always parse what people are saying and sometimes need to ask them to repeat what they said a couple of times. Sometimes I can't really "get there" until I echo back what they said or at least just mouth the words back. I don't think this actually bothers people and it really doesn't bother me. It doesn't even happen all the time, mostly if I am busy working on something, or if I'm tired.

Linguistically, I tend to be pretty literal. I have family in a different country and they think this is hilarious and just me being American. But Americans think I'm pretty literal too. This really only gets in the way as my husband's sense of humor runs to the dry, and he often says the opposite of what he thinks, as a joke. Sometimes I find this very confusing and I need to take a few minutes to sort out if he means what he is saying or it's a joke. I totally have a sense of humor though! I just will never understand why saying the opposite of what you think is funny to some people.

Speaking of humor, when I was younger a lot of people thought I was hilarious and a bit raunchy as I (very unintentionally) would make double-entendres. A lot of times I had no idea why people were laughing and when somebody explained it to me I was totally embarrassed . This hasn't happened in a while so maybe I've figured out how not to do that, but to be honest I'm not sure about that. Maybe now they just see me as an embarrassing old woman.

Also when I was younger I was very disorganized and would miss deadlines etc. I have since put a LOT of energy into setting up support systems for myself, and they really help me a lot. I feel that in order to stay "on track" I need to do things in the "right order" or I will forget steps. I don't think anybody really notices this, except my husband and daughter, and they're mostly OK with that (occasionally annoyed, and the word "noodge" comes up sometimes, but it's not a huge big deal as far as I can tell).

I'm also terrible at office politics and can't see it when people are getting ready to undercut me. It has happened a lot at work. Somehow I've managed to avoid it and it hasn't destroyed my career, though sometimes I can't understand why not. I've very consciously decided to be "intentionally naive" and just ignore the politics going on around me. So I think I have a reputation for being "nice," which has helped me through some rough spots.

So I am not sure if the above adds up to Asperger's, or sensory issues, or something else. I have another post to do that will ask more about getting a good diagnosis.

Re the benefit of diagnosis - mostly I am OK, unless put into one of those environments that overload me. I really appreciate the differing perspectives on this in your various replies.

I see a couple of potential benefits to diagnosis. One of them is - would medication help? E.g. a SSRI for depression / anxiety - I've heard that this can help with some of the sensory flooding issues. My reaction to those bad /loud/ bright/echo-y places doesn't happen a lot, but OTOH I am generally under more pressure day-to-day than most folks (I think).

Other random thoughts:

Can you ever get to the point where you don't have to sit and think about it when somebody says something confusing, like the opposite of what they mean, as a joke? Does therapy help with that? If it did, that could be a good thing too as over time it wears me down. (I will say that even just writing that down and admitting that I don't understand this type of joke is a bit of a relief.)

Can therapy help you understand it when people are under-cutting you at work - and even defend yourself against it? Can it help you understand why they even do that in the first place?

Can it help you not get lost? Or if you do get lost, not panic (I guess a SSRI could help maybe?).

And then the big one, which is that people said "get somebody who is good at diagnosing Asperger's / HFA in women." That is good advice - but how do you find somebody like that? I've been googling psychiatrists and psychologists in my geographic area (New Jersey) and some of them claim autism as a specialty, but they also indicate their practice is mostly pediatric. I just can't figure out how to tell if somebody is going to be a good match for me.

And once you are sitting in their office - what do you say? Do you say "I think I might have high functioning autism" or do you say "I have the following problems, what do you think I have?" To be clear I've done something like the latter several times in my life and always found the whole thing very frustrating. I got the impression that some psychologists thought "lady, I have patients with real problems, what the heck are you doing here?"

EDIT to add also with psychologists - I am going to admit that I have not always been totally honest with them. I've put a lot of energy into "acting normal" all my life. So I manage to convince shrinks that there's no problem, because I don't tell them the problem. Also I'm a "good student" so I do or at least pretend to do everything they tell me to do, and report back that it worked, even when I didn't do it or it didn't work.

Anyway you all seem like a really cool group of people. Whether I have the same issue or not, I clearly have "something" and just being able to talk about it is very helpful.

Last edited by CatieCar on 20 Dec 2019, 9:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

My (self-)diagnosis is helping me change from the mindset that "I am wrong" to "I am different". I am very successful given I live with near constant anxiety/shame. Now I get to figure out how to help myself to drop the shame and decrease my anxiety. My environment has invalidated me and it's time to validate myself. This is a typical dynamic I recently addressed (similar to yours):

PAST:
Me: "Husband, can you speak up? I can't hear you."
Husband: "I am already."
Me: "Maybe I should get my hearing checked."

CURRENT:
Me: "Husband, can you speak up? There is a lot of background noise and I can't hear you clearly."
Husband: "What background noise; I don't hear anything." (he is facing the noises; I am facing away)
Me: "There is water running and the fans."
Husband: "I don't hear that."
Me: {friendly teasing} "You wouldn't, would you?"
(still insecure about my reality, we get up to look, can see the fans in the back of the store, but don't see any running water, the cashier happens to come over and when I ask he points out that there is water running out of sight behind to the counter)

FUTURE:
Me: "Husband, can you speak up? There is a lot of background noise."
Husband: "Yes, sure."

I'm a highly intelligent person and confident within myself, so it's odd to realize how insecure I am with others when my reality has constantly been invalidated. "Don't worry" --- "sure, if I couldn't see, hear, feel, smell all these things like you don't, I wouldn't!! !" ---- of course the invalidation increases the worry --- now that I can validate it myself, I can better assess the situations rather the worry escalating. My reality is different.

SharonB, that is so helpful and could actually be a couple different conversations in my household.

I can't stand it when somebody tells me "just relax" or "don't worry" because as you say - if I could just turn it off, obviously I would. So them saying that just makes me feel defective for not being able to turn it off.

And I'm always telling my husband to turn off the TV before he talks to me because I can't hear him with it on. The background noise is just too distracting. I think that sensory thing is a huge reason why I can't stand crowds - just too many voices all around. (also if it is very crowded, strangers touching me bothers me.)

So just re-orienting from "I am terrible because I can't stop worrying" I can try "I am different from other people and this situation is very difficult for me. I need help to navigate this."

You don't need an autism diagnosis for SSRIs. Just a diagnosis of general anxiety disorder.

BTDT, so how do you get somebody to prescribe that for you? Just ask my family doctor for it?

And does it actually help?

It helped my partner, once the dose was adjusted properly. I don't recall who prescribed it.

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/anxi ... cation.htm

One of the major differences between Asperger's Disorder and autism is that, by definition, there is no speech delay in Asperger's. In fact, children with Asperger's Disorder frequently have good language skills; they simply use language in different ways.



Most Aspies suffer from an oversensitivity to sensory issues.



Some Aspies experience problems of visual oddities such as a lack of depth perception. Here is a one recent discussion:
Perceptual Abnormalities, Strange Thought Processes Etc.
It may also be related to a reduced field of view for those with Aspergers. See
Field Of View ?
As far as your comment on the fact that you were in NYC and couldn't remember why you were there. I suspect it is a problem with short term memory. I suffer from the same thing.



Many Aspies including myself have difficulty hearing and understanding people in a noisy environment, especially when many different people are talking at once.



Some of the traits of Aspies are:
* inability to deceive or to understand deception
* does not understand the use of gestures or sarcasm (may not understand the subtleties of language, such as irony and humor)



Some of the other traits for Aspies are:
* obsessed with order (an innate need to make order out of apparent chaos)
* have rigid routines, may prefer sameness and have difficulties with transitions or changes
* many also have problems with executive function