Self diagnosis of Aspergers

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Well, I came here to:

1. Give Support
2. Hopefully get support
3. Get to know myself better.
4. See what other AS people are like, etc... I have been told I am very unique. If I found myself in a room where I DIDN'T feel so unique, it would be HEAVEN. Besides, you figure that, if the emotions and senses are the same, maybe the people will have the same understanding and ethics. That would make finding friends, and possibly more, easier.

It's not like I am going to make money, or have fame because of this. If I had something else, and not aspergers, I certainly still would have the understanding of all the problems, because I have nearly every one. So it isn't like the deaf community where some have a chance to develop language etc...

BTW I WISH autism had a better history. Then again, I was once given a corvette. When my mother called to get a quote, the insurance company actually LAUGHED! They called OTHERS over to laugh! A teenage boy trying to get insurance for a corvette! So they even discriminated against me when I was a teenager, and for being male.

I guess, like Alex tried to do, you have to get reputable and successful asperger examples to backup the case that autism doesn't have to be bad.

Oh well, if nothing else, I am going to start to look at this whole thing through new eyes.

BTW I had a coworker that I RESPECT mentally. He has the same sort of attitude, etc... that I have, and has GOT to have an IQ around 150+. He also has the same kind of modest arrogance(if that makes sense) that I once showed. He is also about my age and single.(Though he DOES have a larger immediate family than I do, and is interested in sports, so he should have an easier go of it). It makes me wonder if HE isn't AS also! I noticed the similarities before but NEVER dreamed they were associated with a syndrome. Then again, I haven't noticed any evidence of a skewed perception either.

Steve

what happened to the 'vette? What year was it? And waht do you mean, someone gave it to you?

It was 1977(as I recall)! My FATHER gave it to me! He sold it! 8-(

Steve

Kewl, I wish my dad had given me a corvette. Then again I only got my license when I was 20... so it would have been no use to me as a teenager.

Sorry, I meant what year was the car?

I don't understand why anyone would have a problem with someone who is self-diagnosed. It's not like I wanted to be socially inept and unable to interpret facial expressions and body language...

I self diagnosed myself with autism when I was 21 way back in 1974 by reading Rimland's book on infantile autism, but my mother had informed me since I had aready had a diagnosis of autism back in 1961 when I was eight. So that was the reason for all those visits to those people in white coats.

Paul

My mother just though she would break to me gently and say "you may have what Einstein and the great Bill Gates had it and is a form of autism they call Aspergers" I had never heard of the word so I quickly did some research on the internet and I realized I had it except that I had serious speech delay. She then informed that I was in fact autistic and I was diagnosed when I was 8.

I had begun to suspect I might have Aspergian tendencies since first reading about the syndrome and viewing various documentaries; and before I discussed the subject with others.

My wife was watching a TV documentary about Asperger's in a separate room one evening and sudenly yelled to me "come here quick, Jim; this is YOU"; (or words to that effect)

I think I laughed and replied that I was all too aware.

Should we be cautious of making a self-diagnosis? Yes, I think so. Especially for disorders in the current media.

But IMHO, a self-diagnosis is better than no diagnosis at all! No individual needs to be told that he or she feels different from others in a way that is often painful and difficult.

I have not been "officially" diagnosed. On the other hand, therapists have mostly agreed with my own.

Jim

DrowningMedusa,

Yeah, that is one of the things that is a bit less aspergers in me. I don't take things quite so literally. I used to. When you said "what year was it?", I assumed you mean't the car I would have gotten it in like 1979. Now that I think about it, the car must have been older. As I have aluded to here before, I used to basically have full details but now I judge time based on certain related events.

Oh well, it was one o the older corvetes. Back then, there was no metal skeleton like they have today, so it was potentially more dangerous.

Steve

I wonder sometimes if I'm faking it. I don't even post here for that reason. Before I found about aspergers everyone thought I had OCD. It runs on my father's side of the family, although now it seems it's just autistic traits.

I never seemed to be like the OCD cases on tv. It's more routine, I eat the same foods from day to day until I finally want something else, then I eat that food for a month. It causes slight vitamin deficiency sometimes, I do it anyway. I almost always wear blue clothing.

I've always had strong interests but how do I it's aspergers? My current interest is music, I stopped going to college so I can spend all day playing music. Is that really unusual? Or does memorizing birth dates, death dates, and album release dates make it unusual?

I'm not very socially aware, but is it by default or because I'm not interested in it? I know I went off- subject but it's been on my mind.

I knew very early in my life that I was not like anyone else. I had problems difficulties, anguishes, guilt feelings, depressions. I realized I could not cope with life effectively. My mother also said I was “special”. But she was “special” herself. And “special” was my father. The only key to understand these problems at that time, was psychoanalysis. So, at least was the prevailing atmosphere in my cultural world. So I spent years in reading Freud and his followers and exegetes. Time and efforts horribly wasted. I begun to see some light when I met ethology, Lorenz, Bowlby, Steven Pinker and modularity . Then finally and decisively I met cognitivism and evolutionary psychology. There may be revisions and further progress in understanding the soul. But now that I am retired from work, after a life of failures, loneliness and misplaced efforts, should I submit to a formal DX? Nonsense! I know that my problem is a kind of dyslexia in interacting with others. There is no AS fad where I live. People don’t even know what AS is. Not even psychiatrists.

I'm not sure if I have AS (fit most of the diagnostic criteria, but am currently seeing a psych (strictly) for my OCD)

However, I agree.

I'll probably get back to you on this one.

Right now I’m self diagnosed and I am seeing someone for an official diagnosis in the beginning of December. I doing this to help understand myself better. My mother has admitted to me that I was diagnosed with a high functioning autism when I was youg, but this was back in 1976 in the US. If we had still been in Germany, perhaps I would had been diagnosed as an Aspie then, but we did live on a US military base. I think I function very well in society and I am wanting to use this to help me in my relationship issues with my wife and social issues I struggle with on dealing with customers for a family business that I run that was started by my stepfather who now has Parkinson’s.
My wife keeps telling me not to call myself an Aspie until the final diagnoses, yet she will keep referring to issues with my Aspie mind and has helped her understand me in our relationship. One example is she could never understand why I couldn’t take hints or read between the lines. Now she is starting to understand and she is starting to believe that I am indeed an Aspie.

-Scott