Extra, extra! Greentea going for diagnosis! (of all people!)

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Nice work......I've typed quite a lot of notes too. My problem is identifying the most important and relevent bits - experience has taught me that nobody ever reads everything I've typed, if it's long (except possibly here on Wrong Planet where a lot of people get the chance to look at it). Even so, I find it invaluable for clarifying stuff in my own head and getting me ready to answer questions.

For me I think one of the hardest things will be not coming over as if I know for absolute certain that I do have AS......there's just so much evidence for it now, yet I think diagnosticians often hate it when the client already seems to have self-DXed. I suppose it threatens their sense of vocational identity.

I was afraid of that too, so I told her that I "suspect" it may be AS.

I hate writing long, but I think in this case it's important as a document, because it can act as written evidence - i.e. even if she doesn't read it all, I can later refer her to the text and show her that I have that problem, rather than suddenly come up with new symptoms during the sessions. I couldn't believe I wrote so much, but I tried to shorten it and I'd be leaving out important info that later I may be told "well, you never mentioned having any problem in that area."

I even divided the document in sections according to life stages: infancy as per parents' feedback - childhood - adolescence - youth - present. Because I realized the way the symptoms manifest themselves is very different in each life stage, according to what is expected as "normal" for each stage. So if I put all the symptoms together, it'd be confusing, like symptoms contradicting each other, for example.

Yes that makes sense to me. I'd tend to feel kind of unconvincing if I suddenly came up with "new evidence" later on, as if I were fudging somehow. And when I feel unconvincing, I think I start acting unconvincing as well, even when I'm telling the truth.

Interesting, now that you mention it, that happens to me too. The more I'm being questioned, the less convincing I sound, even if I'm telling the truth.

^ that is because we do not understand why disbelief and dishonesty would be attributed to us.
I get defensive and flustered and clam up and don't undertand.

An example of this: I interviewed last week for a job I wanted very much and they wanted me very much. We were all happy and looking forward to my starting to work immediately. Then they sent me to their HR for the usual "police interrogation" and I failed it miserably. I am left without a job and they without a wonderful employee. If I don't get social security, I'll die in the streets.

Is this something that's frequently happens to people with AS? I've had a HUGE problem with that recently.

Yes, Greentea, that's the kind of thing that can easily happen to me. If I start to feel my audience doesn't believe what I'm saying, it's as if my reality becomes what they're thinking, and I start to believe them ......I've sometimes wondered if I may have an overblown sense of guilt that's deeply unconscious - it feels like deepdown I'm primed and ready to judge myself and to agree wholeheartedly with the idea that I'm a liar.

It's possible that it's something my mother managed to infuse me with - she very rarely gave me the benefit of the doubt, and would frequently tell me she was "up to my tricks," very much the kind of stance that a policeman might take in an interrogation, trying to sap the suspect's feeling of credibility just in case they're making it up, so that if they do happen to be lying, they're more likely to crack.

And I suppose if a kid is told over and over that they're dishonest, they would start to internalise the idea, and it might come back to bite them in later life, without them ever knowing what was going on. But it's hard to know, and I find it very difficult to think about coherently, which I gather happens when trying to look at something buried in the unconscious.

If I see the situation coming, I often find I can steel myself against it, and then I can get quite resolute.

That paragraph could so totally have come out my mouth.. or fingers, as the case may be.. I had the hugest attention problems my whole life, and a few years ago finally got onto medication, and then recently a doctor started telling me he didn't think I was ADD and may as well be getting it on the street.. I was up nights crying that if I"m not ADD I must be stupid, asking everyone I know if I'm just an addict... (anyone who knows me said that that's total crap..)

That's a good question - it wouldn't be the first time that I'd had a psychoanalytical-type explanation for one of my traits and then an AS brain-wiring explanation turned out to be at least as plausible, if not more so.

I've started a new thread about it, to see whether we can get a handle on what's going on:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp2247107.html#2247107

I know that in my case, the environment and especially my parents always invalidated my truths, and that made me suspicious of my perception of truth as well. Therapies helped very much with this, but not 100%...

I guess both upbringing factors and AS brain-wiring could operate at the same time.....then of course there's the listener's integrity/maturity, or lack of it. If all three happen together, it's probably not surprising we get a problem.

Yes, it's partly due to AS, because the reason most my perceptions were always so invalidated is that they were "king is nude" kind of utterances that validating them would've caused the dysfunction to show under the appearance of normality - in family, in education, in laws, in a corporation, etc.

Lets hope so

Ah, the Emperor's New Clothes thing.....it's strange how popular that story is, considering how people who try to blow the whistle in real life usually don't get listened to.

Yes, people do pay lip service to stories and art in general, while quickly ignoring their teachings.