Self-diagnosis

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invisiblesilent
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19 Aug 2012, 1:34 pm

Wandering_Stranger wrote:

Yes. Unfortunately for me, as soon as I mentioned to someone who is meant to be helping me back to work that I have Autism, she decided I didn't (nice to see she knows more than my psychiatrist :roll:

) and decided to make my life hell. Complaining to her line manager did nothing and the line manager took her side.

Jobcentreplus by any chance? Hate those "people" so much. If I ever finally crack and decide to go postal then they are my target. When I'm done it will be called "going jobcentre". (JOKE)

Wandering_Stranger
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19 Aug 2012, 1:43 pm

No. The job centre are aware (it was a work programme provider - their description is something about helping disabled people back into work) of my situation and aren't happy. I had to ask the job centre to ask these people to stop contacting me; as I'd been signed off sick because of this provider.

Bubbles137
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19 Aug 2012, 2:02 pm

Canaspie wrote:

Wow, I guess I'm not the only one on here trying to train to become a teacher. Like you, I have also begun my training without support, since I'm self-diagnosed and haven't told anyone.

Like you, I definitely found the planning/marking side of it easy enough, but there were definitely some difficulties in terms of delivery. More so than support, I think the main component is practice - as I've taught more and more, it's become more and more comfortable getting up there.

Also, not sure how this works/would work for me, but I found it was also helpful to adjust my teaching style to emphasize my strengths. I find it much easier to work with students one-on-one or in small groups, so I've been setting up my classes to just include a short lesson that's delivered the whole class, with the focus more on the students completing activities to help them learn, and providing assistance to students as needed during the activity. It seems to work more effectively, as it's more suited to my strengths and abilities. And when, I am at the front of the class, I try as much as I can to break it up into small segments of me talking, then giving them something to do.

(Not trying to tell you what to do, just passing on what has seemed to work for me)

Thanks for the advice. My problem was that it didn't even get as far as getting the lesson going- I'd lost the kids within a couple of minutes then the noise level would go up and I couldn't get it back down, then I'd start to panic and couldn't see straight to see which kids were making the most noise. I'm OK with one-to-one and group work (I've been helping in a school for the last five years) but find whole class work really hard but want to learn; I love working in school and the structure/routine aspect is great. Are you still training or have you qualified? I had to withdraw from teacher training last year which is why i'm a bit nervous about applying to do it again.

Sweetleaf
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19 Aug 2012, 2:12 pm

Ok 2 things:
1. Not everyone can afford to go see a specialist and/or there may be limited availability of such specialists.
2. If you read of a disorder and can relate to having all the symptoms and such, then I think it would be more delusional to assume there is no possible way you have that disorder....then to think based on that, that you have the disorder or are very likely to have the disorder. I mean it would take a pretty delusional mindset to read of a symptom you have and then convince yourself you never have that symptom.

and that's all I have to say on the matter for now.

_________________
Tis the time to melt the Ice.

SHEILD
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19 Aug 2012, 2:13 pm

chiastic_slide wrote:

SHEILD wrote:

Personally, I don't think it's very healthy to go around diagnosing yourself with things. Even doctors will go to another doctor to get themselves a proper diagnosis instead of just saying 'I must have ___.'
There are all kinds of things that look like autism on the surface but really aren't -like Non-verbal learning disabilities, fragile X and even social anxiety disorders.

It's also kind of rude to walk into a group of people who actually have autism (or some other diagnosis) and say that you have autism too without really knowing if you do. I understand it takes a long time to get a diagnosis (took me 14 years), I know there are not enough qualified docs, but really it's inconsiderate to just read some stuff on the net or pick up a few books and then walk in and talk like you know what our lives are like. You wouldn’t walk into an AA meeting and say you’re an alcoholic –why would you walk up to a group of autistic people and say you were? How is that okay?

You're not a doctor. I am not a doctor. If you think you have autism, go see one and get a referral -fight for it, just like we had to. And know that when and if you get a diagnosis it will change you and you will have to live with it for the rest of your life. This is your health we're talking about.

It depends on the extent of your faith in the psychiatric system to get it 'right' and not perceive everything through the lens of their particular speciality or rule things out through misassumptions. If a diagnosis is what you need for support or for reassurance then it is obviously worth having, but that doesn't mean doctors are infallible. It is equally bad for your health to be professionally misdiagnosed, I know this from personal experience of being medicated for a disorder I did not have, and then being told medication side-effects were part of 'anxiety'. Personally I have little to gain from a 'proper' diagnosis, so I would rather take what non-autism specialists have observed about me, analysis of my childhood that also fits the picture and my ongoing extensively research with a dash of uncertainty and live with that. Granted I may be wrong, but please don't assume I have no problems just because I don't have the official piece of paper or that I am here to mock the 'real' autistics or attention seek. To my mind this site is about exchanging experiences of living on the wrong planet and learning about AS/autism rather than an exclusive club. I also don't get the AA analogy because AA is in fact welcoming to all - the only requirement is that you wish to stop drinking - you don't have to prove you meet some preordained standard of alcoholism or have a doctor's referral - even if you only had two pints every Saturday night you would be still considered to have an alcohol problem if you wanted to stop but couldn't. If you are implying that people would pretend to be alcoholic for the attention I think people would generally have better things to do with their time and it would be a fairly pointless endeavour seeing as anonymity rules apply. AS is obviously very different, but for the most part I think if the motivation was solely to gain attention there are far easier and more effective ways.

Misdiagnosis suck and it's a definite downside to the medical system -I had plenty of missed opportunities to get diagnosed because at the time asperger's syndrome was not a diagnosis to be had, let alone had by a girl. I'm not sure I understand why you think you don't have anything to gain from a proper diagnosis -without one you're not entitled to help from the government -a disability pension -or even help in school which I have found to be invaluable. Also, with a diagnosis things stopped being my fault –people stopped blaming me for things I couldn't control.

Canaspie
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19 Aug 2012, 6:35 pm

Bubbles137 wrote:

Canaspie wrote:

I'm in a concurrent program, so the training's spread out over a few years - I have one year left to go.

I too have had my issues with noise level rising. For me, it truly has been a case of doing my best to make sure the noise level doesn't get too out of hand in the first place. It's also necessary to try to train yourself not too panic in those situations (this is an area where some form of support could be quite valuable). And if you do start to panic, calm yourself down,THEN act. I've found that acting before I calm myself down has only made things worse. Also, on days your in the school, try to get some time during the day where you can have some space. I didn't get that in the first school I was in, and I just got more and more stressed. It really helped me out getting that during my second teaching placement.

I can't tell you whether or not you should re-apply - that's a personal decision - what I can tell you is that it is do-able, but it is very, very tough. These are all things that I continue to battle every time I'm in a school. Remember also that every student teacher I know struggled at least a bit with classroom management - it's not just an Aspie thing, and it's something everyone goes through (NT's just tend to be better equipped to respond to some of the issues).

Last thing, if you decide this is not for you, there are other options still in the educational field. Things like being an educational assistant or a professional tutor (these are options I haven't fully eliminated myself). But ultimately it comes down to whether the end result is worth the work put in. For me, it has been a lot of work, and I still have a lot of work to do. But having a positive impact - and having students thank me for it - is a terrific feeling, and that has made it worth it for me. I probably wouldn't have entered teacher's college if I had any idea I had Asperger's at the time - but now I'm thankful that I did.

EDIT: Looking at that wall of text, maybe we should move to PM if there's anything else you'd like to discuss? We may be going off-topic a bit in here

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