need advice from a professional, or an experienced aspie.

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Hi. I'm Rob and I'm 17 years old. I got diagnosed with asperger syndrome when i was 14, because I got kicked out of school. I had lots of problem socially, behaviour wise etc. However, now I have no problems what so ever, I involve myself in a lot of different situations, and I am able to function easily in pretty much all of them. The point of this post, is to find out if I really do have AS. Is it possible that, because of living with my mother (also AS) all my life, I could of accepted her ways, and copied her etc, but now I am getting older and more independant and don't copy her ways anymore, I am finding it easy? I admit I still have problems in some situations, for example, if I am trying to get to something and something is distracting me, I will forget what I am saying to them completely, it could even be abuse to try and make them go away, when really they aren't trying to act aggressively towards me, like when I am in bed and haven't planned to get up for another few hours and someone wakes me up. (This seems to be getting better though) Anyway back to the point, is it possible that I never had AS in the first place? Or is it possibly, that perhaps, I have found a way to live with it in a neurotypical world?
Rob.

There is a VERY long discussion begun by a person asking much the same question earlier this month. The writer details numerous "symptoms" of aspergers that they exhibit along with numerous other that they don't.

My suggestion is that you read through as much of it as you can, as I say it's very long, and see how much of it relates to you. That should answer most of your questions.

the discussion can be found under

The AS checklist - Do I really have it? (warning:a bit long)

Actually, I think you do have AS. That's nothing to be ashamed of. You're smart, you just have social difficulties.

It is quite common for Aspergers people to learn enough social (and other) skills to compensate for their aspieness. Where you find that it will show most likely is when you're under a lot of stress and get frustrated. Like several important people (ie bosses) asking you to do conflicting or impossible things right now, and not giving you any time to think what you should be doing.

Do you feel like you think fundamentally differently now than you did several years ago when you had more problems? Or do you think you still think the same way, but you've learnt more and better ways of dealing with various situations as they happen?

Do you think at some time in the future, being woken up at the wrong time won't bug you anymore? Actually I think that bugs everyone.

I think it's more likely you've learnt to live with it, and maybe you have it less intensely than some other people on the spectrum or your mother. If you do find yourself isolated from people for an extended period of time and don't practice what you've learnt, you may find you forget what you learnt or become rusty in the doing. I don't think aspergers goes away.

Stress and anxiety can influence your ability to cope and handle a variety of situations. So, it is certainly not impossible to greatly improve your social skills when you feel more in control and more independent. Just like there is something called learned helplessness that can effect people in a number of situations too - where you just expect to fail or be unable to do something. Although, just because a person can NOT do something (like tolerate sensory unfriendly places) does not mean that they have learned to be helpless or learn to fail - that is just reality for some.

I think you have Aspergers, much not so much as your mom.

but i dont have social difficulties, even less than all my m8s that are completely neurotypical! thats the point im making.

rob- someone from the nhs hasnt been putting all this in your mind have they? because if they have they're only doing it to save money. when i was growing up in lincoln they tried to blame it on my mother too

It might also be that you have learned a lot about coping by osmosis. I was 4 when I was diagnosed and I was well, anti-social. I have two cousins who have AS who were being home-schooled, and my Aunt offered to take me, too. I learned a lot of coping behaviours unconsiously from watching my two older cousins. My doctor had reccommended a psychologist for me, and when I was about 10 he asked my mum what treatment model we were using to deal with the anti-social behavior, and she was like "nothing. Her counselor works with her emotional issues, but she never had any special socialization training."

My point is, you may have learned to cope already, so try not to let it bother you. It sounds like your life is well under control so just relax and enjoy life.

I assume you received counselling after your diagnosis? Also, was your mother also formally diagnosed?

I also think that you have learnt better coping techniques over the years, and it sounds like your difficulties have been lessened.

Also, people do tend to change over the years. You weren't the same person three years ago, and it would be unrealistic to expect that you would be.

I guess if you really want to find out for sure whether you are AS, you could ask for a re-evaluation.

The behavioral symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome can improve over time. My behavioral symptoms have improved a lot since I was younger. I was diagnosed when I was 2 years old.

Well I'm not sure what the people who're saying you have AS are basing it on. Poor social skills alone are certainly not enough for a diagnosis of AS. It's like concluding that a person who coughs has tuberculosis. There's a bunch of other things which are considered to be part of the parcel of AS, plus the nature of your social difficulties is also important in determining whether you have AS or not.

If I were you I would go look at some of the many websites on AS out there. Here is one link you might find useful to start you off: http://www.mugsy.org/wing2.htm Keep in mind that some of the people described in the case studies probably have more AS-related difficulty than might be typical, since they are people who have been referred to psychiatric services.

Finally, if you are really not having any troubles as you say then I would simply tell you to leave and forget about this thing you heard about called AS. A diagnosis of AS is only useful if it can be used to help someone. If you don't need help then the diagnosis is completely useless to you.