Anybody take a long time to conclude you had ASD?

Post Reply New Topic

A lot of people say when they first learned about the autism spectrum they instantly recognised themselves and it all suddenly made sense. This was my experience of learning about ADHD-PI, which I'm diagnosed with. The DSM-IV was fairly obviously describing me with that one. But with autism, although I've known I've had some of the traits for years now, I've only very recently decided that I almostly definitely meet the DSM-IV criteria for AS. I think the two main reasons are that I found the criteria extremely hard to understand and couldn't think of specific examples of what they meant, whereas the ADHD criteria are mostly straightforward, and that I don't have the same high proportion of symptoms of AS as I do of ADHD. Also significant is that I'd long psycho-analysed my social and mental health problems before knowing about autism, and had come up with reassuring explanations for most of the social problems and behavioural quirks that I'd been through. The notion that poor social skills were responsible for my mental ill health rather than the other way round demanded a drastic perspective shift that I wasn't ready for. Finally, good old fashioned poor self-awareness and the fact that when you're not a child, people give precious little honest feedback about how you're doing in social situations unless they see you as a threat in some way, meant I've been over-estimating my ability to blend in for some time. Does anyone else have similar experiences, or were there other reasons why you took a while to feel sure?

It took me three years to accept it.

Over the years I knew I had a few habits/behaviors that could be considered autistic but I didn't think I was. When I read the DSM criteria I couldn't make sense of them - of "stereotyped" anything, and so on. When I read descriptions of what it was like to be autistic written by autistic people, it made sense immediately, but I didn't know how to deal with it. So, I spent three years ignoring it until it became impossible to ignore again.

So it did take me time because I didn't know how to deal with it.

Last January, at a conference for my job, we had to do a career workshop and part of it was the Myers-Briggs test. My only real expoosure to autism symptoms was what I researching in regards to my daughter, who hadn't yet been diagnosed. I'n my Myers Brigg analysis I came up INTP - the only one in the hundred or so people there. That was my first dim lightbulbs moment becasue I did see some of my daughter in those comments... but they were all just 'personality traits' for me. I think the most poignant line in the whole thing was the likening to Albert Einstein. I was well aware of the Asperger's assumptions about him. I was focused on my daughter so i tucked that away in the back of my mind for later analysis.

In that same conference, I had to give a presentation. I thought I had done well. After we returned, my boss called me to tell me how awkward I was, staring at one particular person in an accusitory manner and how embarassed she was for me and that I needed to call this women immediately to apologise. I was flabbergasted and had no clue what the hell she was talking about. No one talked to me while we were there - no one made any sort of comment to me at all. I promptly did as she asked even though i had no idea why I was apologising...

In hindsight, those sorts of occurances were much much more common than I realized. All along I had been doing the same. Working on my shortcomings. Thinknig I was improving and was just like everyone else. It's been pointed out to me how I'm NOT like everyone else over and over and I just couldn't see HOW I was different. I sure as hell didn't realize people thought so much differently than I did. I'm the arty creative type and I knew that made me different than everyone else but i can see now that my thinknig is pervasively different than the rest of the worlds.

It was a relief and a kick in the gut all in one.

I had a feeling that I might have a kind of autistic thing going on long ago. More recently I skimmed over some AS information and became uncomfortable and left it alone. Months, or maybe a year later, I looked into it again and realized there was likely something to it. The more I looked the more obvious it seemed. At some point I realized I couldn't escape the belief that I had it.

Recently I learned there is a diagnosed case in my family on the side i suspected carries it.

I didn't even get that experience, until I read about undiagnosed girls with mild AS, who meet the criteria but not in stereotypical ways. I recognised myself instantly in those descriptions.

Not me but during school people thought I was different, but I was too social to have aspergers they thought.

I had never heard about it before till we had semestral work on the theme in psychology class. When I had read the book I underestood why me, and most of my family in fact, cannot function normally. I had tried to talk about it with mother, for I needed a help, but she (not very educated or cultured lady) unfortunately took it as an offence, that I sugest she had not been able to produce up to standard offsprings. So I´ve always had to put on brave face, because my parentes were weaker than me.

It is tireing though. Still looking for specialist who´d be able to provide me with some answers and real help without testing his new favourite medicine he´ve just read about on me.

My brother told me after he had been diagnosed with Aspergers, that I should have a look at a table with female AS-symptoms. I totally ignored the whole idea and also doubted his dx for about 1 year. I combined being on the spectrum with being mentally restricted, and was convinced that my own issues had developed because of external circumstances, and that my abilities were normal to better than normal. With other words I had no clue what Aspergers was and made my own research apart from every other existing theory.
I understood after ca. 2 years that there is no need to invent the wheel over and over, and I realized that looking into researches about the spectrum filled gaps.

It wasn't something I was familiar with. For a long time I knew something was different about me but I never would have suspected it to be what it was until now. I went through many years of therapy and meds. Nobody knew what was wrong with me or why I had trouble adapting the world around in the same way "normal" people do. I also had depression and was sent from one hospital to the next. It didn't take until my mom and sisters saw a show about aspergers. My therapist had a daughter who had it and after asking some questions, she was also convinced. It was then on I got a professional diagnosis for something that was and still is to some degree unfamiliar with many doctors. It took me some years to accept it. I use to fantasize that I would eventually "get it" and engage the world the way I observed other people do. Now I've come to accept that there are some things I can't change. Through the acceptance of some self defeat, I find myself defeating challenges I never imagined. I'm not as secretive or insecure with my socializations as I use to be. Years ago I would not have been even using social networks or find support from people with similar issues. I was too out of touch with reality and in a lot of denial.

Yeah, I didn't recognize myself in mild descriptions of Asperger's, but I did with others. Amanda Baggs' writings were the first that made it obvious to me. After that, there were a lot of things - like that chart that describes what women with AS are like, and I recognized so many traits. There's other stuff as well.

I have stereotypical traits, but not enough that strictly stereotypical descriptions resonate a lot with me. But people describing how they perceive and experience the world makes a pretty big impact.

I learned I had it when I was 12 but didn't even know what it was. I only assumed what it was. Mom told me I had very little but I thought I didn't or else I wouldn't struggle so much with school work. I thought that's what AS was. I used to forget I had it every time until I was 14. I couldn't understand some of the things I do was AS when to me it was normal. So I started asking her what if I had more what would I be like and I get told things like "You wouldn't be in choir" "You would be hurting peoples feelings and not care." I asked how so and mom told me I might be saying rude things to people like telling them they are fat and not care if they are hurt. Now that I am older I realize my mother may have mixed AS up with a**holes. a**holes don't care if they hurt someone, an aspie isn't aware they hurt someone. An a**hole is aware that something is hurtful or rude or might hurt someone's feelings but they say it anyway, an aspie would not know this so they say it anyway because they do not know. My mom acts like that a**hole behavior is part of AS because she told me they go "too bad" when you have hurt feelings. Uh that's being an a**hole, not AS. About someone with very bad AS not being in choir, BS.

Then when I started to read about it, it made sense but I realized mine wasn't bad at all as I made it out to be. It seemed bad because I struggled but it wasn't bad compared to other aspies who had it worse. Plus their obsessions are more extreme than mine and their hyperfocus on it. I guess they go by how badly the traits effect you to decide if it's mild moderate or severe. When people say they have mild to moderate, I assume they have mild AS but it gets bad at times or they have mild traits and moderate traits. I wonder if there is such thing as mild to severe AS?

I don't have very many stereptypical traits. The only stereotype trait I have is taking phrases literal or getting confused by them. That's all I can think of.

I am not textbook nor a classic case of it or a stereotype unless you want to count video games and computers since I spent lot of time playing them in my teens and I spend too much on the computer.

But I didn't even know AS was a form of autism until I was 15 and asked my parents if I was autistic and they said no. I asked them then why does autism show up when I look up AS and they said it was a form of it. They know it's a spectrum but to them AS and autism are two different things. I thought that for a while too and couldn't understand why aspies were calling themselves autistic if they were not. It was misleading.

Yes, there is a difference. I don't know if this was meant to be a humorous statement, but it made my day! Thank you!

It wasn't but I was serious. I do think she may have gotten those two mixed up.

It took me four years to figure it out for sure.

I became obsessed with the MBTI too, unfortunately. I think a lot of mentally and neurodevelopmentally disabled people have stumbled on that before learning anything about the specific cognitive abilities and disabilities that influence behaviour, hence the apparently high rate of depression, anxiety, underachievement and low self-esteem on those boards.

I usually would score as a "P", but for totally different reasons than other people did. I suffer from a fragile working memory and time-blindness, rendering me incapable of being as organised and punctual as I'd like. Others who score as a P might do so because they experience no anxiety about being late or about disorderliness (which appears to be the assumption in MBTI theory about everyone who scores or identifies as Perceiving), or because they feel compelled to rebel against expectations, or because they've never had a serious ambition or confidence, or a million other reasons.

Having "Perceiving/Judging" as a personality dichotomy is as pointless as having "listens to radio/doesn't listen to radio" as one would be: different people will have completely different underlying reasons and so will have little else in common, including needs. Some don't go on to realise that they have a legally recognised disability that can be accommodated and treated. The MBTI ought to die out for the good of society.

The MBTI was just a fluke for me - a required hoop to jump through in the name of my job. I don't put much creedance into it as any kind of diagnostic guide - and the business guru guy who presented this actually did a pretty good job of pointing out - what I thought was - the obvious. People think differently. People approach problems and challenges differently and they arrive at their solutions differently. I was kind of disturbed that people, in general, found this to be NEW information that they had never considered before.

I'm coming to terms with my memory/ 'time-blindness' / executive function issues. I'm still learning all the coping techniques I've taught myself to overcome these problems through the years. I'm realizing that my issues with time, numbers, and a host of other things may be attributable to dyscalculia. I have several things working against my memory - possibly ADHD and definitely fibromyalgia. I've always claimed that I'm not disorganized - I know where everything I need is despite the mess. I am perfectly capable of 'organizing' myself with a good deal of willpower - I'm actually quite talented in categorizing, system building, and general physical organizational skills - I lack the motivation to do it at home, for myself because I see little need for it. It's a huge task to keep on target when you are trying not to jump from issue to issue and also have no innate sense of time to keep you on schedule. I became the master of last minute fixes. In college I would write all of my term papers the night before - at I found it fairly easy to do that - because I had already thought the entire paper through. The act of writing it out was simply a chore I did not want to do.

So I do find 'Perceiving/Judging' to be a valid dicotomy. One suggests forethought - absorbing all there is to absorb from your surroundings before acting - the other is a static process based on information already known without consideration of new knowledge. While everyone does both, usually one style is more prevalent than the other. The guy who initiated this test was simply presenting it as a tool for employers to better understand the motivations of their employees. He was very clear that it wasn't a disgnostic tool. In fact, I asked about the corrolation of INTP to Asperger's during a break and he adamantly insisted that it was in no way used to diagnose anything. I only found out much later that, in fact, INTP is considered very Aspie. Some articles I've read have even suggested that only Aspies fit this type.

It's interesting - but definitely not the reason I think I'm an Aspie! I can thank Tony Attwoods Asperger's and Girls for that.