Is my diagnosis still valid?

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Hi, my name is Blaine and this is my first post on this forum ^.^
I asked a question on yahoo answers and was referred here, so I've been looking around and I like the site
Anyway, I have a question. While visiting home, I found this old report of a study that was done on me when i was around 5 years old. Through several tests done on me, they decided that I have asperger's syndrome. However, when my parents read the report, they decided that the basis of the diagnosis was not AS but just my personality traits, so they disregarded the diagnosis and never told me about it.
As i grew up, i started dealing with some problems like depression and other problems, so i searched around on the internet for something like my symptoms. Because of social anxiety, i was too scared to go to a psychiatrist or anything, so i basically decided that it was something along the lines of Borderline Personality Disorder. That is, until i found out about the study done on me.
The more I read on AS, the more it seems to fit into my personality and life. Not to mention, having a name for my differences from others is beyond comforting. The question is, should i go with the diagnosis I was given as a child? I seem to be the only one in my family who thinks its correct. However, my parents were never the type to talk to me about my feelings so it's not like they would know.

Any opinions are appreciated

Well, it's not as simple a question as it seems. There are basically two approaches to it. The more scientific one is that if someone has an ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder, AS is part of it), it will always be there, there's no cure, only the symptoms can be treated (hopefully effectively).

The other approach is a more pragmatic one. It says that if you don't show the symptoms any more (or show only to a much lesser degree), you can't qualify for a diagnosis, even if your neurology is that of someone who shows enough symptoms for a particular diagnosis.

Both approaches are in practice. For example, I was diagnosed at age 38, and since I don't show the symptoms strong enough I was given the diagnosis of PDD-NOS. There is a "political" reasoning behind it, even for professionals it's hard to accept that someone with a diagnosis of autism can be quite high functioning. It's something that they find difficult to imagine. So, if I would meet a professional other than those who have diagnosed me, it would be more helpful if they saw a "milder" diagnosis, it's more in line with what they would think reading the diagnosis, seeing me, and comparing it to their practice (and stereotypes in their mind...).

Yes, I think that your diagnosis is perfectly valid, just as valid as any adulthood diagnosis or any childhood diagnosis of anyone who grew up knowing about ASD.

It is much easier to diagnose developmental disabilities when you are young--as you get older it gets harder to differentiate from other disorders. Many psychological issues don't appear until early adulthood. Plus, key details, such as input from the parents, gets harder to verify as you get older.

So yes, I'd say it makes a lot of sense to accept that diagnosis if it still fits.

Thanks for the replies, I think I'm going to accept the diagnosis even if just for personal reasons.
It makes me wonder if i would have acted differently growing up knowing that. Maybe i would have been more shy, or maybe the opposite. who knows
Anyway. thanks.

I grew up without knowing that I have Aspergers and I was proud after any progress in learning social skills. I intuitively knew that something is different, but couldn't name it.

I was diagnosed with autism as a kid and my parents never told me about it when I was a kid. My geegaw didn't tell me until I was much older. I can remember being very confused and not talking much in preschool, Kingergarten and 1st grade but as in the rural school I went to, we had the same 30 classmates from Kindergarten until 8th grade, I was pretty much able to start coming out of my "shell" so to speak by the time 2nd grade hit. Apparently though they weren't going to let me into Kindergarten until my mom (who is a raging redhead lol) fought and insisted that I could do it. Then right after I graduated and left my shelter of friends I became more aware of my differences which led to a brain scan and some further tests which the psychiatrist confirmed was aspergers but also a bevy of other symptoms lik ADD, bipolar, OCD, etc...(this was without the information my Geegaw or parents gave him about my childhood). So when I finally got that information and information about other family members who were already diagnosed with it I put two and two together. I guess it's just from a time when it was a really embarassing and life threatening diagnosis to a lot of parents that they'd rather keep it secret than deal with the stress or pressure of revealing. Same gose with me today though. Despite the improvements in the world for classic autistic people, I am still very apprehensive to reveal to anyone, even doctors about my family history. I don't know why. I guess I have this strange worry that I will be experimented on (as my aunt was) or viewed as "less than" in some way/differently.....hmm, needless to say I think that those of us diagnosed as kids (despite our external appearances these days) are most likely to be classically autistic. Also I find it weird you were diagnosed with aspergers since i think it is a relatively new diagnosis anyway. I do find it strange that many people say they showed no signs as children but then "developed' autism later. I dunno.......either way, it seems there's no real basis for comparison these days for most psychological "disorders" aside from what you say you are. As a kid, I didn't really speak so that's the label they dropped on me. In fact, I just turned out to be for the large part really shy although yes I didn't understand lagnuages well. And most psychologists have never had any real eperience with real autistic people. So they just read a list and pretend to know bc that's what they get paid to do. It's sad, really. Nor do they understand the coexisting physiological conditions. Which is why I highl recommend finding a doctor who has had personal experience with autism in his family to actually know....and luckily I just found a doctor like that. And it seems he's much more interested in the labs and tests with an actual basis for comparison than many others......which makes him at least a little more scientific than most in what sadly is an extremely unscientific world.