Still finding it hard to accept the diagnosis. (Questions.)

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Nowadays my doubts about having Asperger's syndrome aren't as bad and as anxiety inducing as they used to be. Reading the official report the psychologist had written after the assessment and reading about what my parents had mentioned about my childhood really helped with that. However, sometimes my doubts are triggered and I get really worried. It sort of comes and goes in periods and I guess I'm back to doubting. Two things during the last two days have triggered some anxiety about this topic once again:

1. I know you're not supposed to compare yourself to other people but there's this one person in my class who has AS too (which I figured out by observing her when we hung out at university so I wasn't at all surprised when she told me about it several months later) and I unfortunately have a tendency to compare myself to her in terms of "aspieness". Yesterday I, for some reason, was quite hyperactive (both mentally and physically), which resulted in a lot of fidgeting and a lot of talking. One thing you should know about me is that I'm very inconsistent in a lot of things/areas; my social performance is very uneven; I'm on or off; I'm mostly obsessed with things or completely uninterested; I tend to be too quiet or too talkative (there are exceptions) etc. The person in my class who has AS is a pretty quiet person. Sometimes I'm really quiet too (I even go "mute" in certain situations) but at other times, like yesterday, I talk a lot and I even manage to make more eye contact than usual (it's probably still not adequate in those situations but better than most times).

Anyway, in situations like yesterday I start doubting my diagnosis again. I compare myself to the other person in my class (and other people with AS) and think that "no, I can't have AS, I'm too talkative sometimes". Believe me, I know those thoughts aren't rational or based on real facts but I simply don't understand why I'm so uneven or why I function relatively well (and sometimes, though rarely, really well) in social situations sometimes. I know I've made similar posts before but I still can't figure it out and I keep obsessing.

2. I had yet another session with my psychologist the other day and even though I had had a really bad day and had not been talking that much, I got much more quiet when I arrived for our session. Had a hard time talking and explaining things and I think I barely looked the psychologist in the eyes more than twice during the whole hour. Getting even more quiet and withdrawn during my session with the psychologist awakened my worries about maybe exaggerating my problems or imagining them. I started to think that perhaps I don't really need help and that maybe I'm just (unintentionally) playing some sort of "victim role" to get attention.

I'm so frustrated because I'm not exactly sure what I feel and what I need help with (not just now but in general). I only know I'm not doing so good and that life is difficult. Or so I think at least.

Questions: How can I get rid of these doubts and start to fully accept that I'm autistic? How do I know I don't just imagine things and exaggerate them? How do I know I'm not unintentionally faking or lying (which I'd never do on purpose since I'm a very honest person)? Also, is it common for people with AS to be so inconsistent and uneven in certain areas? Hope it's OK I ask these things.

You do not need to accept that you are autistic. Diagnoses are a step towards fixing your problems; they are not identity badges, so you needn't (and shouldn't) look at your diagnosis that way.



Stop thinking so much and just live your life. When the problems creep up on you even though you aren't thinking about them, that serves as an indication that you aren't just imagining things. Even if you never have an ASD-related problem again — oh well, maybe you were misdiagnosed, maybe you improved, who knows. Move on, keep living. Just don't dwell on it.



Unintentional lying/faking is an oxymoron. Lying and faking are by definition intentional, so it's impossible for you to be engaging in either unintentionally.

I really wish it was that easy.

I can relate to a lot of what you said about being inconsistent in many areas of life. And I'm not actually diagnosed yet, so that only makes me doubt it more. Even though the rational part of me says that this is the only valid explanation I've ever found, and it actually fits me pretty well, I still start to think when I don't have a specific trait that another autistic person does that I must not be autistic.

I often feel like I'm lying or acting too. I don't know why, because I would never do that. Whenever I see or hear of people who really do, the kind that just go around telling everybody about their diagnosis of whatever and use it as their explanation for everything, I am always annoyed and I really don't want to be like that.

I don't really know what to say to help you since I still do this. But at least now I know I'm not the only one who does it, most people here don't seem to worry about it as much as I do (or at least that's how it seems to me).

Yeah, I've also noticed how most people don't seem as worried about the whole thing as I am. Like I said, it's better nowadays but sometimes it all comes back to haunt me. So no, you're not alone.

AS explains my situation and my life very well too (just like it does for you) but even though I agreed with pretty much everything the psychologist said when she explained why she had diagnosed me with AS, it's still hard to let go of all the doubt. My mind has some sort of need to categorize, organize and catalogue things and things unfortunately become pretty confusing when my mind can't do that properly. So when I don't always display the same kinds of symptoms as someone else with AS, I get confused and filled with doubt. Do you know what I mean?

I hope I can find a way to just let it go. I've already made some progress but the doubts are certainly not gone yet.

Yeah, it confuses me, because I feel like I need to understand exactly why there is a difference. And there really isn't a clear reason for it, there are too many variables, but my mind NEEDS a reason.

I have always had a need to understand things fundamentally. It's hard to describe it, but I always need something to build on, and every bit of information should fit somewhere in this structure of information I have. If I get a bit of new information, and I can't find where it fits, I can't find a reason, it is very hard to just let it go, because I know it should fit somewhere. Either that, or the structure I've created up to this point is incorrect. There are no other possible explanations. And when I inevitably find something I can't place, since my mind needs a reason, it wants to settle on seemingly the only other answer, which is that my structure is wrong, and therefore I must not have AS.

The real answer is probably just that I don't have enough information to fit it in my structure, not that all the information I've amassed up to this point is wrong. Like trying to place one of the center pieces of a puzzle exactly where it goes when you have only put the edge pieces together.

That's not a perfect description of it, but that's probably the best way I can describe it. I don't know if that's exactly how your mind works, but I think I still get what you mean.