Did anyone else feel a bit weird during diagnosis?

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I guess that's a rhetorical question. Maybe it'd be better to ask the opposite. I had my first appointment with a psychiatrist on Monday and he diagnosed me with Aspergers. The diagnosis itself was nothing like I had expected. I had been researching the syndome for a few weeks and doing a lot of introspection and self reflection trying to match symptoms to my behaviours. I went to the appointment with pages of research ready to use in answer to any question. I had thought it would be like Judge Judy style interrogation.

Instead, he took everything I had to say at face value. He believed me. This is one of the weirdest feelings I've ever felt - that everything that's ever been wrong with me, can be put down to a neurological condition that many people have. Now there are supports and explanations, things are going to be OK. You're not really lazy, selfish or ret*d (well maybe a little, no big deal)

I guess my appearance, behaviour and communication would be enough to make up the mind of an expert, but I can't help feeling like the process was a bit too easy. We spent just under an hour together. He knew I didn't have money to pay for anything more than that.

I guess now, it's all down to understanding what degree of Aspergers I have. The Psych said I had a mild condition, but it's complicated with mild ADD, anxiety and depression. I identify with so much of what's written here and in AS literature, and yet, there are so many problems presented here that I don't have. I guess some day AS will be divided into subtypes, but for now I'll just have to keep reading.

I feel happy, but it's a strange kind of happy. Like what I imagine it was like for Jim Carrey's character at the end of the Truman Show.

That's great raggle-taggle-gypsy! It must be such a relief to know it for sure.

What exactly is a formal diagnosis? I told the guy I didn't want anything written on any records, but he wrote me a letter confirming his opinions and told me that if I claimed money back on my health insurance, no formal diagnosis would have to appear on any record. It's between me and him for now. And someone else, though I wish I never said it.

He even wrote me a prescription for ritalin! That was the strangest bit. I don't even want the stuff, but he told me it's there if I need it. I had been using it illegally over the past few years for exams. It worked like a treat, but it's not something I'd like to be using regularly. But he just wrote me a prescription, just like that, after I'd been buying it illegally for ages.

Wow! that's great! My assessment was similar. She took everything I had to say at face value...and I guess maybe i genuinely come across as an odd person...



Getting my ADD diagnosis a few years before was also very easy...but I have no paperwork to that effect that I know of...just my old empty prescription bottles somewhere.

I'm planning to get a diagnosis some day, and I found your description very informative, thank you.

This story seems a lot different from other diagnostic stories that I've read on here, whereas the doctor didn't believe the patient and diagnosed them with a social anxiety disorder instead.

Was the doctor you went to a specialist on the autism spectrum, or just an average psychiatrist?

He is a specialist in Autistic Spectrum Disorders. He lecturers at a very good University and has written several books on Asperger's Syndrome. He was very expensive (€400) and it may not havee been necessary to go to the foremost expert in Ireland, but I had the money and I didn't want to waste my time with idiot GPs.

If you use that Ritalin just for exams, like you have been doing, it shouldn't be a problem. If you're working with the ADD successfully for the most part, then I wouldn't be worried about taking any more than that. Medication should always be taken in the smallest dose possible. (Obviously with some things, it's not possible to take them intermittently because they have to build up. Ritalin isn't one of them, though.) Just be glad you are no longer having to depend on friends' pills... sooner or later that will bite you in the butt, because you can't truly know what you are getting. BTW--if you're thinking about selling yours, don't. It's a felony. As in, prison time. And don't ever tell anybody that you used to buy them.

Congrats on your diagnosis!

My diagnosis was mostly a confirmation of what I already knew; it was more of a relief than some kind of shock. Actually, you'll hear that a lot around here, especially with people diagnosed when they were in their teens or older. While kids will sometimes be in denial or annoyed, teens and adults usually have the insight to know they are different and will be glad to have an explanation for it that doesn't include lazy, dumb, and immature.