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daynrand · 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MiddayNap

What prompted the diagnosis and why did it come so late?

I'll betcha I'm the oldest, latest diagnosed Aspie here.After decades of variously being diagnosed with ADHD, then AADD, PTSD, panic disorder & other psych conditions, I myself finally found an article about A.S. that led me on a journey researching it. Because finally, in my late 50s, I'd found a description of myself & my life like none other could quite match.

Alhough I don't discount or reject the other diagnoses, I now see that they were exacerbations or consequences of being so badly misunderstood & abused since early childhood. And that the A.S. was the original explanation for what led to all that misunderstanding & the abuses it fostered. (It didn't help that I had been born - in the mid-50s - to a textbook narcissitic mother who chose me to bear the blame for the entire family's dysfunction. IOW, out of 5 siblings I became the classic "family scapegoat")

The (very awesome) psychiatrist, who'd been treating me for years, at 1st outright rejected the idea of A.S. when I asked him if he thought it could explain "things" better. I accepted that for a while, but remained fascinated by & continued reading about A.S. The more I read of traits that described myself & my life to a T, the more certain I was that I'd been born with Asperger's Syndrome & had struggled to cope with it for decades. Whether or not there could be much done to help me to cope better at such a late stage in life, I felt a real need to at least know who I really was.

Finally I asked my psych dr why it was that he was so certain I wasn't an Aspie, when I fit almost all the criteria. He told me it was because of only 1 trait - 1 that I didn't have. That was that rather than being "aloof", I deeply loved & cared about people in general, specifically children & the elderly, & because I felt so strongly attached to certain ones, even when they'd not returned my affection for years. He simply didn't think a person w/A.S. was capable of such strong positive emotion & empathy for others, or of feeling so utterly grieved by their rejection & lack of relationship, & the resulting loneliness I constantly experienced. In other words, even as a highly effective & respected psychiatrist, he had accepted 1 of the most-pervasive & false myths about A.S. as a fact.

After talking it over for a while & showing him articles I'd found debunking the perception of Aspies as lacking emotional empathy, while stressing again to him how precisely every other symptom fit, he eventually became enthusiastically certain that a great misunderstanding of my A.S. since childhood had led to most or all of the abuses I'd endured & also led to many other problems I am still struggling to overcome to this day.

Well, there I've gone on (& on & on) again. Let me finish with this: Discovering all this about A.S. & the fact I "have" it, at my age, lends a stronger urgency to not allow others' lack of understanding to overwhelm & demoralize me. I simply don't have time to waste! I know I have much to give yet, & especially so to others who have suffered & need a hand from someone who does understand them & wants to help. There is a great need out there from others like ourselves, whether children, adults or the elderly.