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  #1  
Old Apr 09, 2010, 01:13 AM
Beautifully_Broken Beautifully_Broken is offline
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I've never been formally diagnosed with Aspergers/Autism, it has been suspected by a lot of people though.

I was curious if there is anyone here who I could talk to about it, to see if anyone can relate to what I go through with the symptoms that seem to fit with Aspergers/Autism.

Thanks.

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  #2  
Old Apr 09, 2010, 02:58 AM
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Yoda Yoda is offline
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I believe that I have many of the symptoms of Aspergers but I was never diagnosed.

When I was in college an instructor in my paramedic class and later an instructor in my nursing class both told me I did not interact appropriately. My nursing instructor suggested I might have schizophrenia saying I displayed inappropriate emotions at times. I took a sociology class and began learning more about social interactions and communication and thirty years later I no longer have problems socially at least not to that degree. I told my Pdoc at my last appointment that I thought I had many symptoms of Aspergers but he laughed and said you don't have Aspergers because he knows me as the outspoken person who is not afraid to voice my opinion. He doesn't know how much I have changed. I told him we don't have time to discuss it now and I would make notes about my symptoms to talk about when we have more time.

I think one of my high school teachers thought something was wrong with me but not sure what. There was a summer program at Berea College for disadvantaged high school students to attend a six week college class on campus to help them prepare for later college. He wrote a letter saying I was disadvantaged and I didn't understand why. Both of my parents worked and we were certainly low income but we had enough food and clothes and I got gifts at Christmas and there were other students who had less. Growing up in one of the poorest rural areas in WV I think was a disadvantage to most of the students so I don't know why he chose me for that opportunity.

I was always a loner growing up though and spend most of my time alone now. I live with my son but seldom interact with people.

I only recently learned that clumsiness is one of the symptoms. I have always been clumsy. I walk into walls going through doorways. In high school they tested all of the students asking us to do things like place pegs in holes on a board and stuff and they told me that my performance was very low but nobody suggested why.

There is such a wide variation in the severity of symptoms that it is sometimes difficult to assess, I think.

What has your experience been?
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  #3  
Old Apr 09, 2010, 04:34 AM
Beautifully_Broken Beautifully_Broken is offline
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Not sure if "experiences" would cover it, all I know is I've had the majority of the symptoms all my life & it would explain a few of my difficulties that haven't really been pin pointed as to why they exist.
  #5  
Old Apr 09, 2010, 10:18 PM
Beautifully_Broken Beautifully_Broken is offline
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Thank you, I can relate to a lot of that.

I'm not sure how to go about this either. Any ideas?
  #6  
Old Apr 24, 2010, 06:15 PM
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ADoseofReality ADoseofReality is offline
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plz plz PLZ see a profeshunal abowt ur conserns, insted of diagnosg urself!!! u sed urself we shuldn't do that........that bein sed, good luck
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Aspergers.

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Thanks for this!
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  #7  
Old Apr 24, 2010, 09:15 PM
Beautifully_Broken Beautifully_Broken is offline
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I'm not self diagnosing, I am saying I suffer from many of the symptoms.

Shesh. Big difference.
Thanks for this!
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  #8  
Old Apr 25, 2010, 12:49 PM
Callista Callista is offline
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Heh. Well, if you call it "suffering"... I know, I know, figure of speech; but I take these things literally and personally I think the vast majority of any suffering comes from a hostile world, not from the autism.

There are a lot of people with what you call "subclinical" symptoms; that is, people who have a lot of autistic traits but can't be diagnosed because they don't have significant problems in life that are due to those traits. (Mind you, I said "problems" not "suffering"; there's a difference...) Anyway, I bet there are probably about ten times as many broader-autism-phenotype cases as there are diagnosable autism cases. So, that is a possibility even if you're not diagnosable.

This is me taking out some of the doctorspeak from the DSM criteria:
Quote:
Simplified AS criteria:

To be diagnosed AS, you must fulfill all of these five requirements:

1. You have problems with socialization that show up as at least two things on the following list:
-----You're really bad at using (or don't use) gestures, eye contact, body language, etc.
-----You're really bad at making friends your own age
-----You don't seek out contact with other people to share your achievements or interests
-----You don't mirror other people's emotions well, or don't keep up your end of a friendship

2. You show at least one of these behaviors:
-----Special interests, unusual in that they're either very intense or very narrowly focused
-----Sticking to strict routines that most people would consider "nonfunctional"
-----Repetitive physical behavior, like rocking, flapping, foot-tapping, etc. a lot more than most people
-----Focus on the details of objects, like parts of a toy; or focus on the details to the exclusion of the big picture

3. You are significantly impaired--have problems more than most people can be expected to have--in your social life, at work, or in some other important part of your life.

4. You have no speech delay--you used single words by age two and phrases by age three to communicate your own thoughts.

5. You don't have any developmental delay except in the area of socialization. Developmental delay means being far behind the average at doing things like taking care of yourself, learning the skills that most kids learn, etc. You were curious about your environment as a child, rather than being withdrawn.

If you fulfill all five criteria, then you can be diagnosed with Asperger's.
There are, of course, other autism variants that cover things like what's mentioned above--speech delays, developmental delays, or just the PDD-NOS category for a random grab-bag of symptoms that doesn't fit into a specific diagnosis (PDD-NOS is the largest autism category currently) but still cause impairment.

The way I see it, if there's not significant impairment, then chances are you're BAP or else just old enough to have learned to compensate, and don't need a shrink for autistic traits. If there is, then you probably need help and should go ask for a diagnosis. The only time when I'd say significant impairment doesn't need a diagnosis is if you're already getting the help you need for some other diagnosis--say, ADHD, for example, or social anxiety disorder (both commonly found together with autism, incidentally).
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