[tallen01]

I got my official diagnosis yesterday of an autism spectrum disorder. I have been "diagnosed" so to speak for roughly a month now but it was made official yesterday. I'm not sure how I feel about being diagnosed. It's not that I'm against the label it's just I question it because I'm pretty good at reading facial expressions, and understanding emotions. I typically rely on these things by tone of voice more so than watching people's faces though. I think my bigger difficulty is knowing how to respond to people appropriately depending on the given situation. I typically do okay at this but sometimes suck emmensly. Anyways, I'm sure I have ASD or they wouldn't have labeled me as such JUST expressing my thoughts. Oh and I wasn't diagnosed through neuropsych testing like most people. I was diagnosed through five interviews which included a lot of self reporting and discussing childhood etc.

[The_little_didgee]

You are not alone. I can definitely relate to your experience.

I have a good understanding of my own emotions. Sensing the emotions in others is what I struggle with. It is hard for me to imagine and understand their perspective, so I rely heavily on verbal content to figure out what the person is feeling and thinking. It seems to make up for my difficulties with reading nonverbal cues. I can read a lot of facial expressions. It is the subtle ones I struggle with. Responding to others is also hard, since I often have no idea what to do. Sometimes I won't react, because I'm not sure if it will be appropriate or not. Faking a social interaction is not my way, so I don't bother.

A lot of people are diagnosed by a psychiatrist. Two different psychiatrists diagnosed me. They both interviewed me over a series of appointments. We discussed my development, childhood, school and present life. My mother was also interviewed. It was enough to convince me that I had ASD. A neuropsych evaluation wasn't possible due to the considerable cost.

[tallen01]

Mine was from a clinical psychologist I think was her title. She had a doctorate in psychology. They were going to refer me for neuropsych testing but decided not to because the waitlist and costs are outrageous. In addition, my psychologist stated that most of the normative data on the neuropsych testing is nprmes on children so it's not very representative of the adult ASD population.

[WePow]

Now you have a tool that will help you understand how your brain works. I got my dx when I was 41... about five years ago. I had no idea that was what was going on. I have other mental health issues that I just could not work through... there was something big going on I could not understand. After my official DX the pieces all came together. It helped me understand why I was vulnerable as a child to abuse other children may have escaped using social norm tools. I felt like things were my fault and that I was just dumb or something. I was an emotional mess with all that stuff.

The DX gave me understanding of that little me. It also made me furious realizing how older kids had honed in on my innocence. They used my literalism as a weapon to blackmail me and scare me into things they wanted that I did not want. It was such a huge breakthrough when I realized that it was not my fault for what happened to me.

And it helped me understand that not all my issues were PTSD. The PTSD was being compounded by the autism, All of that caused dissociative events. It is a perfect storm.

I finally saw I could not "work through" some of the issues like noise sensitivity. And that was liberating. I stopped blaming myself saying I was not working hard enough to get well.

Maybe you can now enjoy understanding why you are who you are. It sure helped me!

[PrairieCat]

I didn't realize I had it until I was 75 years old, a year ago. I also realized it is in my entire family. I am now being treated for cancer and a couple of my siblings do not know how to respond to this. I've had negativity from them and so I have stopped emailing them, no phones either. I guess they would be more appropriate about it if they just knew how to respond. It is crazy-making but all I can concentrate on now is getting well, going to treatments and hoping that I am healing. All my support is from strangers, wonderful strangers from here and from the cancer center where I go and from volunteer drivers of the American Cancer Society.
It does feel weird having very minimal support from my family of origin. My brother is good about this and also a couple of cousins. Best is my daughter and grandson. Sure never thought I'd be in this particular position. I am so glad and grateful to realize that I have high functioning Asperger's, though. It answers all the questions I've ever had in my life. There were a lot. I feel much better now and that I am fortunate enough to be able to understand it all. I so appreciate all of the comments made here.