My First Aspieversary!

Congratulations! I am glad you found a home here. I feel the same way too, that I can be myself without worrying about what other people think without hearing that little you shouldn't say this, you shouldn't do that.

I too have wrestled with the idea of formal diagnosis, but as you said, at our ages it probably wouldn't be very useful. Plus, from what I have heard, getting a formal diagnosis is a lengthy and expensive process which may or may not be covered by insurance. And even if it is, at my age, I have more pressing issues to worry about and use my insurance on. Right now I am in good health but who knows what the future could bring?

The greatest thing about these forums is the realization that you are not the only one who feels this way or does these things. So often, especially for us older ones, we have been made to feel isolated and ashamed, that we are the only one who feels this way or acts this way, so therefore cut it out and start being like everyone else. YOU ARE NOT ALONE, no matter what normal society likes to say. Three cheers for Aspies Central and other aspie forums!

Do you mind if I ask about your unconventional route to a semi-diagnosis? Specifically, what was the route, how did you determine your route, and how do you feel about your diagnosis/lack of diagnosis now?

Someone asked me about that on Spectrumville a while back, so I guess I'll just copy and paste my response here:

When I was a few months away from finishing college a couple of years ago (it's actually in my hometown, so I didn't really have the experience of going "away" somewhere to college), I was a little bit panicked by the idea of leaving the nice comfortable niche I had there and having to make my way in what seemed like a rather cold and unfriendly adult world (In particular, having no clear plan for employment after I got out of college was making me panic a little bit). I had done a little bit of reading about Asperger's Syndrome here and there for the past couple of years, and I kind of suspected that I might have it, but I was unsure about that since I didn't really have the more severe problems that people with Asperger's sometimes (I had sort of gone through "the works" with therapy and counseling in my teens and early 20s to deal with anxiety and depression, but by my late 20s, I was feeling pretty emotionally stable most of the time) have and it seemed rather strange to think of myself as being "autistic." I sort of mentally filed that away and never made any really serious effort to pursue a diagnosis.

One day, I happened to tell my mom about some of the worries that I was having and about my suspicions that I might have at least a touch of Asperger's. She said that she could kind of see that and if I was interested, I could see a speech therapist I saw for a little while when I was younger (when I was about 10 or 11, I got diagnosed with ADD and probably some behavioral issues too; at that age I was pretty offended by the suggestion that there was anything "off" about me) who was knowlegable about ASDs, and that I would even be able to do that for free since my sister works as a physical therapist at the same rehab center where the speech therapist works and family members of employees are able to get free treatment. I was a little unsure whether or not I really wanted to pursue that or not (a part of me kept saying "Hey, I'm normal. There's nothing that wrong with me. Why do we have to medicalize all strangeness and eccentricity so much?"), but eventually I decided that I did.

Over the course of a few months, I had a few sessions with the speech therapist, and when I asked about it she said that, even though she was a little cautious about telling me because she didn't want to freak me out by telling me that I was "autistic," I did display typical characteristics of adults on the autism spectrum. One of the big things was "atypical speech patterns and social integration," (when I was young, other kids in school made fun of the way I talked all the time, and even people who liked my voice thought I sounded like I had some kind of foreign accent [one person even said that I sounded kind of German, which I thought was rather odd] even though I'm about as American as you can get) there was also "issues with time/space management" and even "above-average intelligence," which I found kind of surprising (hyperlexia/ability to read a really young age might have been somewhere on that list too). However, she told me that she wasn't able to offer a really official diagnosis and that I would need to see someone else for that. Not knowing for sure whether or not I was on the spectrum was starting to bother me a little, but I was wondering rather getting officially diagnosed would be worth all of the expense and effort.

Fortunately, my mom told me that the psychiatrist she had just started working for would be able to visit with me about that (I was kind of needing to go see some kind of mental health professional anyway since the state agency that was trying to get me set up with a job required me to get evaluated as to whether or not I needed to be medicated for anger issues; they seemed a little clueless about how to deal with people with ASDs even though part of their mission statement is to help people with mental health and emotional issues find employment). I met with the psychiatrist and she told me that, while going through the really official AS testing at my age (30 at the time) probably wouldn't be very useful, I probably did have Asperger's (when I asked about it, she said that I probably would have been diagnosed at a younger age if more had been known about AS at that time) but that she wasn't going to force that label on me (she cautioned that it was kind of a "trendy" diagnosis) and that it was something I could kind of take or leave (thankfully, she also said that I probably didn't need to be medicated unless I was just really getting upset on a job on a daily basis). She recommended that I read John Elder Robison's Look Me in the Eye (I picked it up from the library on the way home along with Tony Attwood's Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome) and that I get in touch with the online AS commnunity, which I did later that day.

As for what I feel about my semi-official diagnosis, I would say that I still accept it and that I am glad I got it.