Do you ever suspect you may have aspergers? (Or do you know you have it?)

[CrapBag]

It's something I have occasionally thought about.

I have frequently been told that I am honest (or blunt) and if people want an honest answer, they will come to me. I don't like to be rude and don't like the idea of upsetting people but sometimes I get the feeling I may have. A chat with a friend recently got me thinking and she said if we're talking and I don't want to do something or I don't agree I will just reply "no" and that's it. No discussion, I will just come out with it. She isn't the first person to say this to me. I genuinely can't understand why that may not be right.

Another friend once told me she thinks I am misunderstood and I don't mean any harm (true) but I'm not sure who is misunderstanding me or why.

I do like my routine. I don't like changing it. I would describe myself as set in my ways. I'm incredibly on top of things and organised (to the point people joke about me sorting their lives out). I am very black and white, no middle ground. I also have a very strong sense of fairness and hate injustice of any kind. I also find it very frustrating when people make a mistake on something and feel the need to correct it (I don't, I keep it to myself as I do know that would annoy people).

I have done the online test (I know, I know [http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html here] and scored fairly highly.

I have always felt like I don't quite fit in although I think I do a pretty good job of covering this up. I feel like I am on the fringes quite often.

I know it doesn't really matter. I wouldn't say it affects my life although I do struggle with relationships quite a bit (not DH and DCs) mainly friends. I was just curious after my friends recent comment.

I used to call it "the thing within". Never knew what it was until I was diagnosed aged 60. Much sadness of lost opportunities and failed relationships but relieved to finally settle into who I actually am.

Better late than never Allo

I can look at my past with fresh eyes now and stop blaming all my issues on the neglect and abuse. I can take back ownership of myself and stop feeling as though these people have destroyed me.

I no longer feel the past has control of me. It's up to me how to decide what sort of life I have.

fuzzpig how did you get a diagnosis? I emailed someone who does it privately in my area and I never heard back from him so not going to peruse that. I am afraid my doctor may laugh at me and think it is not worth bothering with, given it doesn't impact my life. But to me it would give me a sense of 'knowing' that I'm not just weird or whatever else I've been called (and I do seem to get called things semi frequently).

Well, I think it does impact your life to some extent if you are feeling weird and people have pointed it out to you, so you could argue that!

I had given up on a dx really, I'd managed to get a referral through the GP a few years back - I'd prepared notes to take with me as I knew I'd struggle to put my point across verbally. I basically wrote a list of all my issues, and I used the NAS website's description to put them into categories so it was in line with the way the diagnostic criteria are laid out.

I was referred to the local mental health trust but they were useless. I saw a CPN first, who didn't even know what Asperger's was and she referred me on to a psychiatrist. I saw him but he was horrible. He just sat there for the hour reading my hospital notes (I had been in a psychiatric unit as a teen, because I self harmed a lot after revealing abuse in childhood. He wouldn't accept it when I said the issues predated the abuse (not that I'm denying the abuse had an impact, of course it did) and I broke down at the end of the session. He eventually said maybe I had OCD and he'd refer me to a psychologist for proper assessment because he wasn't able to do that . That never happened, and it was around the same time that I was diagnosed with CFS/ME and was in a massive relapse of that, so I just didn't have the strength to follow it up.

Unfortunately I have heard that there is still a lot of ignorance in mental health trusts about ASD. Not just in adult services but children's too. Because of course ASD is not a mental health issue. But it's really worrying, not least because people with AS are more likely than average to suffer from mental health problems like anxiety and depression - and if they get seen by people who don't understand where their struggles stem from (eg having a brain that works differently from most people, and the impact that has on self esteem etc) it will get missed, and they will just medicate and use traditional therapy*, which even if it helps a bit, doesn't actually change the way your brain works, and then you feel like a failure because the treatment isn't working, so you feel even worse about yourself... and so it goes on.

Sorry, can you tell this is something I feel very strongly about..? :o

*I am, in fact, trying to find someone who will do CBT or psychotherapy with me - but somebody who has an interest/specialism in ASD. I feel this will be more successful - I'm a veteran of therapy, but while it has helped deal with the abuse and self harm, it has never dealt with the effects of how my brain actually differs from a neurotypical one. So again, I felt a failure for not responding to it in a normal way.

Anyway. I had basically given up on getting assessed, and I just quietly thought of myself as an Aspie but didn't feel able to tell people so. But then I visited an open day for a local wellbeing college and there was a course about autism. I spoke to the peer trainer about it, and he told me how he was diagnosed as an adult by this particular person in the NHS who now ran the course with him. She is a specialist in adult ASD - assessing adults for it is the main part of her job I think. He gave me her email address and I felt really nervous but he assured me it was ok. So I emailed her and she sent me the specific form to get the GP to fill out, and once I'd shown the GP the email thread where we were discussing it, she was happy to fill it out. I then went to see the specialist (ironically at the same place I'd seen the twat psychiatrist - the specialist works county-wide and travels to different places for appts), and took my parents because she'd told me she would need to talk to them about what I was like as a child (I dreaded that bit - my parents were not exactly on the ball - but I was allowed to stay in while she interviewed them, and afterwards said she agreed with just how 'off' the ball they were...). So that was it really. It was sheer coincidence that put me in contact with her. Which isn't very helpful for you, sorry :( (unless you happen to be in West Sussex?! You could always PM me if so!)

Sorry for that ridiculously long waffle.

Wow we have similar backgrounds!

I also have CFS/ME. Have suffered with a lot of anxiety and depression and have suffered abuse.

It wasn't waffle. It was helpful to read. Unfortunately I am not near your area .

Interesting about it impacting my life if others notice. I suppose it does. I tend to lose friends because I feel they don't understand me and don't treat me how in treat them and I do expect this. Others have called me weird. One friend says I am misunderstood. I don't think people say things like that to people who don't have issues. I honestly don't get why I am weird. I get the misunderstood bit. I can be a bit ubrupt but I don't mean to be offensive. It's just if someone asks me something and I don't want to I'll say no and have no problem with that, I don't get why people dont do this. I think some people get offended though.

The problem is with my surgery now is you cannot make an appointment. You have to phone, tell the receptionist your issue then she will get the GP to call you back and they will decide on the phone whether or not to make you an appointment. I wouldn't even know where to begin with it like that really.

Fuzzpig have you considered contacting the Lorna Wing centre? I ended up paying for a private assessment, but I consider it money well spent.

I went through the Lorna Wing Centre and I was assessed by Judith Gould who is the clinical director and has a special interest in women in the spectrum. She is wonderful and dx me in just over an hour!! It was worth every penny.

Oops totally failed to come back sorry

CrapBag I'd wondered if you had CFS as well - that sounds stalkerish sorry but I recognised your name (it always makes me smile as it makes me think of Friends :o) and thought I'd seen it on CFS threads.

I was, incidentally, told when I was diagnosed with the CFS that the abuse will have had a massive impact on my vulnerability to it. The massive stress it put me under had a permanent effect on my body. Depressing isn't it. And when I had the ASD assessment, the specialist went into how my passivity due to the AS and the way I 'coped with' the abuse were related. That was the hardest bit of the assessment and something I am really struggling to put to the back of my mind since (especially since my parents keep referring to how I was a really GOOD child and of course I didn't have tantrums because I was brought up properly... wish I could say to them that no, I was the perfect child because I was permanently terrified and had to retreat into my own little world because the real world was not safe )

Sorry, off on a tangent there.

I will have a look at the Lorna Wing centre, thank you both :)

I thought that 'the spectrum' is the spectrum within autism, not a spectrum between being NT and being autistic (as if autism is the only form of neurodiversity)? So it's not true that 'we're all on the spectrum'.

fuzzpig, again that's interesting. I was neglected and emotionally and physically abused until I was 4 years old, I wasn't wanted or cared for and ended up being just left at a relatives one day. I stayed there after but I have always felt withdrawn and anxious and that I had to behave a certain way. The man I grew up with was very strict and I was terrified and very much knew my place. He would never have been abusive but he is one of those where a look can make you behave. I Don't feel I had a voice at all. The woman was the opposite but never outwardly stood up for me so whilst I was loved and cared for there, it wasn't particularly shown really. I do get on great with them both now and some of the strictness was a good thing as I would have been able to get away with murder else and I do feel I would have turned out very differently. I do think my early years experiences must have had some sort of impact as it was quite traumatic and I do remember some of it. I also found files relationship g to it when I was 16/17 and it kind of brought it all up, plus when I was in my teens I couldn't get it out of my head and blamed the wrong person. I got CFS when I was 20. It does make me wonder.

I was talking to a friend this morning about AS and the scores and when I said I think it's a real possibility, she didn't seem at all surprised. She said now she knows me she knows what I am like but that other people don't. She wasn't sure how to take me at first as apparently I would ignore her sometimes and she thought she had done something wrong but I have this thing where if I have planned in my mind what I am doing and following my plan, seeing someone where I'm not expecting them to be will mean I don't see them and stuff like that. It's weird. Plus if I am shattered with the CFS I'm in my own world putting all my energy into picking the DCs up and have nothing left for anything else.