Autism vs You Think You Are On The spectrum

I had therapy for many years prior to my diagnosis and found it extremely helpful.  It helped me to understand so much about my difficulties and my behaviours - especially in childhood.  It also helped by giving me signposts... which I wanted, because I wanted to have a name.  I didn't want a label, but I wanted a diagnosis so that I could get a proper and more rounded understanding.  And why not?  If someone is feeling lethargic a lot all of a sudden, and is going to the loo more times than usual, and has raging thirsts, they're going to want to know why.  And if the diagnosis is diabetes, then they have something they can work with.  They can make adjustments and get treatments.  It doesn't meant they're going to define their lives by it necessarily, or walk around with the label 'diabetic.'  They might use internet forums for fellow sufferers to share stories and get insights.  It doesn't mean it's become an obsession.  But anyone who gets a diagnosis of anything at all - from athlete's foot to cancer - is naturally going to take more of an interest in the subject and probably seek to find out more.

So... my therapist was great.  It was the diagnosticians, the so-called mental health professionals, who let me down.  In my experience, it seems that they always started from the assumption that you were either making things up or grossly exaggerating them.  So, when I went to a psych with a list of symptoms which included incapacitating depression and anxiety, panic attacks, mood swings, a frequent and ongoing sense of dysphoria and 'emptiness', emotional instability, substance misuse, disturbed behaviour patterns in always dysfunctional relationships, and constant suicide ideation... and then got told 'I can tell from looking at you that you don't have a personality disorder'... well, I think I can be forgiven for thinking that these people might not be properly qualified to do the job.  I might not have had their 'learned' understanding - but I knew what I went through from the inside.  That's why, for a long time, I self-diagnosed with BPD.  Because I needed something to help me to understand.  I needed that context.  Time and again I got referrals, time and again I was turned away.  I was told that if I stopped drinking, all of my other symptoms would go away.  It was a waste of time my arguing that I drank because of my symptoms (at the same time as acknowledging that it probably made them worse).  I even sat down one day and started to write a journal of my days, my moods, my thoughts, my behaviours.  Within 6 weeks, I had 75,000 words down.  I turned it into a novel about a man trying to cope with mental illness in a world that didn't seem to care.  Reading it now, 5 years down the line, one thing jumps out at me.  It is a graphic account of living with ASC.  I just didn't know it then.  I actually gave a copy of that novel to the psych who diagnosed me.  I told her that it was unelaborated.  That each day recorded was each day as I lived it.  She had no hesitation in making a diagnosis, based on both my testimonies in interviews, my test results... and my book.

Having my diagnosis has changed my life.  My mental health has improved in many ways because now I have something that I can use to help me to understand things.  Autism is a big thing in my life, I admit it.  Because it explains my life.  It's like the Turing machine that's broken the Enigma code of me, and enabled me to make sense, at long last, of the messages in my head.

And if I'd never managed to get that formal clinical diagnosis, would I now self-diagnose?

Absolutely.

I had therapy for many years prior to my diagnosis and found it extremely helpful.  It helped me to understand so much about my difficulties and my behaviours - especially in childhood.  It also helped by giving me signposts... which I wanted, because I wanted to have a name.  I didn't want a label, but I wanted a diagnosis so that I could get a proper and more rounded understanding.  And why not?  If someone is feeling lethargic a lot all of a sudden, and is going to the loo more times than usual, and has raging thirsts, they're going to want to know why.  And if the diagnosis is diabetes, then they have something they can work with.  They can make adjustments and get treatments.  It doesn't meant they're going to define their lives by it necessarily, or walk around with the label 'diabetic.'  They might use internet forums for fellow sufferers to share stories and get insights.  It doesn't mean it's become an obsession.  But anyone who gets a diagnosis of anything at all - from athlete's foot to cancer - is naturally going to take more of an interest in the subject and probably seek to find out more.

So... my therapist was great.  It was the diagnosticians, the so-called mental health professionals, who let me down.  In my experience, it seems that they always started from the assumption that you were either making things up or grossly exaggerating them.  So, when I went to a psych with a list of symptoms which included incapacitating depression and anxiety, panic attacks, mood swings, a frequent and ongoing sense of dysphoria and 'emptiness', emotional instability, substance misuse, disturbed behaviour patterns in always dysfunctional relationships, and constant suicide ideation... and then got told 'I can tell from looking at you that you don't have a personality disorder'... well, I think I can be forgiven for thinking that these people might not be properly qualified to do the job.  I might not have had their 'learned' understanding - but I knew what I went through from the inside.  That's why, for a long time, I self-diagnosed with BPD.  Because I needed something to help me to understand.  I needed that context.  Time and again I got referrals, time and again I was turned away.  I was told that if I stopped drinking, all of my other symptoms would go away.  It was a waste of time my arguing that I drank because of my symptoms (at the same time as acknowledging that it probably made them worse).  I even sat down one day and started to write a journal of my days, my moods, my thoughts, my behaviours.  Within 6 weeks, I had 75,000 words down.  I turned it into a novel about a man trying to cope with mental illness in a world that didn't seem to care.  Reading it now, 5 years down the line, one thing jumps out at me.  It is a graphic account of living with ASC.  I just didn't know it then.  I actually gave a copy of that novel to the psych who diagnosed me.  I told her that it was unelaborated.  That each day recorded was each day as I lived it.  She had no hesitation in making a diagnosis, based on both my testimonies in interviews, my test results... and my book.

Having my diagnosis has changed my life.  My mental health has improved in many ways because now I have something that I can use to help me to understand things.  Autism is a big thing in my life, I admit it.  Because it explains my life.  It's like the Turing machine that's broken the Enigma code of me, and enabled me to make sense, at long last, of the messages in my head.

And if I'd never managed to get that formal clinical diagnosis, would I now self-diagnose?

Absolutely.

Well said Tom. I have a history of mh professionals. From useless textbook counselling to intuitive and caring. I have the bpd handbook on my shelf for exactly the same reason. If I hadn't kept bumping into people and dropping things and a colleague commenting on it I would never have found out. I hadn't a clue about ND at all and yes it does explain my whole life. I'm hoping I can use the information to turn my life round but this part is a long process too. 

Martian Tom said:

included incapacitating depression and anxiety, panic attacks, mood swings, a frequent and ongoing sense of dysphoria and 'emptiness', emotional instability, substance misuse, disturbed behaviour patterns in always dysfunctional relationships, and constant suicide ideation..

Well that resonates!

I am sorry JEP as I am currently self diagnosed....and that isn't without having done a massive amount of reading and research first as well as introspective reflection. Having read a lot on the forum here about people's struggle to get referred, and go through the assessment process I don't think that I have the strength at present to go through all of that on my own....as I have no friends or family to support me and a disinterested partner.

i feel vulnerable at the moment as still processing everything and making connections in terms of where life has taken this 42 year old woman so far and a growing realisation that I shall continue to subsist in the above quoted bubble during the coming weeks and months until something hopefully shifts.

Yes, I feel an imposter here, and I apologise for that.

sorry