Hi,
I’m in my early thirties and since I was a teenager I’ve felt that something wasn’t quite right or that there was something unusual about me. I’ve always found social situations difficult and unpredictable, particularly when with people I’m not so familiar with, and I often have difficulty in verbalising my thoughts into a way that others can understand. I’ve also occasionally said and done things in the past which I know that people have been puzzled or upset by, even though I may not have been aware of it at the time.
I found out about Asperger’s a few years ago and the more I read about the condition, the more it felt like I could relate it to myself. I completed a couple of the online tests which I found links to on the NAS website, which both strongly indicated that I may have Asperger’s. So, with the help of my wife, I plucked up the courage to go and see my GP in the hope of getting a referral.
My GP was excellent, and took particular interest in the results of the online tests which I’d printed and brought along for her to look at. She said straight away that she wasn’t qualified to make a diagnosis herself, but that she was happy to refer me to a clinical psychiatrist in order for me to be diagnosed. I felt that a big hurdle had been overcome as I know that some people have problems in getting a referral.
I only had to wait a few weeks for my appointment. It consisted of a discussion with the psychiatrist of around 45 minutes, with him jotting down the occasional note. He seemed to focus primarily on my behaviour as a child, and what my relationships were like with the people around me at that time. He also asked me briefly about my interests and what issues I was currently having.
At the end of the session came his diagnosis, and it was one that I was dreading. He said that he didn’t believe that I had Asperger’s, and that I had a Social Anxiety Disorder. Although I do occasionally suffer from anxiety and depression, sometimes during or triggered by social situations, I believe that this is a symptom of a wider issue. Quite often I feel comfortable in social situations, other than the difficulty I experience with communication.
I asked the psychiatrist how he could explain the other issues I was experiencing, such as why I seemed to have difficulty with physical co-ordination. While I was always very good at sport when I was at school, I still often find myself bumping into furniture, accidentally kicking things, tripping over my own feet and getting my fingers tied up in knots. His response was “maybe you’re just a clumsy person”. When I told him about my love of routines and how frustrated I can get when my routine changes, especially if I’m made late for something, he said “Don’t you think everyone gets frustrated when they are made late for something?”.
I didn’t even mention some of the other things I experience (such as my aversion to certain lights or noises, and how that can cause me to get very distressed and sometimes manic), because they never cropped up in the conversation.
I think his mind was made up when he asked me about my interests, which was a very broad question that I found difficult to answer. My interests are quite general and not unusual – TV and film, sport, history and politics, science etc. I can read about these subjects for hours and I particularly enjoy studying facts and figures, graphs and tables of statistics. I don’t however own an extensive collection of 18thCentury beer mats and I haven’t memorised the average distances of all the planets from the Sun (although that might be the sort of thing I would have memorised as a child), and I think it is this kind of thing he was expecting to hear.
The psychiatrist seemed to move on from this part of the discussion quite quickly, and from then on seemed to focus solely on my social interaction. It didn’t surprise me therefore when he gave me his diagnosis, but it left me bitterly disappointed.
After the consultation, I was feeling as low as I’ve felt for a long time, and at one stage my wife was actually worried about leaving me alone in the house. Before my appointment, I was so sure that I had Asperger’s as I could relate so closely to the experiences of people I was reading about online. It felt like it was just a case of getting things confirmed by a professional, and then I could look forward to a brighter future where I, and the people around me, could understand myself better and why I am the way I am. Unfortunately, because of my diagnosis, that wasn’t to be.
However, my consultation was nearly a year ago, and although I accepted my diagnosis at the time, I have again become more and more convinced that the psychiatrist’s conclusions were wrong and that I do indeed have Asperger’s. In my opinion, the range of symptoms that I experience can’t be explained away by a combination of social anxiety and chance. The similarities I have with confirmed Asperger ‘sufferers’ (for want of a better word) are just too numerous. I feel that my diagnosis may have been influenced by my difficulty in effectively putting across my point of view, something which regularly affects me in my social and working life.
So, I guess the question I’m asking is, where do I go from here? Should I accept the original diagnosis and try to move on from all this, or should I trust my instincts and try to get confirmation that I have Asperger’s? And if so, how do I go about it? Would it be a case of going back to my GP to ask for a second opinion (I don’t want to waste anyone’s time) or do I need to be paying for some kind of private diagnosis? It was quite hard to pluck up the courage the first time around, but there are still so many questions in my mind and doubts about my original diagnosis. Any advice would be very gratefully received.
Thank you and apologies for the long post.
