Hello
I am a 46yo woman, I have been told by others that I am not "neurotypical" and have suspected Aspergers for a while.
My eldest child just received their diagnosis and I was assessed at the same time. However the woman who assessed me thought it very significant that I was able to make eye contact.
Additionally, since I have several ACEs, she said that the symptoms I display are probably due to PTSD rather than traits of Aspergers.
I have no doubt that I have PTSD to a greater or lesser extent; however I am not sure that explains everything sufficiently to me.
I wonder if anybody here has been diagnosed as an adult woman who may also have PTSD and/ or ADHD (which has also been suggested for me).
I am worried that I will end up with no diagnosis at all.
Hi, I'm female (45) and received my diagnosis in January. Prior to that, I'd been seeing an EMDR therapist for what he, my GP, and I all thought was PTSD.
My AS diagnosis changed that, in that pretty much all of the things I had on my list to address during EMDR were actually much more related to AS than PTSD. Everything just made more sense through the lens of AS including some of the reasons why I had found it difficult to engage with certain aspects of the EMDR therapy despite wanting to!
It's quite common for un-diagnosed AS adults to have had several other 'labels' or mis-diagnoses over a lifetime as AS wasn't very well understood or recognised in the past. It still isn't by many (even professionals) which is why I don't think the woman who commented upon your ability to make eye-contact knows her stuff!! The female presentation of AS (which means female-thinking-style really, not just women) should be well recognised by a properly qualified assessor and it includes the learnt ability to make appropriate eye-contact (among other things).
On a side note, as well as being mis-diagnosed with PTSD, I had also previously been mis-diagnosed with CFS / ME. Asperger's Syndrome, for me, trumps both as it explains everything better than either of those were able to.