Published on 12, July, 2020
I am an adult. I was always unusually shy, withdrawn, anxious, obsessive. A long term friend who is a therapist told me I have Asperger's Syndrome. My GP will not refer me for diagnosis. I believe my therapist friend. Do I actually need the documentated diagnpsis a Autism specialist would give me? Is it enough to say a private therapist diagnlsed me?
A 'therapist' is not qualified to offer anything more than an unqualified opinion - and we can all do that. An unqualified therapist who says such a thing as a definite statement without also saying 'but this is a personal opinion, I'm not qualified to diagnose' should be ashamed of theirselves. How stupid is this person not to realise the harm they could do if they're wrong? Look what it's done to you already...
The only people who can properly diagnose you are fully qualified practioners, and even then they can be wrong - there are, apparently, very few true experts. Do try to remember that AS can be difficult to diagnose. Even using 'Asperger' when up to date practioners will more rightly say 'Autism Spectrum' should tell you that the last book they read about it was a long time ago!
You can't expect anyone to take an unqualified opinion seriously, so your GP's reaction is perfectly logical. An unqualified therapist's definitive statement is, frankly, dismissible and no more of an opinion than anyone else's on here, probably less in fact - we live the condition.
An approach that we have recommended to others, and which has had good results, is this. Write down things about your life. It doesn;t matter how - it could be a list, a story, odd bits and pieces - it doesn't so much matter how, as what. Come back here and present it and we'll help you along if we can, but take your time with it - there's no rush. When you've got something that represents you and looks OK, you can give it to your GP and ask for a referal.
We've had people put their story so well when they've first posted on here that all we've had to say is 'print your first post and show it' and they've had their referal without any difficulty, to their surprise, but not ours.
Going around saying 'I've got Asperger's/Aspergers/Asperger Syndrome/Asperger's Syndrome because my mate says so' is going to get you a lot of bad reactions but no proper diagnosis, anyone could make THAT claim. And you mean Autism Spectrum Disorder/Condition anyway (many of us prefer 'condition') because in my opinion insisting on outdated terms isn't going to help us to move forwards, you're either on the spectrum or you aren't.
Hi there, I can identify with you. My name is Kenny,I'm 42 and undiagnosed Aspergers. I'm having difficulties getting referred for a proper test,my GP is dismissive,so was another doctor. I've joined the NAS for advice and to hopefully make some friends. Kenny
Hi Jamie4,
Whether you need an official diagnosis or not rather depends on what you want to do with it I think.
If it was just for personal / self knowledge then I guess you'd be happy with your Therapist friend's assesment. So can I assume there is some other purpose you want the diagnosis for?
I pursued diagnosis as an adult after many years of being reasonably sure I was Aspergers. I was having many problems (physical/mental health) and got to a point where I needed to know for sure if Aspergers was a correct diagnosis in the hope that it would help me understand my self and get the right kind of help to cope with my problems. I recieved the diagnosis earlier this year but got side tracked pretending to be normal again and didn't do anything useful with it! (BTW - pretending to be normal hasn' t worked out so well - again!)
Kind regards,
soldersplash