How do I get undiagnosed with Asperger's?

As a general rule you don't have to tell anyone about your diagnosis. It's private medical data and your employer can't demand you disclose it unless there is a very good reason. The army might be one of the very rare exceptions to that. The military actually has a manual on medical fitness and the section on recruiting people with autism reads as follows.

40. Candidates diagnosed with autism (F84) or similar disorders by a specialist autism service are normally graded UNFIT. Candidates diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome (F84.5) by a specialist autism service may appear unremarkable on examination but should normally be graded UNFIT. If there is doubt about the diagnosis or the condition is mild and does not cause disability, candidates should be referred to the single Service occupational physician responsible for Service entry. In cases of mild, entirely non-disabling Asperger’s Syndrome, the single Service occupational physician may advise single Service recruiting staff psychiatric assessment is not required. This because pre-entry tests of suitability for military life (eg selection interviews and tests) are as good a form of assessment as a psychiatric assessment.

In short if you assert that your diagnosis is wrong, or at least doesn't effect you, then they send you off to see a specialist who if he agrees sends you back and tells the recruiters not to worry about it.

The NHS MH services aren't great with autism health, my social worker suspected autism but the psychiatrists I was referred to didn't know autism, and even admitted it, they weren't trained in it.  Bizarre, considering its been in the mental health diagnostic manuals for decades.

Question their assessment of you and any treatment is frowned upon, and may mean they see you as hostile - when really, you are just distressed or confused.  That means they won't really listen to you anymore, or get to know you more or take into account your concerns.

Its tough for them, because some people they see with deny and reject a diagnosis even if its correct, because of their illness or mental state or beliefs about themselves.  Its really important mental health professionals are unbiased, and don't turn on patients - especially if their own inexperience or bias is causing a problem.

NHS MH certainly missed my diagnosis, even though my every interaction with them had autism stamped all over it. They just blamed me when their therapy didn't work. Well, it wouldn't. They were trying to treat a condition I didn't have, whilst missing the one I did have. If I hadn't worked out myself, I dread to think where I'd be now.

I'd be more forgiving but for the blaming me part.

at times i honestly begin to doubt that NHS staff are given any training or education at all. so yeah they are not up to date with training, they cant even diagnose anything these days, from a common cold to a simple abscess, theyd fail to diagnose and argue among their other NHS staff over the many possibilities what it could be and still get it wrong and even worse never tell you anything or communicate and not even tell you of your appointments they book for you and certainly never inform you of any results they get. i find the NHS shockingly bad, its gotta be the worst health service in the entire world. if there is worse than that then the human race is doomed. we are surely living in that film "idiocracy" at this point with the stuff ive seen from so called proffesionals lol

Well put.  Sorry you have had to go through misdiagnosis, I've read a few stories online and in social media about this.  Its difficult for professionals to look into us and work out what is going on, sometimes its the wrong questions, and people with autism may not convey enough about what is happening for them to realise that it might be autism, but sometimes its just bad professionals, and perhaps ablism is involved.

There are only two possibilities here:

1) You had some other issue as a kid and were misdiagnosed ASD. You've out grown whatever the initial issue was and it isn't doing you any good to have a misdiagnosis following you around. Any misdiagnosis about anything, if left uncorrected can be harmful to you. I get that and going through that in respect of something else myself.

2) They got it right in the first place but you have a lot of coping strategies, have learned to do things differently in way in which you may not even recognise, and have 'masked' so well you appear not to be hindered socially any more as a result. I also absolutely see how that happens. I didn't play with other kids when small and was bullied in school, but in adulthood have had good friends. You have to dig to see the subtleties in my social difference now; the not getting jokes or losing the thread when a couple of conversations are going on at once, disinterest in dress codes etc The strategies can work so well it can make ASD appear invisible even to yourself. Had anyone said I was autistic a couple of years back, in my ignorance, I'd have said: 'don't be daft, I have a good many friends'.

Either way, it sounds like you need a really thorough re-assessment and you need to be really brutally honest with the assessors and with yourself.

At the end of the day it will ultimately be equally as harmful to you too leave the ASD diagnosis there, if you are not autistic, as to remove it if you are. You need the truth. Trying to deny the truth about yourself, whichever way this swings will in the end hurt you. The truth may not be what you initially want to hear, but will be in your interest.

I recall that case. It was a kid who wanted to join the police. He turned up for re-assessment and didn't demonstrate all the criteria, but as I recall that example, he then left then later ran into difficulties due to his ASD...so, the original diagnosis had been correct.

Moral of the story I think being, it is possible not to display the characteristics matching the criteria and be 'undiagnosed', but that doesn't make the truth go away. This guy was still autistic.

I can see where your perception comes from as some folks who have been poorly served by the NHS services do get a private diagnosis, but it isn't because the criteria are different.

The criteria are the criteria and have to be met whether assessed privately or on the NHS. A private assessor is not paid to give the diagnosis the client wants and it would very unscrupulous of them to do that. It's in the patient's interest to have the truth. I'm not denying that malpractice can occur, but it should be a rarity. I was diagnosed privately at the NAS centre and the NHS have accepted that without question. They are among the world leaders after all and do take NHS patients.

I think what's often happening in these cases is that the NHS are under too much pressure and don't get the time to dig deeply enough. Also, some of them I don't think have kept up to date with training; hence from what others are saying here come back with stuff like if you made any eye contact at all, you aren't autistic, ignoring the fact that folk may just be forcing themselves to endure it, or may have trained themselves to focus on another part of the face etc

Private assessments are likely to give that stuff deeper probing. It's not right. We all have an entitlement to have our needs met by the NHS, but it's not the case that that happens. In that sense you're right that money talks in that it gaiins access to the right expertise more quickly. Not morally right, but it does.

tbh the NHS is fecking useless anyway, it wouldnt matter if you pay the NHS theyd still make a balls up of it and their appointment system would book you in for the wrong thing or theyd make some sort of mistake. had a surgical appointment that i rebooked one time and then on rebooking they made it a phone appointment, to which i contacted them to say how can they do the surgery over phone and they claimed that its not surgery appointment but a appointment to see what needs be done first, to which i gave them benefit of doubt for, then gets a phone call months later telling me i missed my surgical appointment because these idiots did indeed get it wrong. the NHS is incompetant and could do with being privatized to make it more functional when you think on it.

You only need to ask people who’ve been through the system how broken it is. Many children are missed purely because the don’t talk about trains, or if they have an imagination. These are not reasons to not give a child a diagnosis, and it’s exactly the reason why so many females are ‘flying under the radar’. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs. 

If it was that easy to ‘buy’ a diagnosis, wouldn’t people be queuing up down the road to get one, and have themselves labelled as disabled?

Or do those missed by budget stretched NHS services need to pay to get the diagnosis that’s going to help them strategise their life better and understand themselves more? 

There is a difference between genuinely believing a diagnosis is wrong, and wanting to hide something you don't like about yourself.  What does your report say about you as a child?

Share them. I'm asking how to get undiagnosed, not just because I want to join the Army, but because I don't think I've got it. Even if I didn't want to join the Army, I'd want to get undiagnosed.

Yeah, I've been told this before. They hate admitting that they're wrong, especially to mere commoners. They were saying maybe I didn't have it though so maybe that'll help my case. I'll just kick up a stink and demand second opinions until I get my way, lol, it usually works.

I don't know lol, I was only young. I think I was a little socially awkward when I was younger, but not so much that I couldn't make friends. I'm not at all now. I'm pretty sure it was the NHS.

To be honest,. This is comical,. You’re autistic or have autism and even on the ASD scale. So you say. Having a autistic diagnosis is not effecting your life. You’re clearly just blaming it.  I have my opinions regarding this post but I’m holding back. This isn’t stopping you joining the army, if it is, it’s the ASD it’s self, not the army, you’ve not tried.

it is for some, who immediately come here and ask if they can get pip and how much benefits they can get out of it lol there are people like that in this world, many many like that.

You could ask your GP about challenging your childhood diagnosis, but not sure they would just remove it - I once read someone challenging a different diagnosis, because they autism was more appropriate .  Autism doesn't go away, and you may not be fully aware of yourself to know how you are affected.

Why not just apply to join the Army and see what happens, rather than predicting what might happen?

If the Army doesn't sign you up, for whatever reason, will just have to apply for regular jobs where they won't know or look at your medical records (unless you tell them).  Have you struggled with other jobs?  Focussing only on joining the Army isn't realistic, and kind of conflicts with you seeking to undiagnose.

Discrimination comes to mind (if you are rejected for a job based on having mild autistic traits)

Clinicians have to uphold professional standards, if they do not they can be disciplined and even have their licence to practice revoked. Paying for the professional services of a clinician is the same as paying for the services of a lawyer or accountant, they all have to perform heir duties within an ethical framework. All professions contain rogues, but they are a small minority. It's not as though being diagnosed with ASD is like winning the lottery.

but some who failed NHS diagnosis then go on to pay for private one and get diagoses privately. so theres clearly a difference in criteria. which i guess is the assumption that the person paying is paying for it to be positive if they failed their NHS one and so its like paying to circumvent the official one that was negative and the doctors know that when they see it so let it happen because money talks.