Assessing or diagnosing As in adults

[Barrey]

Hi All

 

Any comments much appreciated:

 

 

 

 

My Circumstances are mid 60s male, in retirement zone, just diagnosed last June, coming to terms with parts of the assessment, but reluctant to accept the totality

 

What’s in it for you by being diagnosed – use NAS checklist to see if there are tangible benefits for you. Statically older men will find it harder because they’re more likely to be affected & their education, training & experience will have emphasised their systemising skills & brutalise their empathetic side; be as clear as you can about your aim - I did it to validate my wife’s (medical) intuition (& have regretted it)

 

Is your GP aware & onside?

 

Be prepared to accept & work with the result – I thought I could but it takes a long time to let go of the old you.

 

Who will supply the ‘evidence’ (against) you – your partner?

 

Consider the consequences/implications e.g. for your relationship – are you both really committed to it, in sickness & health

 

I found the assessment very hard to accept because of the process and her use or misuse of the evidence to categorise me as being affected by AS. I've come to terms with aspects like the theory of mind and can accept that; but I see As as very different for each individual - heavily influenced by our genes, education, training and experience and generation.

 

Who will fund it? PCT or you?

 

Who do you go to? NHS has more credibility than private. Can you self diagnose using the materials on the web?

 

Who will really support you through it? Do they know enough about AS Is there a couples counsellor with enough knowledge of AS locally you can both get on with? Are you prepared for the weekly battle as you work through issues?

 

Attwood (page 310) suggests there are 3 steps:

 

1. Acknowledgement (not Acceptance) of the result,

 

2. Motivation & willingness to change on all sides.

 

3. Access to CBT counselling that works for the Aspie

 

Are there any next steps for you? Or do you agree with the bleak view that AS can’t be cured & can’t sustain the relationship in the long term, so the Aspie can’t change & why should the non Aspie partner do so?

Edited May 4, 2010 by Barrey

[Tanya52]

Hello Barrey,

 

I’m in my early 50th. I discovered my obstacles with semantics/pragmatics issues as a result of trying hard to fix my ‘oddness’ in mundane interactions. I’m pretty much a DIY fixer, so I also found that autistic people often have Specific Language Impairments (SLI) such as deficit of phonological memory ( dropping small grammatical words : auxiliary verbs & prepositions). Some of us have problems with constructing well formed clauses in speech. For instance, majority of my clauses are ill formed too. The irony is that I can analyse syntactic structures of clauses quite well but my speech production doesn’t improve as much as I would like to. And I’m only scratching the surface.

 

Tanya

 

[Tally]

If you are drafting an article, you really oughtn't to be posting it on the internet as most publications will only accept material that has not previously been published.

[call me jaded]

I'm sure the article will cover a lot more than Barrey's posted here.

 

As a parent I can't really comment other than to say they are really interesting questions and have you heard of Digby Tantam?

[Kathryn]

Sorry, what's AU?

 

You obviously have something important to say, but I think you need to think more clearly about the reason for writing your article, and the main point you want to get across. Do you want to write about your own experiences? Or do you want to write a guide for others? What I see above is a bit of a random mixture of both.

 

My feeling is that maybe it's a bit too soon in your experience to think of writing explicit instructions for others - and that kind of guide will need to be well researched in order to be helpful to others. But as someone who has been diagnosed at 60+ you have a rare experience to share which might help people in similar situations. Why not ditch the explicit instructions and try to just write the story about your own personal journey to getting a diagnosis? This would provide a context in which you could include some important questions for others who are thinking of going down the same route to late diagnosis.

 

I do think there's potential for an article, but I think it needs a lot more work - just my opinion, obviously.

 

K x

 

 

 

 

 

[Mumble]

Hello, welcome to the forum. I'm assuming this is just an outline as it doesn't read as an article. However, some comments of what you have posted:

 

Statically older men will find it harder because they’re more likely to be affected

This doesn't make sense (from a statistical point of view). Yes, more males are diagnosed than females, but it does not follow that men - or older men - will find it harder because more of them are diagnosed. In fact, it could be possible for the opposite to be claimed as there is less understanding of female autistics.

 

Can you self diagnose using the materials on the web?

Would you self-diagnose with any physical condition - i.e. cancer? Or even a mental health condition i.e. Bi-polar? Or a specific learning difficulty - dyslexia? You may be led to feeling that you have the symptoms of whatever condition but you would see a doctor/psychiatrist/psychologist for a diagnosis. What is Autism any different. Self-diagnosis harms everyone - it does not give the individual any real answers and misleads outsiders as to what Autism is, leading to the real difficulties of those diagnosed with Autism being misunderstood.

 

Who will really support you through it? Do they know enough about AS Is there a couples counsellor with enough knowledge of AS locally you can both get on with? Are you prepared for the weekly battle as you work through issues?

Why would this support suddenly be needed in, say, a 50 year old who has been in a long term relationship. They are still the same person, with the same difficulties and issues as they were pre-dx. Why would all these issues suddenly be issues to the extent that external support was suddenly needed?

 

Or do you agree with the bleak view that AS can’t be cured

Who says this has to be a bleak view? Do you really want to enter into the 'cure debate' with your article?

 

[Mumble]

Sorry, what's AU?

Asperger United. It's a magazine published by(?) / in partnership with(?) the NAS for AS/HFA adults.

 

[Kathryn]

Of course! Thanks Mumble - I didn't connect it with the initials.

 

K x

[baddad]

Hi Barrey -

 

You've not really given much background to your proposed article so I can't offer much comment, but i would pick up and reiterate the points mumble has made: Why have behaviours that existed for 30/40/50 years suddenly become 'autistic' or more problematic because of the diagnosis?

 

I am very concerned at recent trends for women partners of men they suspect of being on the spectrum to lay all blame for all problems within the relationship at the foot of the AS partner, and to blame 'AS' as the root. The absolute reality is that marriages and relationships fail far more than they succeed these days - and that's equally true for NT relationships. To suggest that they fail 'because of' one party's AS is a complete power dynamic, and completely unrealistic. Any autistic 'nice guy' (which is not to say that all autistic guys are nice guys - this is purely for illustrative purposes) who finds himself married to a charmless, bullying, henpecking, spiteful old harridan will default to being the 'bad guy' in the relationship purely because they have autism? That's ridiculous, and actually incredibly dangerous and nasty. Already there's going to be a gender judgement made - most women prepared to accept that he must be the one at fault purely because he's male (the opposite seems to be less true IE when men 'judge' relationships they also often seem pre-programmed to see the women automatically as 'victims', purely because that's the way our society has portrayed them for the past few centuries), without the added 'confirmation' of AS.

To find people like Tony Attwood and/or the NAS endorsing this kind of prejudice is the most frightening thing of all... the problem with 'Cassandra' is that it completely overlooks and denies the possibility that - with the exception of the mythical, God-bothered herione from which it takes it's name - 'Cassandra's' in relationships are equally as capable of being high maintenance, self absorbed b*tches as the men are of being high maintenance self-absorbed b*stards...

 

Hope that's helpful

 

L&P

 

BD

Edited May 4, 2010 by baddad

[matzoball]

Hi Barrey -

 

You've not really given much background to your proposed article so I can't offer much comment, but i would pick up and reiterate the points mumble has made: Why have behaviours that existed for 30/40/50 years suddenly become 'autistic' or more problematic because of the diagnosis?

 

I am very concerned at recent trends for women partners of men they suspect of being on the spectrum to lay all blame for all problems within the relationship at the foot of the AS partner, and to blame 'AS' as the root. The absolute reality is that marriages and relationships fail far more than they succeed these days - and that's equally true for NT relationships. To suggest that they fail 'because of' one party's AS is a complete power dynamic, and completely unrealistic. Any autistic 'nice guy' (which is not to say that all autistic guys are nice guys - this is purely for illustrative purposes) who finds himself married to a charmless, bullying, henpecking, spiteful old harridan will default to being the 'bad guy' in the relationship purely because they have autism? That's ridiculous, and actually incredibly dangerous and nasty. Already there's going to be a gender judgement made - most women prepared to accept that he must be the one at fault purely because he's male (the opposite seems to be less true IE when men 'judge' relationships they also often seem pre-programmed to see the women automatically as 'victims', purely because that's the way our society has portrayed them for the past few centuries), without the added 'confirmation' of AS.

To find people like Tony Attwood and/or the NAS endorsing this kind of prejudice is the most frightening thing of all... the problem with 'Cassandra' is that it completely overlooks and denies the possibility that - with the exception of the mythical, God-bothered herione from which it takes it's name - 'Cassandra's' in relationships are equally as capable of being high maintenance, self absorbed b*tches as the men are of being high maintenance self-absorbed b*stards...

 

Hope that's helpful

 

L&P

 

BD

 

I agree that it is dangerous to set precidents in which the partner who has asd has to defer to being the 'bad guy' purely because they have autism.

 

However I do not think this is the real issue at heart here. Forgive me for being presumptious, but I feel this has been written by someone who has only just started to come to terms with his dx, and is obviously having marital troubles due to the dx and he is trying to make sense of it all. No one knows Barreys personal circumstances apart from Barrey and it seems he is trying to do something positive as he comes to terms with it. This is only my personal opinion.

 

Barrey - I think it may be more helpful to perhaps do some more research on asd and relationships before you continue writing your article - perhaps even speak to other male autistics on here to maybe gain some perspective and perhaps get some advice. The NAS may be able to point you in the direction of relationship counsellors who specialise in dealing with asd and relationships.

[baddad]

However I do not think this is the real issue at heart here. Forgive me for being presumptious, but I feel this has been written by someone who has only just started to come to terms with his dx, and is obviously having marital troubles due to the dx and he is trying to make sense of it all. No one knows Barreys personal circumstances apart from Barrey and it seems he is trying to do something positive as he comes to terms with it. This is only my personal opinion.

 

Barrey - I think it may be more helpful to perhaps do some more research on asd and relationships before you continue writing your article - perhaps even speak to other male autistics on here to maybe gain some perspective and perhaps get some advice. The NAS may be able to point you in the direction of relationship counsellors who specialise in dealing with asd and relationships.

 

Hi matzoball - My reply was to offer feedback on the article Barrey proposes writing, not to make any assumptions on his own background or circumstances. I don't know whether Barrey is experienceing marital problems, but if that is the case - as my feedback implies - I think hasty judgements that they must be due to Barrey's dx are unreasonable. As I stated, the simple fact is that for the past fifty years or so divorce statistic and expectations about relationships have shifted dramatically. While I'm sure 99% of couples marry with the intention to stay together 'Till Death Do Us Part', that is, emphatically, not what happens for the majority. More recently there has been an increasing trend for women to 'home diagnose' their partners with autism, and/or for women to identify aspects of autism in their partner's behaviour as the root cause of marital unhappiness, but the 'traits' they cite are for the most part identical to the 'traits' cited by women with non-autistic partners as responsible for the unhappiness in their marriages.

I imagine that if a psychologist was to offer counselling to couples based on negative perceptions of stereotypical female behaviour and citing those behaviours as the root of all marital strife they would find themselves poorly accessed and that they would probably come under attack from feminist organisations concerned with female rights. The saddest thing of all that is, in terms of disability rights, those stereotypical judgements are endorsed and perpetuated, regardless of the fact that in real terms the asssumptions are unproven and, statistically, inaccurate.

 

L&P

 

BD

[matzoball]

Hi matzoball - My reply was to offer feedback on the article Barrey proposes writing, not to make any assumptions on his own background or circumstances. I don't know whether Barrey is experienceing marital problems, but if that is the case - as my feedback implies - I think hasty judgements that they must be due to Barrey's dx are unreasonable.

 

I may have not explained myself clearly as I do not feel that the dx is the only reason for marital problems(again i am being presumptive so if i am wrong please forgive me) as I do not know the personal circumstances, however Barrey did say that he went for dx 'to validate his wifes' (medical) intuition and regretted it'. Also the article itself seems to be partner/spouse centric so that indicates(to me - again presumptions) that this is a major issue for him. However the advice that I tried to impart at the end of my post was also feedback for the article.

 

I am not an expert by any means and wrote in generalities in regards to asd in relationships - I am the non-nt in my relationship and am not stereotypical by any nt standard. A lot of my issues in my relationship are exactly the same as NT women so my asd is not an issue when it comes to my problems therein. My partner has never blamed my dx for the problems we have. I suggested speaking to a relationship counsellor as part of his research as I assume that the counsellor is supposed to offer impartial advice without any gender bias, and may be able to give some good feedback.

[Barrey]

Hi All

 

thank you to all that replied with some helpful & often insightful responses.

 

My situation has changed following a diagnosis by the PCT Clinical psychologist which has revised the diagnosis of AS by a private specialist to my having some asperger traits - so I'm much more comfortable with that!

 

Good luck on your journeys......Barrey