I went to see a psychologist at Tony Attwood's Heart and Minds clinic this afternoon and after lots of questions and two tests, I now have a professionals opinion that I do have Aspergers. It was kinda weird really. She said Congratulations - You have Aspergers. That's the good thing about going to that place, she was encouraging me in my interests and I can get real help with my anxiety problems, because I won't have someone treating me as if I think normally anymore.
An interesting point she made was that females with Aspergers display quite differently to males and they are actually looking at designing different diagnostic criteria. I was given a bunch of books to give a female perspective on Aspergers that I'll list here: -
The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome by Tony Attwood
Women from Another Planet - Our Lives in the Universe of Autism by Jean Kearns Miller
Aspergers in Love by Maxine Aston
Asperger's Syndrome and long term relationships by Ashleigh Stanford
Body Language - How to Read Others' Thoughts by Their Gestures by Alan Pease
Build Your Own Life: A Self-Help Guide for Individuals With Asperger's Syndrome by Wendy Lawson
Congratulations! It's Asperger's Syndrome by J Birch
Developing Talents: Careers for Individuals With Asperger's Syndrome by Temple Grandin and Kate Duffy
Life Behind Glass: A Personal Account of Autism Spectrum Disorder by Wendy Lawson
Pretending to be Normal by Liane Holliday-Wiley
Somebody Somewhere by Donna Williams
Congrats. Was it your first official DX then?
What is the price on closure these days?
Yep. That was my first official DX. It would have cost $380 for a 2 hour appointment, but I got a referral from my doctor, so our government medicare scheme covered it. I can get a total of 10 appointments with psychologists covered by medicare... I think this one might count for two of those appointments though.
So, I wonder, what ARE the differences between male and female aspies? And how strongly do these differences hold?
The psychologist didn't go into too many specifics, but she did say that females tend to find it easier to blend in and just be shy. Males tend to have more problems it seems. I'm going to get hold of those books and do more research to go into more details though.
It does feel good to finally have a firm nod, but mostly this means that when I go to professionals to get help with my anxiety I can get help that is actually suited to me, rather than generic help. That was pretty much the main reason for pursuing the diagnosis. I just found going to people they tried to just assume the problems that I am having because a person who normally displays anxiety would be having those problems.
I'm not a particularly fast reader, but thankfully I did get a pamphlet on a local autism resource centre. I agree with you completely Tigger. I don't have the money to buy them, but I do have a bit of time to do some reading.
It will be interesting to see what else comes of the female/male difference in Aspergers. I think they are currently doing research, because it seems that the higher rate amongst males is really because females can generally blend in easier. It seems just to be a cultural thing... in that generic male culture is harder to blend into.
Although adding on to my last point - the psychologist did actually say that the Aspergers presented differently in males to females, so maybe it is more than just culture.
It does feel good to finally have a firm nod, but mostly this means that when I go to professionals to get help with my anxiety I can get help that is actually suited to me, rather than generic help. That was pretty much the main reason for pursuing the diagnosis. I just found going to people they tried to just assume the problems that I am having...
females can generally blend in easier. It seems just to be a cultural thing... in that generic male culture is harder to blend into.
...the psychologist did actually say that the Aspergers presented differently in males to females, so maybe it is more than just culture.
congratulations bella :D i'm so glad that you now have the support of an independent AS diagnosis, when looking for help from professionals and friends. It's such hard work, getting past what people assume of us (ie that we're experiencing the world in an ordinary way).
I'm really interested - as a man - in the man/woman differences within aspergers. I've assumed that one major difference is that women in general receive much more training (and are subjected to many more expectations :-( in handling the feelings of others, so that a girl may acquire many more skills in handling emotional traffic even though she has an 'Aspie filter' on her own emotions and perceptions. How does this sound?
I have a strong motivation around the man/woman dimension right now - I'm in a new relationship (after the breakdown of a 35-year marriage) and I find i'm learning the whole business of male-female relationships as if it were new territory. strange, fun and fearful, by turns!
Please keep up this thread everyone? I'm intrigued.
PS books - the miller collection looks interesting. I haven't seen much on female gender as distinct from cross-gender relationships.
You are lucky to be near a specialist clinic. I live in the worst state in the nation for getting any sort of psychological diagnosis; this is both a realization and the opinion blatantly stated by professionals in the area. You? You get the Tony freakin' Attwood Clinic. Bah!
$380 is not bad, I'd do that.
Interestingly though, even with the influence of that clinic, I've seen so many psychiatrists and medical professionals and it has never been suggested that I have Aspergers before. Recently, when I went to try to seek it out, I found it quite difficult to find someone who knew what they were talking about and even had a few saying no you don't have it because you don't have repetitive movements all the time and you aren't really good with numbers (those kinds of things). Eventually I went to see my local doctor and basically went in there with the information for this clinic and really pushed to get referred. I couldn't really afford the $380 as I'm not working now, so I really did have to go the referred route.
I'm really interested - as a man - in the man/woman differences within aspergers. I've assumed that one major difference is that women in general receive much more training (and are subjected to many more expectations :-( in handling the feelings of others, so that a girl may acquire many more skills in handling emotional traffic even though she has an 'Aspie filter' on her own emotions and perceptions. How does this sound?
I don't actually consider myself very good at dealing with emotions in others, so I don't know that that is correct. I'm particularly bad at dealing with upset people. My only method of helping is through advice. It seems a lot of the time that people who are upset want sympathy mostly, which I don't do. That's a common thing, which is why when I'm upset I hide it until such stage as I am capable of thinking again and then I can ask advice or figure it out myself.
I wish you the best in your new relationship. I think the best thing you can do when you're in a male-female relationship is to throw all the theories out the window about how females think and how males think and just learn who your partner is as an individual.
I am currently reading Aspergers and Girls by Attwood and Grandin - just a short book of nine essays. Tony Attwood makes a good point that we need to remember that AS manifests in many varying combinations of characteristics and is influenced by personality. This makes it difficult to have a 'one-size fits all' diagnostic criteria for AS. We are not AS. We are individuals who share a number of characteristics that someone has labelled as AS. Vive le difference!
Thanks aliceinOz. I'll have to look up Aspergers and Girls by Attwood and Grandin. I have been to Donna Williams website and I really like what she has to say. I've also read a lot by Jim Sinclair. He has a website with lots of useful articles about thinking differently. I'll take a look at Beyond the Square. I am on WP, but I don't really go on there that much. I like this site better, it's easier to navigate and there are some really good people here.
I agree with you about us all being different and AS just being some traits or a way of thinking that we share. I'll have to go to the Brisbane Autism Library first and see what they have, but I'll keep the Melbourne one in mind.
Congratulations on the diagnosis, Bella. I think it will open some doors for you. I had a Donna Williams book but can't seem to find it. I also have "The Essential Difference" by Simon Baron-Cohen which I found helpful, and "The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-Time".
It would be really good if some more diagnostic criteria were added for females. I don't agree that there are 4 times as many male aspies as female - I just think more females don't present as obviously as males.
Thanks for the books Tenacious. My husband owns "The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-Time" so I'll have to read it. I've heard good things about it. I agree with you that there really aren't so many more Aspie males in reality. I think that's why Tony Attwood's clinic are looking at different diagnostic criteria for females because males, particularly as younger boys tend to be more noticeably different, where as Aspie females can blend in. She spoke of Aspie females being generally shy and just blending into groups that way.
Well, I am male, and I can say my Asperger's didn't begin to cause serious trouble for me until later adolescence (16-17 years old--around the same time it causes trouble for girls, it seems.) I don't know if this means I don't have AS, or if I was lucky to somehow escape the horrific bullying I see so many others on here had.
I think it's probably going to be different for everyone as far as the problems we experience. I was actually worse when I was younger. I pretty much sat by myself in Primary School until about Grade 4 when I met a geeky girl that I befriended. I got teased a lot throughout all my schooling. I also didn't really talk much when I was younger. It was only at a later age (after school) that I got better socially and didn't sit back from conversations so much. I actually was doing alright at one stage there. I had systems in place for figuring out conversations to match places and people etc etc, but I was also putting myself in a social job and I guess it all got too much and I crashed. I haven't actually been able to recover from that. I guess now I'm not so interested in it anyway. I was less happy then from trying so hard than I am now.
I remember starting to read that book Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus a few years ago when it was all the rage, a few of my friends had copies and it was being passed around my social circle.
The ideas in society that men are a certain way and women are a certain other way has always seemed stupid to me. When people bring it up in conversations, I've always said, but I do not fit into your woman box. I think Aspie females not fitting into the typical female emotionally sensitive and sympathy fluff box might be because cultural osmosis doesn't work on us. I think a lot of the things people say are 'female' and are 'male' are simply cultural things that are taught.
In response to other parts of the conversation...
I don't think I fit into the tomboy or the pretty girl category. I'm somewhere in the middle. I hate pink and don't wear makeup much, but I do have comfy dresses and skirts that I wear. Not fashionable though, but comfy. My part of the tomboy thing is I would still climb trees. A few years back I worked at a place that was near a little park that was on a main road. I figured out the only place to escape was to hoist myself up into a tree with a large overhanging canopy and so every lunch I climbed up there and wrote and read. I dunno where those things leave me, but I don't fit into either culture.
Thanks...............I want to copy that list of books to help out my daughters as well as myself.
So far I can recommend - Life Behind Glass: A Personal Account of Autism Spectrum Disorder by Wendy Lawson and also Nobody Nowhere by Donna Williams. Nobody Nowhere is the book before Somebody Somewhere.
It's been a long road to get there, hasn't it? I am happy for you, Bella, and look forward to reading your perspectives. And thanks for sharing the reading list -- it has been copied into a text file for future reference.
Everytime I hear about children recently being diagnosed with asperger syndrome, its always boys. I also have noticed while most men with asperger syndrome were diagnosed in childhood or adolescence(Often a misdiagnosis with something else-at age 3 I was misdiagnosed with PDD-NOS in 1982 and it wasnt until 1991 that I got the aspergers diagnosis from a child psychiatrist), most women who are officially diagnosed were diagnosed in adulthood. Moreover, many aspie women say that they knew themselves that they were different but their abnormalities went unnoticed by adults. It almost seems like asperger syndrome affects women less severly, or at least in a less obvious way than it affects men.
These are my thoughts, just based upon my own experiences & from personal observation.
Many AS children are brought up by undiagnosed AS parents or an AS parent, since it it is though to be genetic this is likely to be quite common.
These parents are not likely to notice some behaviour in their child which is normal to them.
This was certainly the case with me & my children. Input from the practitioner services is poor & the average health visitor spent about 10 minutes in the house, so until the child attends school nothing in either gender is likely to be picked up on.
Then depending upon the school if the classrooms are large & the child is timid & meek again they are unlikely to be noticed.
My younger son was only picked up when he was on for two reasons, 1. we moved house & he attended a small country school with approx 10 children as pupils. 2. he started to stim.
My older son was never diagnosed, although he is far from normal in many respects.
So it wasn't until recently easy even for a male to be diagnosed & in many places this situation hasn't altered.
I think the right combination of factors sometimes needs to be in place.
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I think that a lot of the reasons that females aren't picked up on are cultural.
In the average household this is a likely scenario.
From the time the child is born, it is considered ' cute ' for a female child to be shy hiding behind her mother's skirts, there will be ooh's & aah's & how cute's = acceptance.
The male child who behaves in the same manner will likely be told that he is a big boy now & too old to be shy, come & say hello to whoever = non acceptance.
This whole scenario will continue in various ways until adulthood, but the male child will always be subjected to more pressure to conform to society's view of how a male should behave Strong, aggressive etc.( even in the Western world boys are still more valued by many than girls ), this will cause stress & the results of this will start to manifest themselves fairly early.
Cultural behaviour towards females also continues, but they are often expected to be shy, retiring & self effacing, so a female who is socially inept will likely be excused on these grounds. The female who is a ' tomboy ' will likely be dismissed as just going through a phase... only she will turn out to be one who never seems to grow out of it, but there is still acceptance.
In a nutshell, I think that it is expectations, lack of expectations & lack of awareness by the authorities which cause females to pass unnoticed through the system.
I believe that we will soon see a huge change in the statistics.