Michael 1 -
I hope you find relief in this new information about yourself. Clearly you are not alone and have a lot to share with other ***
What book did your doctor give you to read? I am desperate to find the right book for my brother who is undiagnosed at 35.

Hi Michael -
I hope you find relief. You are clearly not alone out there.
Can I ask you which book your doctor gave you to read. I am seeking the right way to tell my undiagnosed brother of 35 that I think he's an Aspie. I know I need to be direct and clear, but I don't want to hurt his feelings.
Thank and good luck.

Michael 1, are you in a union? Because if you have been officially diagnosed with Aspergers, the employers should be required to give you different duties and someone in the union might be able to help with this.

I compare being an asperigan to being a jew, you have a different worldview, people often don't understand you, and you never really know what it feels like to be anything else.

I had a very good meeting with a different company Doctor today. He was very understanding of me and we discussed the positives and negatives of my situation. I learnt from him that in the U K you do not actually need to be 'officially' diagnosed with a 'mental heath' problem in order to be protected by disability laws. Only the recognition of the probelm by a Doctor is needed. OK AS isn't a mental illness, but it can be disabling so I am better protected in work now. As far as he is concerned as a work issue the matter is dealt with and the company has to respond to my different needs. So that is good.

With regards an official diagnosis I will leave that to my GP to arrange. I would like to have the certanty ( although it is by no means certain ), it involves a referal to an educational development assesment ( a psychiatrist in other words ). I am interested to do this.

As I may have said I didn't know AS existed before Dec. 2006. A diagnosis will not reduce my anxiety but it can open up more opportunities to learn how to control it better.

Ultimately I am a very happy person. I don't suffer depression but I do sometimes get challenged about my difference and then doubt myself a bit. That will pass again as it has before. Now I am more determined than ever that the doubt does not return.

I have just received a referal 'pack' from from the '..........Aspergers Syndrome service' ( post delivered at 11:30PM, very odd !). So I'll ( and my parent ) will fill it out and send it off tomorrow.

Great news, fingers crossed!!!

They say it could take four months thought as they are part time. The government should fund these services to let them be full time.

In some areas they do. Then again 4 months is better than never

Thats right. I will tell my employer on monday! So it buys me at least four months more employment.

I realize it has been some months since you posted, still I was moved to reply...

>As a parent I went through the tears "Not something else >for him to deal with".  

As difficult as my life has been because of my inability to decode the social world, I am grateful for the terrible beauty I am able to see in things that appear to be banal to others. I can not imagine life without being able to think and "see" the way I do. I would never want to give that up. (also: it has ended up making a lot of money for me!)

>instinct.  That I have to know if he has ASD, so he can >understand himself better, to clear up the confusion he >has about himself and to help other people to understand >him better.  They also make me think the sooner we know >the better we will be able to cope.

What I needed was instructions for things that other people take for granted. In my case having a name for a condition I already knew I had would not have helped as much as simply reading Machiavelli's "The Prince."

I grew up thinking I was a sociopath because I needed instructions or rules to know what reaction to have to people. In the final analysis I finally understood that *everyone* does. And that what was unusual about me was not my need for the rules, but my need for the rules to be explicit.

If your son is like I am, any books that analyze human interaction and propose rules for interaction will be a tremendous help. Examples of such books are as varied as "The Prince"and "The 48 Laws of Power" to the "Human Relations: Principles And Practices"

I wish you and your son the best,
Adam

It's funny that AS doesn't actually explain anything because it's just a label, but it makes us feel better anyway. I guess that's because it means we're not alone and, even if we don't know what it is, we know that there's an underlying cause that makes us the way we are.

Would you say the same for me if I received a referral pack?

There's an Asperger's Syndrome Service? What do they do? What's a referral pack?

What is that supposed to mean? It's how people react when others posts things like that, why would you receive any special/different treatment?