DISCUSSION FORUM

I have been diagnosed for a couple of things in the past 49 years and none of them really fit. AS fits the best but the only specialist I could afford said he couldn't diagnose me because I functioned too well in the appointment with him. There certainly is something wrong with me, any kind of personality disorder, but he wouldn't become more specific.
I have learned to function very well in situations I am very clearly shown what is expected of me. This enables me to work as a teacher far better than as a mother-of-four without any role-model. I will do great in a meeting with my headmistress and go completely to pieces at a beach-party! The only specialist I could now go to for a second opinion I can't afford. My insurance doesn't cover any further appointments since "AS would have been diagnosed in childhood if I had it" (quote from a letter by my insurance). I am sure I fall somewhere in the autistic spectrum, but I learned that without an official diagnose even members of German AS-communities wouldn't accept me, saying it's a "fashion-diagnose" and I'm "not a true Aspie".
I feel I'm "not allowed" to say: I have AS or even "mild autism" while I'm pretty sure that's the key to my whole biography. My question is: how reliable can a so-called "self-diagnosis" be? How could I go about finding professional help (bearing in mind that each time I am told I'm wrong lowers my self-esteem even more).

Posted - 08/14/2012 :  08:58:49  

I think I can work out an answer by myself now, so I withdraw the question :-). I got another one, though.
The doctor who wouldn't diagnose me said he just couldn't determine whether I'm a person with Asperger's who copes very well or a neurotypical one who has acquired some autistjc traits. I can understand this for I do cope very well - by now. and nobody sees how much it costs me. I will succeed in social situations 8 out of 10 these days, but each and every time I do nobody is more surprised than me. I have to work it up from scratch every time and there's always this split of a second in which I wonder "will it work?" And I can never be sure if it will work the next time. I used to get so mad at myself for not "learning" how to communicate with others. I thought after the sixth or seventh or seventieth time I ought to know how it works. But I don't. It still feels like I've never done it before.
Does anyone know this? Is it common in people on the spectrum? I tend to think my brain is like a bath-tub with no stopper, social skills-wise. Everything I put into it runs out the other end (leaving some puddles, though, which make me hopeful. I mean, I DO know I have learned a lot but it's still so miserably difficult).