Last updated on November 26, 2023
Though the autistic label is fairly new, I have been labeled many things in the past. As I think about the past and present experiences, I realize that including bits and pieces from my evaluation in the book I’m completing will help others with similar experiences.
I know I am not the only autistic person to have been considered slow or even mentally retarded at birth. Doctors were wrong, from the start. I also have read numerous online discussion groups in which people have posted about being diagnosed with OCD, ADD/ADHD, social anxiety, and even PTSD. I’m not sure how the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder fits with autism, but several HFA/AS (high-functioning autistic / Asperger’s Syndrome) individuals report this as an initial diagnosis.
My wife is certain I was, am, and always will be HFA. My mannerism, my speech patterns (poor affect, or even inappropriate affect), and my stereotyped movements under stress are mere bits of the picture, as they say.
The new diagnosis was not based on any new evaluation results. My original evaluations are little different from my undergraduate tests and those are both little different from the latest evaluation. Slow motor skills, good vocabulary, little comprehension of human motives. All that has changed over 30 years or so since my first evaluation is the label I’m given.
The autism diagnosis seems to be more about a new label for being more than a quirky geek. I’m unsure.
Maybe the labels do matter. The first time autism was suggest was many years ago, now, when I struggled with a master’s degree program. I just didn’t want to pay for a full evaluation at the time.
Trying to cope with overload, I would melt down and panic. Emotional overload, sensory overload, or stress overload, it’s so much easier to run around and scream like I’m insane. I didn’t want to ponder what evaluations can reveal.
Then again, my wife has known what I am like for much longer than I have.