Talk about comorbid conditions. Do you have any other disorders commonly related to autism? Were you misdiagnosed as something else first?
I’ve been seeing doctors/psychiatrists since I was 3 when my mom took me to the doctor because I was ridiculously hyper. They like to tell the story of me literally climbing up the wall and then running around the room on the little edge/crowning thing that was midway up the wall. And that was when I received my first diagnosis: ADHD. Over the next 20 years I received or had been tested for a multitude of things. The diagnoses I received were ADHD, ODD, depression/dysthymia, GAD, social phobias and panic disorder. At one point I was also tested for OCD and bipolar disorder but they were inclusive.
I would agree with all of my diagnoses except perhaps ODD. I think a lot of the behavior that was interpreted as defiance could have been symptoms of my autism. Looking at the symptoms of ODD a lot of them overlap. Things like refusal to comply with instructions may have been me misunderstanding the directions. Or being deliberately annoying could be explained by my lack of social skills, I may not have even known what I was doing was bothering them, or if I did register they were irritated I wouldn’t have known why or how to modify my behavior. Stubbornness/inability to compromise can be summed up by my inability to adapt to change. I need to do things my way, it’s not just a want or me being difficult; I become agitated and confused when presented with an alternate instruction or change of plans.
I wouldn’t for sure say I was misdiagnosed with anything but I think it obvious that the doctors didn’t do as well as they could have in trying to categorize all my symptoms. With the diagnoses, I had before I got my autism diagnosis, yes some of the symptoms do overlap but there are quite a few that don’t and no one really tried to find something that would cover all of them. One would think with all the people I saw and was evaluated by someone would have suggested autism but apparently not. If I hadn’t pushed for a diagnosis I doubt anyone else would have brought it up as a possibility.
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