DinkyInky wrote:You are very fortunate you could get one. Every time I go, I get told it's rare, or impossible for a girl to have it. I have had three unofficial diagnosis, but it's not enough. It's getting more frustrating every time I try to get diagnosed. They also are changing a lot of Aspies to PDD-NOS, which is a lot harder to pin down.
You can be sociable, yet socially awkward. My filters don't always engage, and I ramble on. Most folk won't deal with me because I'm either annoying, or intimidating. Change freaks me out to the point of neurosis, or depression.
They vary greatly from boy to girl. Just my observation.
They do, from what I remember from my therapy sessions is that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in general, and Aspergers in particular is far harder to determine in women then in men, mostly because for some reason women compensate for the disabilities better then men.
Some women with ASD have told researchers that they compensate by mimicking others in an effort to fit in, down to using the exact same inflections that others used.
Okay I just looked it up, cause it was like one or two sessions we talked about the difference between men and women with ASD, and this whole thing made me curious.
A few examples of the differences are (
IMPORTANT NOTE: these are only examples from scientific research, in reality the differences are much more nuanced and people with ASD will often recognize themselves in aspects of both genders):
Social contacts
Men - No real social contacts
Women - Social contacts present
Interests and Fascinations
Childhood:
Boys - "autistic" interests like Planes, Trains, Ancient Egypt, etc
Girls - obsessive like interest in normal girl interests like horses, princesses, etc
Adulthood:
Men - "Autistic interests" like science and technology, for instance how does a jet engine work, airplane spotting, memorizing train tables, or even molecular formula's
Women - Near obsessive interest in normal subjects like reading, or watching tv shows
Also it is know that people with ASD can "blow up" over something trivial, something I can attest to myself, tho apparently this is more common in men then in women, women are on the other hand more likely to internalize, with fear and depressions as a result.
I mentioned for instance "living scheduled" in my original post, but regularity, or rigid and patterned behavior might be a better wording, having to go off of that pattern, being told to do something outside of your "day plan" can cause such an episode.
As a final note, I use Aspergers Syndrome a lot, because that's what I have, and when I was taught about it by my therapist the DSM-IV (DSM is the "bible" of psychological world) was still being used, they have since switched to the DSM-5 where Aspergers, and other subcategories of ASD have been eliminated, it is now part of a general ASD, which handles cases on severity, generally classifying what was Aspergers Syndrome as "Mild ASD" rather then a separate disorder.
There's still criticism from some scientists and professionals on the DSM-5 for removing the Aspergers category, as there are some differences between the original definitions of High Functioning Autism and Aspergers Syndrome, and how they were diagnosed, and they shouldn't be shoved in the same box in the DSM-5, the workgroup that set up the DSM-5 disagrees on the basis that there was actually a lot of overlap, and the differences could be down to individual cases, for the simple fact that no two cases of ASD are the same, even if they have the same diagnosis.
Especially when you let yourself go and just enjoy the moment of them living the moment.
My 
