"Do you have a professional diagnosis?"

In true AS fashion, I have spent the past couple of weeks being obsessed with something. This time, it's AS. And herein lies the AS hierarchy conundrum: I hate talking about personal things (like what's "wrong" with me) but it is usurped by the fact that I want to go on long tangents about my latest obsession (MLA). Also, it helps to talk with others to get a feel of what they think. Not that I necessarily care, but it may give some insight to what I have been thinking.

The universal reaction to my announcement that I *could* have AS has been NEGATIVE. Hence the reason for this secret blog that I will disclose at a later point. Again, not that I care but it is a little boring to hear people tell me all about me when it is very apparent they are not actually me. Me and my big mouth are to thank I guess.

Most of the people say comments along the lines of "oh really, did you self-diagnose?" or "I think you are selling yourself short" or my personal favorite, "you don't act like Rain Man". It is like I told them something totally illogical. Like I am saying "I now have the ability to fly" (which is a bad analogy because I need to desperately to clarify that I mean that in such a scenario I would imply that I can fly on my own accord as it is quite possible for me to fly now as long as I have a plane ticket).

I don't quite know if I am misinterpreting what people are telling me as disbelief or compassion. If someone were to tell me they think they "have something" and then laid out extensive evidence to back up that point but could not get an appointment with a doctor for two to three months, I would be inclined to believe them until proven otherwise. Which is the exactly the opposite from the reaction I have received.

Perhaps it seems impossible because on the surface I am a nice (enough) person? Or that I like certain people or even that I like dancing on the rare occasion? Or that I have suddenly chosen a fate worse than death by embracing the idea that many of the things that make me me are indicative of someone who has AS?

I also think that people take the fact that someone is a doctor completely for granted. If I do have AS, I will say that the best thing it has given me is the gift to trust no one. Not even me. I think being gullible and believing people took its toll on me long ago and now I see it as a fact that people are never who they appear. An appointment to a psychiatrist basically consists of someone asking the other person some questions, the other person taking ratings scales and then the first person researching symptoms and concluding (based on his/her opinion) that the other person does or does not have a diagnosis. WOW. Doctors are simply humans who look at evidence and make a choice. Nothing more, nothing less. After getting my MS degree, I realized that tenacity plays as big, if not bigger part of getting a higher level degree. People who are completely moronic have all kinds of degrees and make all kinds of stupid mistakes daily. Intelligence is subjective in any case. And people are just people whether they are a maid or a doctor or Cynthia Nixon being a bitch in a park in NYC. I'll save the details of that one for another blog.