'But That's Just What You Can't Do': Personal Reflections on the Construction and Management of Identity Following a Late Diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome. Issue 1 (2nd January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Limburg, Joanne
• Is Part Of: Life writing. Volume 13:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 141
• Page End: 150
• Publication Date: 2016-01-02
• Subjects: Asperger syndrome -- disability theory -- identity -- autobiography -- narrative; Biography as a literary form -- Periodicals; Autobiography -- Periodicals; 809.93592
• DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2016.1120639
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1448-4528

Abstract

ABSTRACT: At 42, I received a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome (AS). In this essay, I reflect on what this could mean for my sense of self in the present, and how a retrospective diagnosis of a lifelong condition might also lead me to view my past self—my narrative self—in a different way. As a child, I experienced myself as indefinably 'deficient'; as I grew to adulthood, I learned to repudiate and disguise those parts of myself which, in Ervin Goffman's terms, were 'discreditable'. The effect of this was such that, when asked to 'be myself', I found I no longer knew what this meant. I did not recognise myself in clinical descriptions of AS, but my reading of autobiographical writing by women with AS would lead me to seek a diagnosis. As I tell this story, I consider the various perspectives available to help me structure and interpret it: the medical model, the social constructivist model and the perspective that emerges from such autobiographical writings. My reading, and experience post-diagnosis, leads me to conclude that an autistic identity, no less than any other, has its performative aspects.