Getting an Asperger's Diagnosis as an adult in the U.K..

Current recipe fresh as of June 2013

• 1- Get misdiagnosed a lot
• 2 - Get desperate and start searching the internet (I did this for you: click http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html
• 3 - go to your GP and get referred to a counseling service that understand Adult Asperger's
• 4 - While you wait for a year to get an appointment read books on Asperger's. 
• 5 -  Get in touch with others on the spectrum on Facebook. You'd be amazed how many of us are out there.
• 6 - Go through your problems with your psychiatrist who will send you to a specialist diagnostic service.
• 7 - Wait for another year  
• 8 - Meanwhile, get proactive and find your strengths. (by this point you should have enough of mulling over your shortcomings)
• 9 - Start consciously paying attention to socialy apt people and try emulating them.
• 10 - by the time you get to be officially diagnosed, you'll become so good at 'acting' that no one will believe you are atypical. :)

For me it has been a very long journey so far and the end is just about in sight. After being misdiagnosed through the years with everything from Clinical Depression, Bi-Polar disorder and so on. During university in 2003 as a mature student I stumbled upon a book on Autism. My, then, counselor diagnosed me with PDS and said I was not Autistic. It turns out she had neither training nor understanding of what Adult Asperger's is. I carried on with my misery until a few month ago when my current counselor who is a clinical psychiatrist but without formal training, suggested to take a look at the Baron-Cohen AQ Test. I got 41 (that's pretty high) So she referred me to the consultant psychiatrist there who has an "interest" and evidently an in depth knowledge of the condition. He had actually assessed me in the first instance so he had an understanding and insight into my world already. luckily. He diagnosed me as having Adult Asperger's but does not have the authority to give an official diagnosis as such so he referred me to the Brighton clinic (that currently as of June 2013, has a 1 year waiting list.)