I think my mind can't decide which disorders it has

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I'm trying to figure out my own mind. It's like it's picking and choosing symptoms from a few disorders.

In regards to autism spectrum disorders, one incident happened not long ago really tells the story. I was in the hospital and one doctor talked to me and she thought I had AS and put it on my chart. Another doctor came later, asked me a few questions, then she took AS off my chart. I basically seem very aspie to some people and not at all aspie to others. To cut a long story short, I have very intense special interests, bad social skills, but I can read nonverbal cues and make eye contact. The second doctor said I didn't have it because I said I cared about people more than objects and I was making eye contact.

To make it complicated, I have a mental illness. They are not sure what it is, but because it does involve heightened mood sometimes, they have labeled it bipolar something but it is not normal bipolar. Anyway. they like blaming everything on it. Even as a child, I had a very severe set of problems, that now they are blaming on the bipolar.

And I'm up in the air when it comes to ADHD. I was diagnosed that as a child and I in fact displayed classic symptoms, but with some other problems too. Now they say it could be bipolar, but in reality they don't know if ADHD is involved or not. Like AS, I can look ADHD to some people and not to others. One therapist said I wasn't hyper enough, but my roommate that is diagnosed with ADHD says he has seen me display ADHD behaviors, while another friend thinks I might not get diagnosed because it might not be handicapping enough.

Interesting.
A lot of the things you mention though are largely misconceptions some people have. I don't seem like an Aspie to some because I am seem to be fine socially - but most people do not know that I rehearse everything I say in head head about 3+ times, retreat to analyze and debrief conversations I have had with people for future reference, etc. So really all you can do is know is determine if you know yourself. And people do normally take up different personalities around others by impulse, comfort, familiarity - so that is perfectly fine.

On ADHD. You might be referring to ADD. They are identical, but ADD is mostly mental and lacks the hyper part. They are usually mixed up as they are often referred to together.

Here's another question. I was told that my current psychiatrist probably won't go back to my childhood. But I want to because if they figure out what was the cause of my rages/meltdowns which ruined my childhood, they might understand my current illness better, I just want to know where to turn to.

Sounds like me and I'm autistic. My official diagnosis is PDD NOS. I have mild difficulty reading nonverbal cues, but I score fine on the 'eyes' test (recognizing facial expressions from only the eyes, it's a test often used in AS) - it's only in real-time interaction that I have trouble, and I fake my way through interaction fairly well regardless. It's with the more longer term or complex interactions that I run into issues. I make plenty of eye contact, too.

I think the second doctor didn't know what he was doing. You sound like you're very mildly autistic, but still on the spectrum.

Actually, the terminology is more complicated than that. ADD and ADHD have meant different things at different times.

First, DSM-III called it ADD, regardless of whether or not they were hyperactive. The term ADHD did not exist.

In DSM-III-R, they renamed ADD to ADHD, still using the same label regardless of hyperactivity.

In DSM-IV, they divided ADHD into subtypes, called ADHD-C, ADHD-I and ADHD-H (C means combined, I inattentive only, H hyperactive only). ADHD-H turned out to be extremely rare, so most kids were either ADHD-I or ADHD-C.

During this time, many people with ADHD-I and their families decided to call it ADD instead of ADHD, because of the lack of hyperactivity. This was never official terminology, but out of respect to these people, a lot of experts use this terminology when talking to laypeople about ADHD-I.

People also note that I can have good conversations with people, but what they don't know is that as late as college I asked someone to help me with my conversation skills, I literally asked "how do I have a conversation?" and also I break down if the conversation involves two other people, with one person I'm fine, but two or more people I can't get my timing right and I mess up. One of my past reports said I did fine on a test about social skills, but in real life I couldn't do it.

Oh and reading about Learning Disorders makes me think I had one,Written Expression. In school, I was ahead in most subjects, but at least two grades behind in spelling and grammar. However, they were so concerned about daily rages and meltdowns and some hyper behavior they didn't bother to help me, but I'm much better now.