Are we ret*d?

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Your psychiatrist is a quack. Wish I could could say that's surprising. Shortly before I was diagnosed with Asperger's I was believed at first to be mildly mentally ret*d, but the label was dropped because I showed intelligence. I'm just not sure what kind of intelligence I showed that made them change their mind. Maybe it was my ability to chew and swallow my food without assistance.

Anyway, we are NOT the R word. Most of us are average intelligence at least and many of us are above average. Many people with all kinds of disabilities are intelligent. I think we have to be in order to make up for our "flaws" and survive in this world.

As with any institution, CAMH is a mixed bag of good and bad experiences. Dr. Jeffries, who diagnosed me with ASD, is actually working out of what used to be called "The Clarke Institute" and which originally a separate entity from CAMH. Then amalgamation happened. Now it's all CAMH. The ex-Clarke Institute is still pretty progressive, at least in my experience.

Could Dr. Jeffries refer you to somebody more qualified, or at least a bit more sensitive? I think I'd almost rather have someone who knows little but is willing to learn and help, than have someone who has a bunch of wrong ideas and will refuse to educate himself.

From a superficial and unaware point of view, i think most autists look very ret*d.

The nice thing is that we can prove them wrong with what we do, and this is very exciting.

I wonder if each clinic in the Clarke Institute was granted autonomy. The parents I spoke to only had experience with Clarke, specifically Ken Zucker's clinic, which was so non-progressive it was recently shut down (literally, as it ran afoul of a new law protecting the child patients). Or maybe that was just a fluke, as he had been there for decades and perhaps was a holdout from the old days? Either way, I'm very happy to hear that the rest of CAMH truly is medically progressive as a whole and that you had a good experience!

The problem in Ontario or maybe even in Canada is finding a psychiatrist. It is not a simple matter. First of all, I live in poverty so if I want a counsellor, it must be one covered by our medicare system. Psychiatrists are covered because they also have to be MDs; psychologists and all the rest are not covered. (I am certain that most of the underdiagnosing of ASD and Autism is due to the fact that most people who need a diagnosis just cannot get one because they simply cannot afford it.) Then there is the fact that so many psychiatrists' case loads here are full. You have to find one still taking patients. I'm sure Dr. Jeffries would have lots of useful suggestions as to excellent psychiatrists, but the problem is the "still taking patients" part, about which he can do nothing. So many doctors here in Toronto no longer take patients because their case loads are full. Then comes the most difficult part. Finding a compatible psychiatrist is not so very different from finding a compatible boyfriend. I have to have someone I can relate to, or it's not going to work; the rule for psychiatrists follows that of intimate relationships. The first psychiatrist I found was ineffectual, the second worse than the current, and the current is less than ideal--as everyone here has observed. (By the way, the current psychiatrist, who is treating me for co-morbidities depression and OCD, is actually with Mt. Sinai Hospital Psychiatry and has no connection to CAMH; it was my GP and not my psychiatrist who referred me to Dr. Jeffries.) The current psychiatrist is the best of the worst, but not a good match. It feels a bit like speed-dating in slow motion. I can certainly interview other candidates, but there is no guarantee I will find the psychiatrist who is "the right fit" for me. It's not like hiring a mechanic to fix your car. You don't need a rapport with a car mechanic but you certainly must have one with a psychiatrist, especially one treating my particular co-morbidities. All I can do is keep searching, and while I am doing that, endure the best of the worst.

dont think we are

I definitely am NOT ret*d. I'm very cognitively high-functioning. Lifeskills are still rubbish, but I'm getting there slowly but surely.

There is a difference between being socially inept and being socially uninterested. I never go to pubs, i used to go there when i was younger and tried to fit in, now all i see is a bunch of drunk people and that isn't the kind of people i want in my life.

Most people just aren't that interesting, i rarely invite someone home. I socialize casually when i'm at a job, but after that i go home because i'm burned out from all social interaction during the day - and having to deal with some asshats in the subway.

Give the opportunity to talk about sports or the weather with "joe average", i rather write code or play Fallout 4 (or blow my own brains out with a shotgun).

most of the time i'd rather stay home and restore my collection of old music recordings

I don't know and I don't even care anymore, it would have been nice to have known when I was younger I had aspergers, maybe I would have saw the humour in my failed social interactions than being so depressed about it and trying to kill myself when I was 15 because I didn't understand what was different about me and why I always felt so out of place or what the hell was wrong with me..

But if anything is developmental retardation, but the trouble with that is a lot of us are mature as our age in some ways but not in others, or we excel in some areas but not others so that term seems to simplifying for the nature of autism. And remember it comes from a musical term meaning slower music, how it evolved into an insult I am not sure but I sure got upset about getting called ret*d in school a lot, but learning what the word actually means certainly softened the blow of all that. I mean its basically a fancy way of saying slow, so meh...i don't let it bother me anymore.

No, we are not "ret*d."

I don't like the implications of the term.

Firstly the word is inappropriate, secondly "we" is just massive, what you you mean by we? level 1, level 2, level 3 DSM? Someone with a learning disability, such as Downs syndrome who is also on the autistic spectrum? I am sorry I don't know what you mean by that?

I am autistic, I have a masters degree, I am a qualified teacher and work at an English University, does that help you at all? I don't understand what you are driving at?

Last edited by Voxish on 07 Oct 2017, 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, not at all. What would make you ask that?

A significant minority of autistics are
INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY AND ASD

By definition, Aspies cannot be clinically mentally ret*d.

I wouldn't call us Aspies ret*d but I have heard that the best way to describe people like us is that we are "both gifted and disabled persons."

To me that seems to be the most flattering and honest way to describe people like us. And that is the term that I have been using for some time now and people seem to understand that better.