Experiences w/ psychiatrists who don't believe Aspergers?

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I had at least 3 psychiatrists as a teenager who refused to help me be screened for autism because they believe aspergers & high function autism was a 'myth'. Since all of them worked for (and many were alums of) the University of Kentucky, so I don't know if they have faculty members who teach that.

At any rate I am 26 and just now became aware of the state benefits (like job placement, free counseling, and tuition assistance) because of their refusal to screen me, despite my family knowing I had it.

Have you had any similar experiences?

i have experiences where they didnt give a damn that i had it and just went ahead did things that were contraindicated.

Psychiatrists can be complete idiots too.

I had a therapist,who ironically worked with autistic kids back in the 1980's, at the same autism agency that I am in for my group home/day services. He treated Asperger's as if it were a behavioral problem and not what it really is, a neurological problem in the brain development. That is why, to this day, the autism agency treats my Asperger's like it a behavioral issue that can be medicated, and/or be "cured" with negative behavioral treatments. But yet, him and the agency agree that Autism(not asperger's) is a brain development problem where the other clients are never going to be cured, even their separate behavioral disorder would never be treated because their autism would not allow it to be treated. they just get medications just to calm them selves down, but they still act extremely violent and/or behavioral and get understanding where they just get "special" kind and loving treatment, so they can be happier. This means when these clients pick on me, they get love and I get yelled at for complaining to employees about their behaviors, since it effects me in a negative way.

There are lots of you on here from Australia & New Zealand despite those places have a lower population. Is there more autism screening there, or better public knowledge of the disorder from Tony Attwood, etc?

It seems it's only in the past few years that the American medical community has acknowledged AS or HFA exist

I've never heard it from a psychologist or psychiatrist - it is after all in the DSM. You hear it a lot from random asshats on the internet - I think it was only added to edition IV which came out in 1994 so if it was before that or even if they just hadn't kept up...

Note I have a BS in psychology (got in 1996) and had never even heard of AS until a few years ago - even looked back in my books recently - not mentioned once.

Basically I could only get a diagnosis here in Kentucky by going to a different school of medicine, namely the University of Louisville, which is home to well known AS researcher Peter Tanguay, who aided in my diagnosis.

My (soon to be former) psychiatrist looked at my chart and said "oh, you have Asperger's. That means nothing. Asperger's is nothing, they like to call social problems 'Asperger,' but it is nothing."

Oh yeah... this woman specializes in ASDs in adults!

About a year after first learning about Asperger's (and realizing that this was the unknown I'd been contending with for my first nearly thirty years of life) I told a phsychologist I had previously seen for therapy that I discovered it. Her response was "you don't have AS." I didn't pursue the subject because a) I respected what she'd done for me in therapy and b) because I knew I DID have it. Pointless to argue the matter. I recognized that she was comparing me to the classic (male?) model.

I still haven't been formally diagnosed, but I don't have to be. I was dealing with this without a title or label before. I knew I was "different" from early childhood. My life and reality are not dependent on whether or not others believe AS is what I struggle with!

When I first got a job working with Autistic toddlers, I did some research and came across info about aspergers and it really seemed to fit me. I brought it up to my psychiatrist at the time (who was a resident), and she said that I definitely didn't have it, and if she thought I had some sort of "psychiatric condition" she'd tell me. So I dropped the issue, after all she was a doctor. It was still in the back of my mind and the more I read, the more it made sense. I met a few people online who are convinced I have Aspergers and thinks that the psychiatrist I saw wasn't well-informed. So after being told over and over again and seeking out reassurances, and someone linking me to an article about Girls and AS (which fit me perfectly), I went to my therapist and finally brought it up. I was afraid to after the psychiatrist incident. We talked about it and she looked over the article and she definitely things it's a possibility. We talked about the worth of getting an official diagnosis and at the time I felt it wasn't that important, and in a way i still do. Instead we worked on the social phobia and anxiety and how to cope. What my other dr's DID agree on and DID diagnose me with was Sensory Processing Disorder. My friend was so annoyed by it because if you lump all my other issues (depression, anxiety, social phobia, general/social awkwardnes, OCD tendencies, intense interests, and sensory problems, etc) it all meets criteria for Aspergers.

In some ways, I do wish I could get officially diagnosed, because I could receive a lot of help and benefits.

It's the nature of the profession. Psychiatrists typically only recognise things that they can write prescriptions for. They're not required to have studied psychology. Thus you shouldn't confuse them with psychologists.

General Disarray: I have the same problem being a girl with Asperger's myself because I do not show the same symptoms as the boys. The articles that they have on the internet and even in the DSM-IV book only describes it to which it would mostly fit boys(and maybe some girls). they do not mention that Asperger's shows itself different in girls. With me, probably just like other girls with Asperger's, have the same basic features, but when it comes to the more "deeper" in depth stuff, Girls tend to be a lot more different. With me, when i have stress, rather than having meltdowns with aggressions, I have "shut downs" where instead if aggressions, i may lose skills, not "perform" as well with anything, and suffer internally(in private) where no one can see that I am having a problem. I sometimes have crying fits which seem like tantrums, but I only cry uncontrollably and jump up and down. That is it, no throwing things and any physical actions. When I usually "talk" during these episodes, i am usually insulting myself saying I am stupid and that people need to understand me, rather than saying bad things. Girls with Asperger's are very misunderstood because for many years, even to this day, people just think I am this weird, little girl-like(I'm 30) woman, who is a very intelligent, but is somewhat off. They really need to study girls a lot more because I feel that Girls would be diagnosed a lot more earlier, rather than go through the suffering,and have a more easier time in their lives.

General Disarray: I have the same problem being a girl with Asperger's myself because I do not show the same symptoms as the boys. The articles that they have on the internet and even in the DSM-IV book only describes it to which it would mostly fit boys(and maybe some girls). they do not mention that Asperger's shows itself different in girls. With me, probably just like other girls with Asperger's, have the same basic features, but when it comes to the more "deeper" in depth stuff, Girls tend to be a lot more different. With me, when i have stress, rather than having meltdowns with aggressions, I have "shut downs" where instead if aggressions, i may lose skills, not "perform" as well with anything, and suffer internally(in private) where no one can see that I am having a problem. I sometimes have crying fits which seem like tantrums, but I only cry uncontrollably and jump up and down. That is it, no throwing things and any physical actions. When I usually "talk" during these episodes, i am usually insulting myself saying I am stupid and that people need to understand me, rather than saying bad things. Girls with Asperger's are very misunderstood because for many years, even to this day, people just think I am this weird, little girl-like(I'm 30) woman, who is a very intelligent, but is somewhat off. They really need to study girls a lot more because I feel that Girls would be diagnosed a lot more earlier, rather than go through the suffering,and have a more easier time in their lives.

psygirl6,

That's pretty much how I react... I "shut down." Although if I am really overloaded I will scream. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I'm not an aggressive person by nature. I was always more docile. Any my "interests" aren't that of which the DSM-IV and other article say, such as Maths and Trains, etc. Mine are Medicine, Science, Penguins, and Photography, and I have a necessity to know how things work. There is one good article that I found (the one I showed my psychologist) at Your Little Professor. We spent an entire session talking about the possibility, and at the next session she said that it definitely describes me. The other dr's say that all my phobias and stuff are related to Depression/Anxiety and PTSD. Had I been born 10yrs ago, I can guarantee that I would be diagnosed. I am nearly 27 now.

I had the same problem with anxiety and depression for many years, but it turns out, through therapy and years of writing and figuring out my life, my depression and anxiety was actually not anxiety and/or depression disorders, but years of being misunderstood by others. When i was younger, they did not have Asperger's. Even though I spoke at 8 months old, said my first sentence at 9 months, but when i was 18 months old, my sister was born which caused a lot of stress. i reacted by not talking(was more of an automatic emotional shut down). I also had hand flapping, rocking, but I had spells of crying fits, but not aggression. I did not have the full blown autism because that was the only thing that was affected. I only was non-verbal for a month, but talked extremely fast though. But that was because my brain was throwing words at me so fast, i felt I had to get them out as soon as I thought about saying them. this caused me to talk to fast that no one understood me. Ironically during the whole time, I actually gained self-help skills that I had taught myself because of the stress, i did not want to be with my family.
My family are very stressful people. They are loving, but I have a lot of sensory problems, especially with certain pitched voices. Most of my family, especially the men, have voices that I can not stand. Plus, I have problems with screaming babies so I avoided them It look like I was withdrawing, but I was more avoiding the noises. But because I was only exposed to family until I went to speech therapy, so that is why I was like that.
I ended up being diagnosed, with Atypical autism, because I did not show any other signs(other than the speech, the sensory and the movements). But yet, i did not regress in other skills and did not have any cognitive problems, i was a quick learner and was on time and/or ahead of everything. The atypical autism diagnosis was taken away from me at age 6, but I did not know this until I was about 20 when i saw my records from the hospital that diagnosed this. For many years, even at age 20, I was told I had classic to moderate autism, so that mom would have an excuse to control me. Luckily the public school that i attended did not believe her. I was normal at school and did not even show any symptoms of anything(asperger's nor any other autsim spectrum disorder.)
At age 20, i was diagnosed with Asperger's while going for therapy to figure out my life. I was forced to either go to school or work by my mom, but because of social-emotional deficits I quit because I can not deal with the public. i went to school, but I wanted medical, but as soon as my mom "lied" to them saying I had moderate Autism with mild mental retardation(though I was fully mainstreamed since i was age 7 and was in honors classes in high school with no help, and I had a high IQ), the school told me I could not do it, so I went for art, which i did not like. Mom did not allow me a year off to think about what I want to do in life, never mind figure out how I wanted to do things. She controlled everything from the way i did things to what i did. To her I was intelligent, but not capable of doing anything a regular adult could. Ironically, i was independent and had learned and applied all of my adult living skills since I was 13.In my teen years, (with the exception of not being able to hang with friends and a curfew of 6pm),my mom treated me like an independent, intelligent, normal person, like I was everyone else. The second I graduated high school, she changed her mind and started treating me like I was "ret*d" and incompetent. This caused a lot of depression and anxiety in me.
So I went to counseling and got diagnosed with Asperger's, but in order to qualify for any agency day/residential program for the mentally ret*d/developmentally disabled, they put down Classic Autism with mental retardation,who was in capable of taking care of myself, pretty much they put down symptoms and problems that i never even had. Also because it was an autism agency(who also had a day/residential program), and my mom "convinced" the therapist, who agreed with her that i needed an agency for care and everything, i got stuck with that. After I got accepted into the program, they switched my diagnosis(the agency)back to Asperger's without any learning problems and/or mental retardation. ironically, they treated me like I did have mental retardation. They also told me that i was incompetent and they controlled everything. I just found out a day ago that they did the whole switch thing to get me into the agency.
All I needed was not a day treatment agency where they sit in a unit all day, while the staff choose the low paying jobs and treat me like I am ret*d, not allowing me to choose my own career path.I just psycho therapy, while I get a career assessment from a career place that assesses disabled people, who normally would not qualify for day agencies. I would of then used that assessment to get financial aid, if the career required school, or got the job on my own. I only needed Social Security, so i can have medical to pay for the therapy while waiting for the perfect career. As for residential, i would have used the Social Security to move into a section 8 apartment and be independent without any agency "controlling' me. But I never got that. But now, 10 years later, i am now leaving the agency and they are no longer involved in my life. i am just living here waiting for an apartment. By law they can not kick me out for not getting services when i have no where to go, so i still am here. I am going back to school to become a Histology Technician this September.
So if they had Asperger's back then, my life would have been different. Even though Asperger's is on the Autism Spectrum, someone with Asperger's is considered to be not as disabled. Also, Asperger's,even though I can qualify for social security, but I would not qualify for Day programs and/or residential programs for the developmentally disabled/mentally ret*d, so my mom would have had no choice but to allow me to do things my way. Now I am in therapy(with a new therapist not from the agency) to fix the emotional hurt from being in inappropriate placement.
As I seen, especially when it comes to the psychiatric/disability agency services, Asperger's and Autism are considered different because a person with Asperger's does not need as much "help" as someone with autism. Even though Asperger's is on the spectrum and people with Asperger's also call themselves autistic, which is fine with me. The only reason i do not because of my experiences with the services, so i only consider myself Asperger's. Maybe if I was not the product of messed up services, maybe I would. But with my experiences,e specially with the psychiatrists, Asperger's is a bit different from autism, as it does not have mental retardation and according to them, a person with Asperger's is more capable of having a normal life than someone who has Autism. That is my experiences with the separate diagnosis. I did not have anything to do with this "theory", nor am I trying to separate Asperger's/or Autism to do anything. I am just repeating what the "specialist" have told me.