How my doctor diagnosed me.

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I have been seeing my current psychiatrist for several months. She is a child/adolescent psych, by the way, but gets all the adult patients at the local Kaiser.

So last visit I asked her (even though I got my official dx from another child/adol psych) how she knew I had AS.

She said it was because I had a flat affect and anxiety. She went on to say that psychs are trained to think psychosis when they see flat affect, but I wasn't psychotic. She also said that in her experience adults with anxiety commonly have AS. I thought that was interesting.

Wow. Kind of sounds like somebody who has a clue!

It may help that her daughter is autistic.

What is flat affect?

i think the flat effect is basically showing no emotion when speaking nor in facial communication

I got the full depression and psychosis treatment, starting in 2001. I even got extra anti-psychotic medication for "agitation", which was their response to criticism that the treatments weren't working. Actually, almost everything they did was more harmful than helpful.

Then last summer a psychologist said I have autistic traits, so he did a full retrospective review with my parents and siblings and diagnosed Asperger's syndrome. Suddenly a lot of odd and difficult things in my life make a lot of sense, for the first time ever.

Things have changed a lot between 2001 and now. Finally, we adult aspies are being recognized and correctly diagnosed. I think (hope?) this kind of thing will happen more and more...

I also think (and hope) that psychiatrists will finally get the correct training.