Catatonic

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I went to my appointment yesterday. I was looking for a new diagnosis. For a complicated set of reasons, I’ve had to wait three months for this and had unreasonably high hopes. I was grasping at straws, and that was the last one.
I don’t see any more straws to grasp at.

Well, I’ve reached my limit. I’m completely in a corner with nowhere else to go. No doctor will consider helping me. Oh, sure, they’ll give me drugs and waste my time, but they will never consider taking anything I say seriously. If I did the proper song and dance, I would get some attention, but even then, it would be the wrong kind of attention. I could throw a temper tantrum or attack someone. Then they would put me in a straight jacket and drug me up. They will never hear me. It’s not because I am unwilling or unable to explain, but because the world is unwilling and unable to hear.

Alexithmyia is the inability to express feelings with words. For me, it’s both primary (nature) and secondary (nurture). But it’s not what you think. The basic issue is that I really am different. It’s not that I don’t know myself or that I am confused or in denial. It’s that my emotions really are qualitatively different. I might as well have green skin. The world insists on denying that this is an issue. They want to find and name a problem that they can fix, or at least punish. I can’t comply, because I simply don’t have one. There is no problem. This is it. This is me. The horrible monster that my mother and the rest of the world has been trying to kill since birth is me. There’s no one else in here. If you can’t accept this premise, no further conversation would serve any purpose.

"Don't Mourn For Us," by Jim Sinclair. http://www.grasp.org/media/mourn.pdf

The second problem is that I can fake it, because I happen to have a brain. Yes, I am certainly an Aspie, but with a high IQ plus a half-century of experience, I have found ways to calculate my way through most situations and evade the rest. To the point where I can not be diagnosed as an Aspie. In the isolation of a psychiatrist’s office, they can’t see anything because there’s nothing to see. If they can’t see it, if I’m not foaming at the mouth or threatening someone, then I don’t have a problem and therefore they can’t help me.

Well, I do have a problem. The real me, green skin and all, while 100% sane and stable, is so unacceptable to the world that I am unemployable. They ran out of excuses twenty years ago. I don’t do anything wrong. I’ve played all the games, jumped through all the hoops, sung all the songs, danced all the dances. There’s nothing left to fix or to do. Giving me a pill will not change the way others react to my green skin.

So here I am in my corner and here I’ll stay. Not by choice or for spite, but because I have no options. There’s nothing left to try.

I totally sympathize. I wish people would just accept that it's possible to be actually different. I have prosopognosia and slight alexithmyia and people just assume because my perception is so different it's either fake or delusional.

Thanks.

So what do you do?
How do you get basic food and shelter?
Fake some weirdo ailment so I can get welfare?
Skipping over the obvious moral implications,
I'd never get away with it anyway. I'm an Aspie.

hi tahitii, i relate to aspectt of what you say. i know what it is like to be around 50 or so and be trying to figure things out.

i just wanted to say good luck and i hope you can gt some answers

I had similar experiences in my search for a correct dx, no-one seemed to want to actually diagnose me, just write scripts for antidepressants. I was very firm that I wanted a dx, not pills. It's easier for them to treat what they perceive as the symptoms rather than name the condition and I can understand why it may be difficult to name the condition in 'invisible' disabilities.

I think one of my problems in the consulting rooms scenario is that I felt one had to present as though for a job interview, ie present well, or make a good impresssion, whereas they really need to see you at your worst. If you have a friend, relative or other health professional who can confirm your problems that could help. Also I put an account of myself in writing as I tend to get a bit flummoxed in interview situations, and I could just hand them the written account.

I had to see quite a few of them before I realised you need to use someone with experience in diagnosing autism. At the time AS was a very little known condition.

Thanks, Millie.

Thanks, Postperson.

Been there, done that.

The shrink yesterday came highly recommended, and I had met him before. Seems like a totally reasonable guy. This time, I sent him a 22 page letter about a week before my appointment. He said that my claims are complicated and that he couldn't do anything for me in one or two sessions. I have insurance, but it took me three months to scrounge up the $45 co-pay. The co-pay for their worthless, dangerous drugs is $30 or $50 each, per month, and they always want to give three different kinds. I wanted to ask, sarcastically, "can I owe it to you?" but I have enough "social skills" to know that it would not have been helpful.

I've seen how charity care works. It doesn't. You get what you pay for.

The last shrink (November) was an "expert" and I was sent there by (and at the expense of) the state rehab agency. He was worth about what I would expect from charity care.

yes, it would almost be a diagnostic characteristic to hand a professional a written report on yourself. when i read what i wrote some years later, the AS is very clear in my (then) writing style, highly pendantic, opinionated, ruminating, an isolated mind...I felt embarrassed to read it at a later date.

I also found the psychiatric industry to be a bit of a racket, I also got the line I simply can't dx you in one or two visits, and it's taken me quite some time to see that point of view, but yeah, in some ways that is more appropriate in certain cases, particularly for clients who want some kind of ongoing relationship with a medical professional, it's just that not everyone can afford that kind of thing.

Over here psychologists can be cheaper than psychiatrists as it's an inferior qualification, they don't prescribe medication as they are not medically trained (it's more of a 'counsellor type qualification). I ended up having to use one as I was sick of seeing them reach for their prescription pad as a response. Is it similar in the states?

yeah, there's things about my life i can never tell people because no-one would believe me unless they've seen it.

re:psychologists, yes I'm in Australia, but basically they are not qualified or permitted to prescribe medications so you won't have to deal with that. It sounds (from what The Librarian wrote, love those films!) like a similar thing in the USA to me. Whether a psychologist's report will get you access to the things you want is something you will have to look into.

And to top it off, I can't even whistle.
(Humming doesn't cut it.)