Wrong Asperger's Self-Diagnosis
18 Jul 2011, 10:49 pm
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What I've seen so far is that the age of people suspecting they have AS plays a very important role in whether they can be objective. Also, whether they have ever considered the problem could be something else plays an even more important role.
Personally, I have looked into Bi-Polar, Major Depressive Disorder, Schizophrenia, Multiple Personality Disorder, OCD, PSD, Full blown Autism, and many other possibilities. Although there were some aspects that fit some, none quite fit well enough to even say, "Hey, this looks worth looking into further!" AS though, was not only worth investigating further, the more I looked, the more it fit, yet for years I remained unsure. It wasn't until after eight full years of research and consistently having to admit that a great deal of what I read fit me to a tee, that I finally "gave in" and accepted that AS had to be it.
One can't do this in their teens. It just isn't possible.
Personally, I have looked into Bi-Polar, Major Depressive Disorder, Schizophrenia, Multiple Personality Disorder, OCD, PSD, Full blown Autism, and many other possibilities. Although there were some aspects that fit some, none quite fit well enough to even say, "Hey, this looks worth looking into further!" AS though, was not only worth investigating further, the more I looked, the more it fit, yet for years I remained unsure. It wasn't until after eight full years of research and consistently having to admit that a great deal of what I read fit me to a tee, that I finally "gave in" and accepted that AS had to be it.
One can't do this in their teens. It just isn't possible.
I self-diagnosed sometime around 13-14, and was officially diagnosed with PDD NOS at 15.
At 15 or so, I talked to a psychology professor about a research idea I had, and she said I seemed to know more about how to do research than many of her graduate students. Throughout my teens I obsessively researched not only autism but pretty much everything in DSM. I would often spend the whole day (I was homeschooled) studying psychology.
When I took 1st year psych at the age of 20, the only time I learnt anything new was when my prof got sidetracked into lengthy monologues about practicing psychotherapy. (Not that I found the class boring, because I enjoy reviewing obsessions almost as much as learning new stuff about them, and my prof was a very entertaining person.)
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I'm literally disgusted by self diagnosed aspies. And if you were legitimately diagnosed it should disgust you too. Those who incorrectly self diagnose only hurt those who truly have the disorder. Those that incorrectly self diagnose help to create a false image of people that suffer from aspergers. It is very possible that people are not accepting of those with aspergers because so many creeps have decided to diagnose themselves with AS to have an excuse for their poor behavior.
Myth. Supposedly, there are these hordes of people using self-diagnosed AS as an excuse for poor behavior, but I have yet to meet a single person on any of the numerous forums I've frequented who meet that description. I've met some people with AS (self or officially diagnosed) who were also jerks, but didn't use AS as an excuse. I've also encountered one person who has an official diagnosis of AS and uses it as an excuse to be a jerk.
I suspect it's that many people either bullied nerds or were bystanders to the bullying of nerds, and think it's horrible to bully someone with a disability. So in order to keep themselves from realizing they've been party to bullying people with autism spectrum conditions, they try to deny AS exists except in the most extreme cases.
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Why do so many of you desire or need to have this disorder?
Maybe because they're experiencing 'clinically significant impairment'. Or maybe it's because they feel different and want to find 'their people' who they fit in with. (If the latter, then they don't need an official diagnosis for that.)
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And I have heard many people say it is a "trendy diagnosis" but I have to see evidence of this. I have only seen it as an unsubstantiated claim intended to criticize self-diagnosis or children who receive accommodations in school.
My brother's teacher decided he has AS mainly on the basis of him having a conflict with a clique of girls in his school (while being reasonably well-accepted among the boys) and acting weird. He's BAP, but not AS. I sort of see AS now taking the place that ADD had when I was in school. as being the condition teachers randomly suggest when a kid has a problem.
However, when it comes to undiagnosed adults being assessed, AS is far from trendy.
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MOST self-diagnoses are WRONG??? How could you POSSIBLY know such a thing?????
Indeed. No studies have assessed this.
Sometime I'd like to bring in a bunch of self-diagnosed aspies and have them assessed by well-recognized experts in AS, and see what percentage meet criteria for autism spectrum. But that study has not been done yet.
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Or, just maybe, the line in the sand of psychology has been creeping evermore towards the side of autism because of the pathologizing trend in America. Did you last hear? 25% of Americans have a mental illness or other mental disorder(Like a personality disorder)! Can you believe it?
I can't. It's BS corporate America trying to pathologize gullible Americans so they can put them on a money-siphoning prescription. Pharmaceutical drugs are big money in Prozac Nation (i.e., the US).
I can't. It's BS corporate America trying to pathologize gullible Americans so they can put them on a money-siphoning prescription. Pharmaceutical drugs are big money in Prozac Nation (i.e., the US).
That wouldn't explain AS because there's no pill for it. It's also fairly low-incidence. Depression and anxiety disorders are the ones that are scarily common diagnoses.
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I suspect most therapists, psychiatrists, and psychologists, have no idea how to do psychotherapy with an autistic person. They focus on the ways NTs relate to people, and that's far less effective than with autistic people. This is in fact one of the stumbling blocks I have with my therapist, and she knows I'm autistic.
That's why I gave up on psychotherapy and decided to just treat my PTSD myself. Here is a blog entry I wrote about that.
Anyway, I'd like to point out that most self-diagnosed aspies, even if they're wrong about their self-diagnosis, probably have something. For example, ADHD or OCD or a personality disorder (and not in the veiled insult sense!).
Oh, and frustrating diagnosis story for me: I'm hypermobile (overly flexible, causing joint pain and coordination problems). I went to a doctor regarding my joint pain and told him that I thought it might be hypermobility, showing him how I could twist my limbs up in knots. He said I couldn't have hypermobility because I didn't have knee pain (I'd mentioned ankle and hip pain). I told him that I actually did have knee pain (which was less severe than my ankle and hip pain), but he acted like I must be lying about that because I wanted to have hypermobility. (I didn't mention that also knee pain isn't required for hypermobility, just common.) He decided to run a blood test for arthritis.
I went and got the blood test done. For several months, I waited for the results. Finally I went to the doctor for something unrelated (I think it was the flu) and happened to mention that I hadn't gotten the results from the blood test. He said 'oh, it was normal, so we didn't contact you'. Never mind that I was still having joint pain and they didn't know why!
Much later, I got physiotherapy for a neck injury, and finally got diagnosed as hypermobile by the physiotherapist.
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