Not sure what my problem is...ideas and input?
31 Jan 2011, 9:32 pm
I am getting reassessed next week. This is due to the strong possiblity that I have something other than AS...and whatever it is, it is significantly interfering with my life. I'm not being evaluated so I can slap another lable on myself, but I need to do so in order to find out what is really up and what I can do to change things/adapt...like I did when I discovered my AS. Although I was given a diagnosis as a small child, I don't think that my impairments are specifically related to AS anymore. I have many friends and aquiatances, and have a strong sense of social intution, but my relationships can be volatile because of my mood swings. My social skills are fine...but some of them are not natural to me: it's like I'm acting...this coupled with unusual interests (i.e. obsessions with people) are the only things that could indicate that I have AS.
The problems I have been having are numerous and have affected my academic, social and occupational functioning, and most of these have been present for over a year. They include:
* High irritablity that I constantly have to keep hidden from everyone, especially in the mornings
* Immense trouble sleeping and waking/having activities at a normal time...interefering with ablity to go to class, do daily actvities, etc.
* IMMENSE avoidance behaviours, especially when alone...missing appointments and set actvities, not calling parents, only walking out of the house during certian times to avoid interacting with housemates
* Impulsive decisions/behaviours (dropping classes when my grade is below my expectations)
* Fear of being evaluated and judged (hence me being unable to focus in school despite being capable enough)
* Anxiety being around people with certian personalities (authoritarian) because of inablity to please them.
* Extremely eager to please
* Huge anxiety around groups of people my age that don't know me well
* Planning things with people and then having to impulsively cancel them because of my anxiety and mood
* Constant urges to be alone: interaction just brings upon more stress, even if it's with family
* Constant urges to go back to the sensorily driven world of my childhood...abused alcohol and drugs for months because I liked to escape so much. Prefers nonsensical dreams to jaded reality.
* Muscle aches, pains, spasms and migrane headaches
* Strong dissatisfaction with life and cynicism
* Frequent lamenting over the past and failed friendships, sometimes to the point of drinking and self-destructive behaviour
* Very strong obsession with this one guy (then again, I've had people obsessions forever, this may be left over from my AS)
* Flitting in and out between social spheres, often revolving around guy(s) that I see primarly for sex (with the exception of a relationship I was in). Reciprocal friendships with individuals that I can trust fully rather than groups.
I'm just curious...what do you think my problems are and what would I likely get diagnosed with? I'm not saying everyone here is an expert and I don't expect you to be...but I'm curious as to how I'd be assessed from an outsider's perspective. Be as brutally honest as you can.
_________________
Given a “tentative” diagnosis as a child as I needed services at school for what was later correctly discovered to be a major anxiety disorder.
This misdiagnosis caused me significant stress, which lessened upon finding out the truth about myself from my current and past long-term therapists - that I am an anxious and highly sensitive person but do not have an autism spectrum disorder.
My diagnoses - social anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
I’m no longer involved with the ASD world.
Verdandi
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31 Jan 2011, 11:25 pm
Some of that sounds kind of like depression. Are you having issues with anhedonia?
Actually, a lot of that reminds me of the lead up to a month of constant, non-stop panic attacks that I had several years ago, when I was pushing myself too hard, and I had serious issues with depression and anxiety.
Edit: I'm not bipolar, but I am seriously irritable when my depression is apparent.
Edit 2: The situation in question was me pushing myself to the point of burnout, and the anxiety to the point of of non-stop panic attacks. Do you remember what Anbuend said to you in your other thread?
If you were diagnosed with AS at the age of seven, your maximum age right now is early twenties. I almost knew that before I calculated though. It's usually in young adulthood that people become convinced they've totally "overcome" their autism and they have it all together. But having watched it happen to so many other adults -- you're too young to know all the things that life could throw at you that could unmask whatever cognitive/perceptual/social issues got you diagnosed. You just can't know until you've experienced a lot more of the world, how your brain will react to all the new situations.
I remember a 40-year-old I know who wrote her autobiography. In her late teens and early twenties she thought she'd licked her social and communication issues by putting up a really good front. She wrote something like, "I keep running into teens and young adults who found this strategy on their own. I don't know what to say to them. They're in for a rude awakening.". She found that after several years in the real world her strategies cracked wide open. She discovered she lacked skills that she never knew she would need until she had been in the adult world for a long time. She acquired other disabilities that dropped her energy level too far to function like a nonautistic person. You don't want to know some of the horrible things she went through as a result. She almost died from lack of services. I know lots of people like her.
I hope you're right. But I think you need to prepare in case you're not. Is it really important to get the diagnosis officially removed? What good would that do that you couldn't accomplish by ignoring it and not giving it out to people who didn't need to know? You can always form an identity without it but keep it in your back pocket in case your life changes. I'm just worried because I run a mailing list for autistic adults with daily living issues which means I see what happens to lots of people after the "front" doesn't make their issues go away in the long run. It can get really bad 10, 20, 30 years or more down the line when people find out that an autistic person who learns to pass is usually still an autistic person underneath. (I mostly avoided this issues as my autistic traits get more intense not less. But I have seen too many others..)
Last edited by Verdandi on 01 Feb 2011, 1:47 am, edited 2 times in total.
31 Jan 2011, 11:46 pm
Looks like you have serious problems, its a good thing your getting evaluated. I would guess something lingering around the anxiety and depression areas. Considering that were not professionals, we cant give opinions with any type of accuracy. We can only give you potential possibly very inaccurate speculations.
daydreamer84
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01 Feb 2011, 1:41 am
I posted this on your thread about defining yourself. I'm not sure if you saw it or not.....this is what I think:
I think the most parsimonious explanation is that you have AS or BAP
Think of it this way you could have: showed strong enough autistic tendencies as a child to be diagnosed and now just happen to suffer from severe social anxiety, impulsivity, and executive function difficulties (which you described at work) etc. One could have all of these problems and a similar history as yours and all of these things could be unrelated (one due to an LD, one to an anxiety disorder, and then you just happened to have more AS traits as a child than the average person etc.)but according to Occam’s razor the simplest explanation is the best:
A simpler explanation is:
You have AS (or BAP) and so exhibited symptoms of AS as a child. Now as an adult you have worked very hard to overcome social difficulties....even though you have developed somewhat of a social intuition after years of hard work and good imitation skills it still isn't entirely natural for you so you are very anxious in social situations...perhaps hyper aware of transgressing social expectations....you're impulsivity may be caused by anxiety both socially and perhaps in regards to change/transitions in life ( mine certainly is)...and may also be related to executive dysfunction...and your" substance abuse" is a form of self medication (as suggested earlier by someone else on this forum). This is a simpler explanation because all of your symptoms/experiences are related and make sense in one framework. If you read Tony Atwood he discusses substance abuse as a possibility for adults with AS, and impulsivity is frequently mentioned in discussions of executive function problems related to AS (which also explains your problems at work as well...executive function problems that is). Anxiety has an extremely high rate of co morbidity with AS
You also should consider that you probably had many protective factors preventing you from a poor outcome with AS or BAP including:
1) you are a girl!! ! according to Tony Atwood many of the women he sees as adults have "symptoms (of AS) that our current diagnostic system is not sensitive enough to detect"
2) you have financial resources?
3) you have/ (had growing up) a good social support network-supportive family etc.
4) high intelligence
5) good language skills
You are a psychology student (so you must know about risk and protective factors and how much they can influence the development and course/outcome of mental/neurological disorders
I don't know if you should be considered to have BAP or AS but I definitely think you are on the spectrum...and like others on this thread have mentioned...your symptoms may increase later on in life with increased stress/ different circumstances etc......there are some symptoms of AS that had I hadn't exhibited since I was a child that have re-surfaced with a vengeance within the last couple of years (and I just turned 26!!) bcs of stress. I wouldn't have believed anyone who told me this would happen a few years before it did.
By the way I also have had problems with substance use and anxiety in social situations (although I don't think I had clinical social anxiety). I still have problems with impulsivity due to anxiety….I keep dropping courses in university…. impulsively at the first sign of difficulty!!
daydreamer84
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01 Feb 2011, 1:48 am
What I said in my last post was based on your accounts of childhood experiences.........however it does sound like you have significant anxiety and perhaps depression (maybe even a substance abuse problem) that require attention at present (whether or not you have AS). The anxiety seems to me like it is your biggest problem right now.
