Diagnosis not so clear now...

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I've been posting for the last couple of months that I had been officially diagnosed, and what a relief it was to finally know why I'm the way I am. I was diagnosed via 2-hour interview with an Autism specialist in Houston, and go for testing on May 9th. The Houston doctor's words to me were "I'm confident that you're on the spectrum, and I also see some ADHD, Social Anxiety and Panic Disorder." I thought she was saying that I had all of those! She said the testing was just a formality in case I needed some type of special care or social services.

So now I learned yesterday that the testing is designed to eliminate ADHD, Social Anxiety and Panic Disorder from the possible causes of my traits/symptoms. That's a problem because I was diagnosed with Panic Disorder and Depression a year ago. However, the therapist who diagnosed me did it in about 30 minutes of talking to me, wasn't an Autism Specialist, and there was no mention of ASD. So now I'm confused. I don't know now if I'm diagnosed or not. I'm going to feel like an ass, if it turns out that I'm not on the spectrum after I've been SO sure for a year and a 1/2. And I'll apologize in advance for wasting all of your time on my inane posts.

EDIT: The paragraphs above sound like I'm trying to MAKE myself be an Aspie. I promise that's not true. But if it turns out that's not my problem, then what is???

I'm not saying you aren't autistic, but NTs can have problems too. There seems to be some kind of myth floating around in the autistic community that NTs are capable of things such as socializing without effort/flaw, understanding all kinds of body language to such depth that they may as well all have PHDs in socializing etc. You don't have to have a 'differently wired' brain from what is considered to be 'normal' (I use quotations due to loosely defined terms) to experience problems that may resemble ASDs. You can be NT and have a dependance on routine. You can be an NT and have very obsessive interests. There's a VERY blurry line between HFA and NT as a result. I'd bet that there are a lot of misdiagnoses (if you would call them that, that is) out there simply due to the fact that you must be labelled to have valid problems.

Doctors are so very much like auto mechanics, there's good ones and bad ones, there's competent ones and there's lazy ones.
Please remember that just because an auto mechanic "can't find the problem," or thinks it's something else, doesn't mean your car will suddenly start running perfectly now and forever.

Please, stay calm, answer the questions thoughtfully, try to figure out what they're asking, and answer honestly.
IF you do not get the outcome you desire, get a second opinion from a different doctor in a different clinic.
If you get several unconnected doctors giving the same diagnosis, you can deal with that if/when it comes up.
If you get several different diagnoses from the different doctors, you'll have to keep checking until you're comfortable that you have an accurate enough diagnosis.

My point is that doctors are people, they're not GOD, and many, many people are totally full of sh*t, even (maybe especially) doctors.

Most importantly, don't let doctors define who you are!

It's probably just to make sure your symptoms are related to an ASD and not another set of disorders with similar presentation. They are just being cautious.

For example when I was physically unwell before going on the paleo diet I would stick rigidly to routines because they helped me deal with the awful brain fog, chronic fatigue and daytime sleepiness I was experiencing. Fast forward to the present day and with my brain fog almost completely eliminated by following a diet based on paleolithic nutrition and removing grains and processed foods (including all additives and preservatives and artificial sweeteners etc) and whilst living in a stress free environment (living alone without aggressive argumentative relatives to deal with) and my need for routine has vanished.

I am also better able to organise myself as my memory and cognitive functioning has improved and I now have normal energy levels physically as well. This means I am now able to get things done provided I am not too depressed due to my continuing social isolation.

I still have an intense love of my passions/hobbies/interests, but I have many interests and tend to jump from one to the other depending on which one I feel most like pursuing rather than spending an obsessive amount of time on any one thing anymore. So that has changed too, especially after coming off all medications. Again my cognition has improved significantly and is closer to how it was before I was medicated by the medical profession for physical symptoms they insists were due to depression when in actual fact they seem to have had a dietary cause (as well some of them being side effects to the tablets they tried to cure the original symptoms with).

My social problems continue though as I can no longer associate with the human race due to it being quite insane. It is obsessed with its own ego (its worth and worthlessness or whether they are superior or inferior when I do not care for such belief systems), it cannot understand the most basic of things..even the medical profession (ie that my physical symptoms only return if i go back to eating certain foods and that my mood does not have any affect on them....I've yet to find a professional who can comprehend that I don't get gut pain/diarrhrea and pale stools unless I eat food containing wheat for example. I cannot cope with such stupidity and lack of basic understanding so as it causes me no end of frustration so I have now decided to isolate from humans as much as I can. I simply cannot communicate with creatures who are so dumb and lacking in intelligence) and they are also prone to strange behaviours that freak me out...violence, bullying, drugs, spam texting you when you decline their invite to date you and constantly ringing your phone to the point you have to unplug everything to get away from the harassment....

Mad!! !! !!

I used to want to use my advanced abilities to help humans, now I realise that was a mistake. Now I just want to stay away from them. They freak me out and I can't cope with them. I don't need the nightmares they inflict on me or the stress of always fearing them because they are out of control, aggressive, violent or can't respect another persons rights or health or wellbeing as a individual.

I don't want to be like them, I find their belief systems morally repugnant and fail to see how anyone who can see any life as worthless for example is a kind or good person. What a hideous way of thinking.

So was my need for routine caused by a possible ASD or by my environment or psychological damage from abuse?

I did have developmental differences when I was growing up but I have a hard time seeing them as a disorder...they benefited my ability to learn but did stop me from socialising due to not having any peers who could understand things as deeply as I could or any peers I could relate to. My development was different to theirs, I was older than my chronological years in a number of areas so of course I was not interested in playing with dolls. I like to play but with children who were older than me as they were closer to my level of development intellectually and morally. Children my own age were behind me. I could not relate to them not because I was disordered but because I was more developed than they were.

I love two way conversations when another person puts input in as I have a chance to develop my thinking but I have a hard time finding someone to have stimulating conversations with even now. It's why I don't like chit chat. People keep telling stuff I have understood or know for years, their logic is poor, and their thinking often underdeveloped and they have limited understanding of what they are talking about. They are also rarely into anything remotely interesting to compensate for their lack of understanding. They don't want to do sports, or go on adventures, and they certainly don't have any passion for anything.

They seem to lack imagination and creativity and seem to be somewhat dead inside to me. It's like they live in a box that they never step out of. They don't want to learn or live or experience. They just want to gossip, watch tv and do drugs.

I don't mind a bit of tv but when someone won't do anything else? I like to live and have adventures. I get bored around other humans beings, plus as I said they are quite mad.

I am awaiting assessment for ASD but I am not convinced it is Asperger's that ails me. I do think my developmental differences and past bullying/abuse etc play a role though. I do have traits of aspergers but traits of aspergers do not mean I am autistic.

It's good they are being thorough.

This sounds like a diagnosis; its what my psychologist said; then I quizzed her on WHY aren't I just an introvert? WHY don't I have something else? WHY wasn't it just the homeschooling (as other people around me keep insisting, in spite of the fact that I had lots of opportunities to seek an appropriate social life)? Then she said, "I think you have it. Do you think you have it? Because you know you best. But I think you have it..." and I finally asked, "Is this a diagnosis?" and she chirped "Yes!"

...but remember that a diagnosis isn't a guarantee; there's no blood test for this. It could be just one doctor's conviction.

Hey Bumble, How are you doing?

I watched a SFARI webinar yesterday reporting on a survey of adults with ASDs in the Kaiser Permanente health system.

I believe I am ethically and contractually constrained from sharing precise data from that report until it is formally publicly released, but one thing that I took note of was the very high rates of comorbidity of some of the disorders you are being tested for in the ASD population.

ADHD rates in the ASD group were some multiples (500%+) of those in the NT control group.

Anxiety and Depression were very common and obviously more than 200% of the rates in the control group.

Rates of bipolar, schizophrenia, and psychoses were low, but again some multiples of the rates in the control group (I am just recalling comparing bars in a bar chart, here, and my impression was that these were all over 500% of the control group, perhaps much over that.)

This has got to make differential diagnosis a little complicated... can you eliminate an ASD diagnosis because one of these symptoms or disorders is present? Evidently not.

I can see that testing for all these would make a clinically useful profile for a caregiver or therapist, but--unless I have completely misunderstood the clear metrics, you can't eliminate an ASD diagnosis on the basis of one of the other diagnoses.

If someone with a deeper understanding of the diagnostic process and comorbidity would explain the methodology and logic of this aspect of differential diagnosis, or point to resources where one might learn more about it, I would deeply appreciate it.

Apparently still needing to vent my spleen so to speak.

I have tried social interaction. It's stressful. People keep ringing me. I have unplugged my phone so I can get some peace. I just upgraded my internet to unlimited so I can stream the rest of Star Trek Voyager. The phone incessantly ringing is annoying me.

It seems like the psych thought you were on spectrum after initial interview and gave you his opinion, but for official diagnosis, there is formal testing for ASD and other disorders, which the psych said that you didn't need the testing and official diagnosis unless you needed to use it to get services.

Woo! Another trekkie!

Another trekkie here, but only got into the original series. Used to spend hours watching the show, reading the books, etc.. Even attended several conventions.

What were the conventions like?

I mostly only like voyager. Janeway, 7 of 9 and the dr are my favourite characters.

j

Another fan here but not just TOS.

TNG was like a breath of sanity in the dark ages of the Reagan-Bush era. I watched it as religiously as TOS. DS9, too. I missed some of Voyager and couldn't get intro Enterprise at all when it was on the air. But, thanks to Netflix and binge viewing, I have.now seen every episode of every series.

bumble, you are so obsessed with paleo diet, I want to try it too. Problem is, I don't eat cows or chickens or pigs (etc). Is it possible to do it anyway? I have the impression here wouldn't be much else to eat.

awesome answer. That is it, the psychologist has to check for he other conditions but even if you have them they can't rule out the asperger possibility.

I loved attending, but honestly, it was a bit of a letdown. The reality was never as good as the fantasy (created by Gene Roddenberry on the TV). You have to understand that I religiously watched the show when I was young (one of the local channels ran the re-runs in almost continuous mode for many, many years). As such, I probably saw every episode (all 79 of them) more than 10x each.

Then, I read the books (not only the “Making of Star Trek” and others of its ilk, but the James Blish books that contained stories based on each of the episodes as well as the “Fotonovels”). And not just once, but more times than I can remember. I used to study Gene Roddenberry’s “Making of Star Trek”, as if it were an encyclopedia. I would use it as a reference guide. I memorized all the episodes. I even knew the order of all the episodes. Darn – I wish I still had that book (“Making of Star Trek”).

Anyhow, I went to two conventions and saw lots of characters - if I remember correctly Scotty (James Doohan), Bones (DeForest Kelley), Sulu (George Takei), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Nurse Chapel (Christine Chapel) – and my reaction was – these people look old. I wanted to see these characters as they were on TV.

Note: I believe Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) were there as well, but for some reason I cannot quite recall.

Anyhow, I bought some merchandise (photos of the enterprise and characters). I got to “meet” some characters (well, actually, I just stood in line and handed them something to sign).

A lot of comic book and fantasy collectors also attended the convention. While I liked comic books, I was never a big collector of those.