bad psychiatrist--What does everyone else think?

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I went for diagnosis a few days ago expecting to be diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome because I have the majority of the symptoms, rather I was just diagnosed with the general PDD-NOS. I am supposed to go back for a final evaluation and diagnosis soon but I feel that the psychiatrist does not know exactly what he is talking about. The psychiatrist evaluated me for asperger's and he agreed that I had most of the symptoms. He then asked me if I get lonely and have a desire to make friends and I said yes. He then said that he thinks that I might have something other than Asperger's because people with asperger's don't want to have friends and that they have any desire for friends and he said he thinks I have either avoidant personality disorder or social anxiety. I agree that I have social anxiety disorder but only as a result of my social awkwardness from asperger's. I had researched avoidant personality disorder and people with that disorder are more likely to not want friends than people with asperger's because they are afraid of people criticizing them. Also, I didn't have the majority of the symptoms that come with avoidant personality disorder.

What does everyone else think? I am thinking about going to see someone else instead, should I? Anyone else have a problem like this?

That seems pretty common, people take stereotypes as facts.
Just because we have less of a desire to socialise doesn't mean most of us don't want to at all.
It would be the same as saying you can't be French because you don't like wine.
I'd go and tel this guy hes misinformed.
If i wasn't diagnosed before and would go now i would proberbly get pdd-nos myself, because i learned alot of social skills since my diagnosis.
You can't blame them though, they can't feel our feelings, all they do is study the general symptoms of aspergers.

That's kinda strange... I mean, I think that in general most people want to be accepted, even people with aspergers. In my case part of me wants to have friends that understand me, but yet I don't like having people over at my house and I don't like making small talk, I don't like working with alot of people or going to parties; I enjoy being by myself most of the time. But does simply the desire to want to have any friends at all mean that I don't have aspergers? I don't think so. I would think that would lean more towards being anti-social. But then, I am no psychiatrist by any means. I just know that people with aspergers do have friends often-times (from what I've read anyway), or at least one friend that they talk to, and they get married, etc. That requires friendship...?

It doesn't make sense, but most psychiatrists really shouldn't be diagnosing Autistic Spectrum Disorders. Its not what they are trained for and they don't understand the full scope of what it incorporates.
My psych when I first told him what my psychologist and I had been talking about, the AS he said no, no way because I wasn't like the Rain Man.
Of the three I've had none have been clued up about it.
Specialists are always best it seems.

GodsWonder,
am not sure how it works where are,but it might help more having the PDDNOS label,it should be easier to get support with due to being a label shared by atypical autistics from all over the spectrum [severe-mild] so it cant be automatically stereotyped like other ASDs can.

I don't really have any friends and I never did but I would like to have someone who understands me. I do like being alone more than being around people usually and I don't really like to socilize but I feel like nobody accepts me and nobody likes me because of the way I am. I would like just one person who accepts me for the way I am instead of thinking I am weird or odd and just ignoring or teasing me. I would like someone who shared the same interests as me who I could occasionally do stuff with so I can improve socially. I do feel uncomfortable around people just because of my social awkwardness but if there was someone that didn't see me for just my differences and just accepted them that would be nice.

I would recommend looking for someone who specializes in DXing adult AS. As far as the DX goes, acoording to my pschiatrist there are 8 basic criteria in two sections of 4. For the DX, you only need 1 in one section and 2 in the other section. You don't need to be all 8 and the traits you do have should be taken into account based on how you were during your childhood, not just your recent experiences or current age.

I have gone up and down, through out my life, in a desire to have or not have friends. It was strongest in my teens and twenties and has progressively declined..I think this was actually more a "mating instinct" and not a true desire for friendship. For the present, I find friendships to time consuming and to frustrating. I do have one person who "gets me" and that is all I need. Some aspies do not even have that but the majority seems to want at least that one connection.

edit

Well, I am no sycophant, avoid people, sit alone, etc... People might think I don't want friends, even though that isn't true. Your “psychiatrist should learn why language was invented, and ASK!!

It sounds like your psychiatrist either doesn't have the experience in ASCs OR he's just bad at what he does (or both). I have yet to meet any truly experienced professional who's familiar with the full range of the autism spectrum and generalizes any single trait. That's probably the only thing you can generalize about all of us is that there's not a single behavior we all have.

Since he at least seems willing to dx you with an ASC, I'd say take it because it may be really hard to get any better dx right now. You may consider later finding someone with more expertise and getting re-evaluated. The only reason I recommend that is because so many of us go in for assessments and don't even come out with ANYTHING close to an ASC as a dx.

Just the fact that he's a psychiatrist is a good indicatior that he never studied AS. Psychiatrists are not even required to study psychology at all. Here he's definitely giving you assumptions, not facts, and they are wrong. You should first start looking for into psychologists (not psychiatrists), then narrow it down to one that treats AS or autism. I'd never heard of AS until the 4th psychologist of a series just happened to be a treatment provider of it, saw the signs from things I said and what my mom said separately, then introduced me to it. SInce you already know about AS, you can seek out a specialist in it. Somewhere online is a list of AS treatment providers located in the USA, organised by state. I wish I had bookmarked it.

It's weird that he'd rule out AS and say PDD-NOS because you have a desire to socialize. That isn't in the criteria for AS at all. But the autism spectrum conditions are so similar that really I wouldn't worry much about it unless you specifically need an Asperger's diagnosis for some reason. For example, a lot of Aspies also fit criteria for Kanner's autism (Autistic Disorder). PDD-NOS, a lot of doctors just say that so they won't have to say "autism"... Or it could mean that you have a mild case of Asperger's, or else a severe one that isn't quite Kanner's because you didn't have a speech delay. It's my guess this guy just thinks people fit into neat little boxes, and gives vague diagnoses to anybody who doesn't quite fit. Chances are a lot of his patients have NOS in their diagnostic labels.

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Click here for that list of providers, which I mentioned in my previous post.


Alex Plank,
Once again, I request that you adjust the forum settings to make URL links be a seperate text color. People don't always realize that an underline denotes a link and people don't always have a link in an underline.

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Flismflop, you can alter hyperlink colors by using BBCode for color link within the url code.

Like so: Wrong Planet

Type: Wrong Planet

Granted, it's a pain to not have it done automatically, but until then you might consider using that.