I had my first psychiatric session today, what do you think?

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As the title has mentioned, I had my first session with a psychiatrist with regard to my social difficulties, anxiety issues (from being overwhelmed, being in a chaotic environment, and being in an environment with a lot of noise), and the subsequent depression that has caused. I want to put this out there and get any feedback on it if anyone has any.

I started off by outlining to him the main issues that are causing me problems. I was somewhat surprised that directly after that, he [the psychiatrist] prompted me about my family and childhood. I told him that each member of my family largely keeps to themselves, and that my father spends most of his time at work, and that my mother is a housewife. He asked a few questions about the fact that my family do not interact much.

After twenty minutes of discussing that topic, he asked me if I had researched my issues on my own. I told him that I thought that many of the symptoms of Aspergers Syndrome sounded like me. He concurred that he thought it was a likely possibility that I had it, but seemed more interested in finding a possible cause for my issues from my childhood and my familial situation. I explained to him that I don't recall any traumatic or unusual and significant events in my childhood, and that I have no issue with my familial situation; I like that I'm left alone most of the time. However, I am giving him the benefit of the doubt on this since he is much more qualified to make a psychiatric assessment.

He mentioned that he did not want to "pigeon-hole" (his phrase) me by giving me a label of any sort for my issues, and wanted me to start cognitive behavioural therapy within a few weeks.

I feel that he is putting too much emphasis on how I described my family and childhood, and neglecting my practical issues such as developing better social skills, learning how to properly deal with an overwhelming environment, and controlling my emotions.

If you've managed to read up to this point, what do you think? Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, if not tailored precisely to your needs, will be both helpful and ridiculously useless in alternating sessions. Pay specific attention to anything they teach you on "assertiveness" in speaking... Many of the tips and tricks you'll learn about in this section will actually expose the fundamentals of how NTs communicate with each other. This is his answer to your immediate needs... and like I said, some of it will actually be helpful.

Let him dig in your past. Precious few doctors go so far as to bother this much with a patient. Allow him to satisfy his curiousity and move up. It's like looking for your keys when you've lost them. Best idea is to search and discount the possibility they are in the bathroom. Then seach and discount the possibility that they are in the kitchen. The living room. Etc. He's just discounting rooms right now. Like a good little scientist.

I agree he may be looking around the various "rooms" in your home background to understand your family influences. If you shared these posts with him, it might help him to understand AS and the Autism and Asperger's Community influence.

I agree that he is just trying to discount any other possible causes of your issues before he calls it ASD, but you can tell if you have it pretty easily if:

you have seizures or tics, not a guarantee, but much more likely.

you have an over sensativity to light, sound or touch, again not necessary.

you often say rude things, not being rude intentionlly, but because you were unaware that what you were saying was rude.

you move you hands constantly and are often unware that you are doing so.

you have unusual special interests that almost noone that you've met shares to the extent that your interest is in particular parts of the subjects.

you obsess over strange things and can not stop your brain from returning to the subject.

you have a problem with the length of time that you look people in the eyes, too long to not at all, especially authority figures.

These are some of the things that I have/do, but if you have these there's no denying that you are on the spectrum. I don't care what a doctor says. I've was misdiagnosed by doctors three or four times before I figured it out on my own and then went to see the right specialist, but the doctor that finally did peg me as ASD did ask me lots of questions before she was willing to give me the diagnosis.

She said that I don't have Asperger's, which I disagree with, but I'm on the spectrum right in that area. The fact that she used to determine that I don't have Aspergers was my speach pattern. One of the least important traits of Asperger's and no two AS people are alike.

Now you look at my score on the AS quiz and tell me if you agree, AS: 173 of 200, NT 52 of 200. I scored higher than most of the people in this discussion board that were professionally diagnosed with AS. My point is doctors screw-up all the time. Sorry, I went on a litte tirade. After being misdiagnosed my whole life I am frustrated with doctors.