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I don't have a diagnosis of Autism/Aspergers, so I am basically here to ask questions on the forums to get a better idea of whether it is worth me asking to be assessed by a professional in this area or not - if this is an okay reason to use the site?

I am very confused as only recently has my boyfriend who lives with me suggested that he thinks I might be autistic, and before he mentioned it I had little idea what autism was. I have suffered from Anorexia nervosa for a long time, originally hospitalised when I was young where basically all they did was re-feed me to a safer weight; since then treatment centre after treatment centre have said they cannot help me because they say I have another condition they are not trained to deal with. However no psychiatrist (and I have seen a lot) has ever been able to give me any explanation as to what they think this other condition is, which frustrates me as I just want to get on with my life and for so long I have been unable to function to continue my degree or get a job. I am currently on yet another year off from my Psychology degree on mental health grounds (I had previously had to take two years off a few years ago before going back to try again.) This is a subject I love studying and I love education in general so it makes me sad to be struggling so much and I desperately don't want to have to give it up.

The main behaviour that services say they cannot deal with is what I can only describe as a meltdown (I had looked into bipolar, dysphoric mania presenting as rage/panic, as a few family members have also suggested that to me, but it doesn't quite seem to fit). When I was younger I used to bang my head on walls a lot, like I lose control of my body and I go into a state of pure panic/rage/terror, usually brought on by either frustration (usually food-related) or being scared by things that shouldn't really scare me which still happens now (I am 23) - such as loud noises e.g. gun shot noises on my boyfriend's video games, and other noises particularly when they are repetitive. These days I have managed to learn to reduce the head banging to hitting my face, which I generally lock myself in the bathroom to do if I feel myself losing control, but this still causes me a lot of distress and is humiliating when it happens in public and I don't have time to hide myself. On rarer occasions my boyfriend still has to hold me down if it is particularly bad and he feels I'm in danger of seriously harming myself.

There are many other symptoms that make it difficult for me to function in every day life but I won't ramble on any longer for now as I have a habit of rambling However I wondered whether anyone on here could relate to my situation regarding the 'meltdowns' (don't even know if that's what they are but it's the closest word I have for now)? And also whether anyone has an eating disorder in addition to Aspergers so may have an idea of the distinction between what may come under autistic behaviour/thought processes/traits rather than being due to the eating disorder?

P.s. Oh another thing I would like to say - I am a very shy, anxious 'people-pleasing' person, therefore these outbursts seem completely out of character and many friends don't tend to believe the extremity of them unless they witness it - health services have subsequently called the police on one occasion and reported me for assault on another (I think a nurse grabbed me and I must have lashed out as in that state I seem to interpret anything loud or touching me as danger, so my boyfriend knows the best thing to do is to give me space to calm down in my own time, which seems to prevent esculation of my panic).

For a long time I did not think it was worth being diagnosed. I thought it wouldn't change anything from just knowing what is wrong with me. But socially things started getting harder for me as I got older. I came to the conclusion that I needed to know what was wrong or would not know what to do to change it.

welcome

wowiexist - Thanks for your comment, that is a good point - not knowing how to change something if you don't know what is wrong.

salamandaqwerty - thanks for the welcome!

Hello and welcome.

Hi there! Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome here

I have anger management problems too. As I child I was rather whismical, then during 20 years (of socially poor but overall happy life) I was perfectly quiet and never got really angry at anyone, then when the social demands of my environments outgrew my coping capabilities I started having horribly violent meltdowns. I handle things a bit better now that I know what they are, but I still have problems expressing any "normal" kind of anger. I am usually not angry at all (even in some situations that would make most people angry, such as having my car stolen), but if I start getting angry I can quickly become extremely angry. That was an important point in my analysis of my situation,

I don't have a diagnosis yet but I want it for a few reasons:
- The main one is just an automatic reaction as a scientist : I want my findings to be assessed and validated by an independent and competent third party. (It is especially important since those findings are about myself, and therefore have every possible reason to be biased in some way).
- I want expert knowledge. Other than just telling me that "I have AS" (or whatever else), an assessment could tell me more about where exactly I am on the spectrum and which methods and self-help tools could be more efficient for me.
- Some people will not listen to you explaining that you are "weird" or that you "think" you have a condition but will respect a diagnosis by a professional.
- Even with more open-minded people, being able to simply tell that you have been diagnosed with AS (or another ASD) makes things much, much simpler when you want to tell someone about your condition.

Welcome

Sweet welcomes to WPea!

^^ What a cute furry pea

ouroborosUK - Thankyou for sharing some of your experience and thoughts regarding this. It makes sense that a better understanding for what the meltdowns are is helpful to deal with them better, I hope we can both make more progress with time. Actually today a book I ordered on the subject arrived, I don't know if you have heard of it: 'From anxiety to meltdown' by Deborah Lipsky, I am only a few chapters in so can't give it a fair review but so far it looks like it has a lot of potential. I have been the same with situations that people might expect anger or even panic as a normal reaction - I have been calm about. Then in some situations where anger isn't expected, I have completely exploded. I am sure there is an explanation for this odd pattern in reaction, but I am not yet sure what it is for me.

Your list of reasons for wanting a diagnosis are great points that I think will be very useful for me to remember, so thankyou for writing them so clearly. The fact my boyfriend does want me to get assessed and is therefore supportive of my right to know whether AS is the problem or not, is good. However I think part of my reluctance is fear of judgement (or even laughter at the suggestion) especially from professionals, who, when I have asked them to look further into my case in the past or refer me somewhere else to see if they can discover what is wrong beyond an eating disorder if they have no idea, I have been told that my insistence in trying to find a 'label' for it shows that I WANT a disorder and that I am just attention seeking. Anyone who knows me well say I am the least attention seeking person they know, but anyway. I don't want AS, but if it is AS, or anything else that could explain my symptoms, I want to know so that I can know how to improve my quality of life and in doing so people I love would be able to find living with me easier. I'm not great at expressing myself verbally and my mind goes blank when someone is at all confrontational through speech, so I tend to break down when professionals say that, rather than standing up for myself. My boyfriend said he will be with me this time so he will handle that response if I can't, but I think I may write down at least some of what I want to communicate this time, so that I can hand the reasoning to them in black and white.

Good luck with your journey if you go ahead with being assessed!