Intellegent female vs. female aspie

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I tried to look up Mendelsohns syndrome, all I could find was aspirational pneumonia? Doesn't seem to fit. So then I looked up schizotypal autism and found it's another name for Mendelsohnn's syndrome, which "is only officially recognised in Russia, Finland, Kyrgyzstan, Estonia and Belarus as a psychiatric disorder." Oh Kyrgyzstan, now that's a really modern country. Also has seasonal affective disorder as a classic symptom. (wikipedia) Sounds like schizotypal autism has a very large overlap with autism.

You can't force clinicians to take Medicaid if they don't take Medicaid. So yes, there could be a single clinic in a county you could go to.

They're fishing for cash, grants & probably state department of public health pledges. Don't let it get to you that you're a fulcrum for their funding leverage - instead find practices that aren't in it for the funding. You can't force any of them to take Medicaid but you probably can find someone better able to leverage your Medicaid coverage than the receptionists where you've been going.

@BeaArthur: The classification arose in Finland as far as I know, which is a VERY modern country, as if that has any bearing on the populace's capacity for critical thought. It exists because not all people on the spectrum report pseudo-hallucinatory symptoms. Some of us still do though, it's more useful as a go-between term than anything else in the context of itinerant skepticism.

My AS daughter developed pseudohallucinatory symptoms. I told her she needed to report them to her doctor, and he thought they might be related to cannabis. Sounds plausible to me.

We're getting pretty far from the OP. Angnix, are you still reading this?

It's just about the pathology. My symptoms as far back as I can remember have been largely AS related but not entirely. Cannabis actually alleviates them for me. It's nothing new, I'm describing experiences all the way back to when I was maybe four YOA.

This. Any practitioners that really understand all we're discussing here will furthermore understand the financial implications.

If a person's depression is alleviated by CBT, then they weren't clinically depressed in the first place. It's akin to using prayer to treat pneumonia. Not only a waste of time, but it is detrimental to the patient as they are blamed for the failure of the treatment - "you're not trying hard enough."

Also those 'not otherwise specified' catch-alls can be catch-22s, if you will. I hope Angnix can find what she needs to know for sure which parts of her anxiety are causal and which are symptomatic.

100%

Do you have a source for that?

I also do not have my own car, and when I tried calling for doctors in the major city out of county they wouldn't take me. Now that I remember, there is another clinic, but they don't take away patients from the other one.

You didn't offer a source for your assertion. Saying they exist isn't good enough.

When I said "CBT ... has been demonstrated empirically to be as effective as antidepressants in treating clinical depression, and may have even a greater preventive effect against future episodes" I was referring to a pretty well documented body of knowledge from my graduate school studies, these are in peer reviewed journals, but I don't feel like looking them up right now. Either you trust that I'm not BS'ing you about this, or not.

What is your source? If it's purely personal experience, you should say so. If a therapist opined to this effect, you should say so. If it's a number of studies in peer-reviewed journals, you should say that, too.

Sometimes shopping around too much for a particular diagnosis is not well regarded by mental health professionals. They will label this as resistant, or something. I'm not trying to discourage you, but I'll again suggest seeing if you can work on your symptoms with your current team, as well as asking what are the ideas behind their proposed treatments so you can agree or disagree with their treatment plan.

When energy and money are in short supply, sometimes "less is more" in the perspective of your current life demands.

Therapy is usually more effective when the person receiving the therapy trusts the process.

There are some therapies (e.g., psychoanalysis) where results take years to be realized. People, frequently, do not have the requisite patience for this snail's-pace process; they want results NOW. While CBT might not be effective for some, there is potential under CBT for results to be realized NOW.

As for the "intelligent female vs female Aspie" question, I find at least some so-called Asperger's symptoms could, instead, be indicative of "normal human variation." I'm not sure--but even Tony Attwood might have made reference to "normal human variation." It is sometimes said that esoteric interests, in and of itself, are indicative of Asperger's. However, I have met people who are quite evidently neurotypical who have an extremely abiding interest in so-called esoteric interests.

All in all, I believe one must have knowledge of the specific context/life of a person in order to determine whether one is one or the other. Additionally, frequently, both could be combined in one person.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 25 Dec 2015, 9:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

I trust that you are not.

I do question the research though. And this is based on my experience with depression and CBT. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy attempts to challenge the patient's thinking ... to force uncomfortable behaviour so as to create evidence that the patient can challenge their thinking. Challenging assumptions, challenging negative thoughts, asking for help - these things have helped me correct some self destructive habits. But when it comes to depression, CBT is an ineffective tool. Brain chemistry cannot be changed by behaviour modification. A patient can pretend to not be affected by depression, but that's like pretending you don't have cancer. It goes untreated and gets worse. Depression isn't about positive thinking, it's an illness and a very dangerous one.

I know I said I wasn't going to look up sources, but then I did. Here is but one, and it makes reference to a robust body of knowledge in the abstract.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Mood Disorders: Efficacy, Moderators and Mediators
Psychiatr Clin North Am. 2010 Sep; 33(3): 537–555
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933381/

Abstract:
Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is efficacious in the acute treatment of depression and may provide a viable alternative to antidepressant medications (ADM) for even more severely depressed unipolar patients when implemented in a competent fashion. CBT also may be of use as an adjunct to medication treatment for bipolar patients, although the studies are few and not wholly consistent. CBT does appear to have an enduring effect that protects against subsequent relapse and recurrence following the end of active treatment, something that cannot be said for medications ....