Diagnosis Horror Stories

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I know there's a lot of dumb diagnosticians out there. But I'm just curious what some of our personal stories are about botched diagnostics.

Did your doctor say something like, "You have a sense of humor; you can't be autistic" or even "Asperger's is a childhood disorder and you're an adult; you can't have Asperger's"???

Tell it here:
http://asdgestalt.com/viewtopic.php?p=10378#10378

Or if you'd rather, post here.

Before my mother knew what AS was, she said I didn't have it because I loved animals.

Am was assessed for autism as a toddler,by hope hospital specialists-they said autism is brain damage and they couldn't see any on the scan-so am could not have autism,they were okay with telling parents it was all bad behavior though.

Am know a professional [she likes to act like a diagnostician,but she's a careworker] ,who said am do not have autism when she read the finished report given to her by the autism specialist/speech therapist,apparently auties have to be profoundly deaf and ret*d [eg,not be able to locate the on button on a computer] because one of the other auties who lived in the same place is profoundly deaf [not ret*d,but she calls her that and never saw any of her talents like drawing even though they were right in front of her]

One counselor said I didn't have Asperger's (when I went to him with my concerns), that it was OCD because I had nervous tics.

My psychiatrist says he doubts it's A.S. because it's a "social disorder", for people who are good at math and don't make friends easily. He rattled off every stereotype that he knew.

Only after going to a specialist who actually knew what it WAS was I dxed with Asperger's, but by the time I got the DX I realized I never needed to go to all that trouble anyway. I don't know of any scholastic accommodations that are available that would actually help me, and I always knew what my problem was so I didn't really need to see a doctor. I guess I just wanted validation that it wasn't my PERSONALITY, that it was autism.

I haven't had any negative DX experiences pertaining to AS directly, but I've experienced a slew of other botched DXs. Would it be off-topic to talk about that?

Feel free.

My mum said I wasn't smart enough to have Aspergers when I linked her to info on the net. After a while, when she looked at the questionnaire I gave her to fill in for the assessors (questions such as "Did she ever line up toys as a child" and "Did she ever take things too literally" etc) she kind of agreed with me that I have it.

Two years ago, I asked my old therapist if he thought I had Asperger's.

He asked me if I let different foods on my plate touch.

I said yes.

He said I had failed the Asperger's test.

After I was diagnosed with aspergers by a very smart and professional neuropsychologist, i saw a therapist who supposedly had experience with those on the spectrum. He told me I didn't have aspergers, but that i was just narcissistic, intelligent, arrogant, and socially inept, "kind of like those people in mensa, except your IQ isn't quite that high."

After a few weeks of this nonsense and going home crying, I found a new therapist.

That's unbelievable. By that measure, my decidedly non-autistic father would be diagnosed with AS. Granted he probably does have more traits than the average person, but aside from being overly blunt on occasion he has no social problems.

I never had any problems; wait, I've had people tell me I'm not autistic compared to Asperger's because I can talk (autistic people cannot talk, they need to type), and I'm not mentally ret*d; no matter my early developmental history, I'm "AS".

Well, AS and AD are pretty much the same thing in the end, so I guess it balances out.

I'm a walking and talking "aspie" stereotype.

OK. When I was 5, I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder - Predominantly Inattentive Subtype because I spent a lot of time day dreaming. School was not educational or challenging, so I got lost in my thought. Evidently, being smart enough to be bored in school was considered pathological.

When I was in high school, I was very depressed because of a tumultuous home life. My parents made me see a psychiatrist who was a friend of my father's. When he asked me about my parents, I started crying. He told me to shut up, basically, and then he said, "You can tell me about your family after you've been on Prozac for a week." I didn't fill the prescription, but

I did have to come back a week later. When he asked how the Prozac was working, I said, "I didn't take it." He reacted by saying, "Oh, you must be bipolar. You need lithium," and he spent the whole session lecturing me about the splendor of lithium. I didn't fill that prescription either, and I never went back to that doctor.

I saw another doctor years later who diagnosed me with severe depression. At first, she seemed very professional. Then, when winter arrived, she told me I needed to buy a $200 lamp from her because I had Seasonal Affective Disorder. I asked why she thought I had SAD. Her response was, "A lot of people who suffer from depression also experience SAD and benefit from this lamp." I said, "That's good to know, but in my case, specifically, what is the evidence for the diagnosis?" She actually got angry and was hostile towards me from then on. Of course, I only saw her one more time, if that.

This stuff is what kills me. They take ONE trait to make or break a diagnosis. And it isn't even a trait listed in the DSM or ICD!

My mom just made fun of me when I tried to talk to her about aspergers. She kept saying, "Ass-burgers, you think you have ass-burgers??"

I told her about all the symptons and how all of them fit me perfectly and she just went on about how they fit her too even though they didn't at all.

She tried to tell me that I shouldn't try to figure out why I was so different from other people because if I ever found out it would just make me depressed so I should stop looking...

pfft

I'm curious if you've heard any stories about false positives--people who were diagnosed as being on the spectrum when they really weren't. I get the sense that it tends to be underdiagnosed in contrast to something like ADD which has gotten way overdiagnosed but don't know if that will change with the burst of publicity and early warning campaigns.

At least those who can get a DX during their youth are fairly lucky. Those of us who are older had no choice but to be mis-diagnosed since aspergers wasn't on the books until the mid 90's. I was seeing psychologists on again and off again for about 8 years until about 1993 or so and they all could not figure me out. It was suggesting that I had all kinds of disorders until it was finally decided that I had ADHD which was way back in 1990 when no one knew about it. It wasn't until only 2004 when I finally figured out what was going and 15 years later I went back to see the same guy who re-evaluated me who finally gave me the proper DX.