Re: Functional?

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yes, I see your point but there are people here who are getting help because they have a diagnosis based at least in part on their level of functioning. I am wondering how the person doing the diagnosing makes the determination when it all seems so subjective anyway.

I guess they would look at the number and severity of traits that are specific to a label and which affect functionality in life. I guess I don't really understand the question.

How or what is your level of satisfaction? Are you able to be grateful for your life as you know it?

The remainder of my own life is not going to be at all like I am sure it could have been, but I am okay since I had not been dragging a bag of large expectations all along the way.

There is no way around the fact that these things are subjective. If you're asking how the doctors, etc, come up with the criteria, it's complicated. Mixture of observation, discussion between themselves & so on. Then, those criteria have to be applied by doctors, etc, who do have some training, etc. Doubtless, others can give you a more detailed version, if you want.

Maybe s/he knows what kind of help is actually available, or maybe the age (or some specific characteristic) of the client plays a part in the determination made.

Okay-thanks for your replies. I keep getting responses regarding my personal view of my functioning level and what I'm asking about is what a professional who might diagnose me would use as a measure. I am not complaining about my life. Again, thanks for your replies.

I think that your personal view of your functioning level should have at least some influence on how a professional would diagnose it. A professional can only see the outer signs, they have to mostly rely on you to report the inner symptoms. How someone functions in comparison to how they think they should function seems pretty important to me. What one person calls success, another might call failure, and if you evaluate them both by the same criteria, it'll be meaningless. If two people are at the same outer level of functioning, but one has succeeded in getting to that point and is happy with it, that means that they didn't try to do other things and fail. It also indicates kinda a breaking point. There's a view that being able to handle one thing indicates ability to handle more. But if you're barely hanging on with the effort it takes to handle the first thing, you'll collapse if given even more. A professional would have to be a complete idiot not to take an individual's own view of their functioning into account. (granted, lots of professionals ARE idiots..)

Thank you Maggiedoll you understood me
edit:
I should clarify-I'm curious about this because my whole life I have struggled to maintain. I wonder if I would be considered functional because the truth is I haven't pushed myself. People have been telling me my whole life that I ought to be able to do this and I ought to be able to do that. They put it down to a self esteem issue. While that's not completely incorrect, I think it is more than that. I have been exhausted as long as I can remember. I have searched for years for the reason behind this. I think there is more than one reason . From what I've learned on this site, I think part of it is executive dysfunction and part of it is the strain of operating in an NT world. If I don't try for the big career or the active social life because I can see that maintaining on a lesser level is itself exhausting, I conclude that trying to do more would be more exhausting. But if I were in a diagnostic situation-how could I relate that to the diagnostician if I don't have a list of failures to present?
And everybody else-I wasn't being sarcastic, I do appreciate your replies, but I was feeling frustrated at my inability to make my question clear. I was tired.

I've struggled with this same question because there have been times in my life when I have functioned very well, and others where I have functioned badly. I, like you, am doing pretty well now "because I've stopped beating myself up about what I can't manage to do."

I have a really great psychotherapist who has been there to help me explore my strengths and weaknesses, the things that trigger low-functioning periods, and the things that help me to transcend my in-born difficulties. She hasn't encouraged me to pursue a diagnosis (although I've been doing it anyway), I think because she understands traditional psychiatric diagnosis often doesn't take a holistic look at the individual -- it tends to take a cursory look at the surface, give a label, and call it good. Once you have a label, much like the judicial system, they really don't like to reevaluate the verdict.

I've just had a year of mostly self-imposed isolation, and I'm doing much better than a year ago. Not having to deal with too many people or too much emotional stress has decreased a debilitating social anxiety that I'd developed, etc., and I now feel that I can manage better if I can somewhat control what is coming at me. My income is much less than it was, but I am happier. If I went for a traditional psychiatric evaluation now I would probably be told that I function just fine. Ironically, it took learning about the autism spectrum, and evaluating where I fit into the spectrum, that allowed me to understand why my functioning levels fluctuate so much.

It really is a bit of a gamble to find a psychiatric professional who will help you understand the why.

Z

Ah, now I hear you ... and I do not know! But, even a list of failures could still be met with some more "Go forth and conquer!" kinds of stuff.

Yes, the main reason I would seek a diagnosis is I would like people's expectations of me be more reality based. At this point my explanation is "I guess I'm just a loser."

I can't afford a diagnosis now and I would want to make sure the person really knew their stuff. I respect my psychiatrist (who I see on a sliding scale fee at a non profit facility) more for saying she didn't think she was qualified.

*blinks several times* Besides the sliding scale fee/non profit facility (my parents are paying my psychiatrist,) I totally could have written that post.

Edit: there's this feeling of pointlessness at trying to go about getting more of a life together, when the things I have problems doing won't be taken into account. Yea.. that's exactly what you said, I know.. I just hadda use different words for some reason. I have this habit of trying to repeat things as many times as possible in as may different ways as possible in the hopes that one of them will suddenly make perfect sense. It works sometimes. But only here, I think, 'cause people can get that. Elsewhere, people tend to think I'm beating the same point into the ground, rather than what I'm actually trying to do, which is repeatedly attempt to express it perfectly.

You bet, and I say that is an important principle in life ...

I'm the same way. I felt like you articulated something I couldn't so I don't mind if you put it in different words.

I don't know if this helps any but I can relate the way my evaluating psychologist reasoned concerning myself. I had lots of doubts as to whether my autistic traits were in fact impairments as described in the DSM and he explained that I'm socially impaired because I have to work so hard mentally to be able to do it, because it causes me undue levels of anxiety, because I have very few friends although I would like more and mainly because normal people do not struggle this much or this particular way. A normal 27-year old with the same intelligence and not horribly ugly would not experience the same problems attracting people, connecing with them and maintaining relationships.

I'm impaired in communication because I can never tell when people lie, I'm naive, I have no intuition for socially appropriate topics and I can't read nonverbal signals without conscious effort, all things that normal people do and which prevent me from enjoying normal social interaction. It makes me edgy and uncomfortable, when I should be enjoying myself, so I avoid it. The behavior part I don't think mentions impairment specifically.

I also think that there's a problem with how society views disabilities, especially mental disabilities. I've run into this feeling when I disclosed my disability in graduate school. People seemed to have this attitude that because I've made it into graduate school I can't be that disabled. People just don't seem to get it. Everything is seen on a one dimensional scale when there are really multiple dimensions. According to this thinking if you are truly disabled then you can only be working a low wage job or subsisting on government welfare. If you try to manage more less account is taken for the things you struggle with, especially in competitive environments. It's almost like society is set up to keep us at the bottom of the social pole.