More polite not label women 'autism'

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That doesn't fly to me.
I could have really benefited from knowing my actual diagnosis. The medical community treats 'mood disorders; like a joke or worse and I was misdiagnosed with them, my entire life. *rage*

I think you probably cope with some things very well, and other things not well. So when people see AS as "coming and going", they are reporting their observation that you cope/coped well in such and such situation, but not another. They're claiming that your ability to cope is coming and going...but it's not actually coming and going. It's the context that's changed. For instance, maybe you cope well with noise if there's nothing that you really want to hear, but you don't cope well with noise when there's someone speaking that you want to listen to.

For me, I don't mind New Years Eve in Times Square, as long as everyone's standing mostly still and there's nothing specific I need to listen to. But if I'm on a noisy train and someone is talking to me, I get exhausted from trying to understand. Or, if there is a lot of motion nearby, the noise in combination with the motion just drives me over the top and I feel sick. It also depends on the type of noise. Some sounds are just too much, and it's not the volume, it's the timbre.

Another example is in social situations. I cope mostly well if there's only one person to attend to. But when there are two, I feel a lot more clueless. If it's a group of five or six, I just check out completely, I know there's no sense trying ... However, if it's a meeting, and there is a certain order that people follow (this person talks first, this person takes questions, etc.) following the conversation of six people is very easy.

It's not my ability to cope that's coming and going, it's the context.

Having said that, sometimes if I don't sleep well, or if I'm stressed, or hungry, it's easier to feel overwhelmed. So in some cases, your ability to cope really can come and go.

"So I will just put down that you have ...a screwed up personality!"

Your father is incorrect. Women get overdiagnosed and misdiagnosed with personality towards, and men get overdiagnosed and misdiagnostic with ASD, due to subconscious sexism on the part of practitioners.

That could be true.

That girl aspies go undetected, and that males get over diagnosed into the ASD spectrum because of a combination of unconscious bias by doctors, and of differences in how the two genders present their autism.

But its not because doctors think that being labeled "autistic" is somehow "unladylike", and that being described as having a "disordered personality" IS ladylike. What your dad said is just ludicrous and laughable.

That makes zero sense.

As others have stated, having a "personality disorder" carriesmore stigma than "autism," as others have stated.

Autism is not an "impolite" diagnosis.

I'm female and that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. I'd rather be called autistic than be labeled with a personality disorder. If say you have a personality disorder people wonder why you're not wearing a straitjacket.

I find it rather sexist. Are they implying that women are too delicate little snowflakes to have autism?

I was diagnosed straight off the bat in 1995 so I'm assuming things have changed- for the worse in my opinion- in the last 20 years.

It makes me want to puke up the salad that I ate last summer.

I think it's more rude to diagnose a woman with a personality disorder. I think the experts are the snowflakes, because they're afraid to be honest to women.

I think those professionals are being very rude by not telling women the truth. Tell that to your father.

I come from Texas, so I hold doors for people. I lived in Austin for ages, though, so I'm just as comfortable with a woman holding a door for me as holding it for her. Courtesy shouldn't have to do with sexism. My favorite occurrences happen at buildings which have two sets of doors.

I hope this isn't too offensive. (And I'll apologize if it is.) But your mom sounds like a jerk.

Do you know about the concept of gaslighting? You might find the idea interesting: http://counsellingresource.com/features ... slighting/

The way I understand it is, that a majority of research has been completed based on a male majority simply because females on the spectrum (particularly aspies) presrnt differently from males. I'm aspie as is mh 7 year old daughter. She has taken to presenting herself based on characters, she is not withdrawn as I am rather the opposite. She is aspie maybe we just have a different approac b to diagnosis here i n Australia. Saying that she is being used as a 'model' case by the childrens hospital here as girls are "rare". I say that in the majority of cases they are misdiagnosed.

Obviously thats seems to be the view of most here but this is an autism forum with a lot of posistive spin on autism.

I'm not sure NT's see autism any less of a stigma than a PD - just my 2p's worth

You may have a point there - the NT General Public have very little awareness of what Personality Disorders actually are but hear about how awful it is to be Autistic. I assessed a young man once who was in Secondary Mental Health Services for an OCD condition. Neither he or his family had any idea what ASD was but it was blatantly obvious he was on the Spectrum so I went back to the referrer who told me we couldn't let on that he was Autistic or he wouldn't get a service at all! Madness...