I got diagnosed with Personality Disorder NOS

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You make a good point. I told the psychologist I suspected I had a known condition, but preferred not to tell him because I didn't want to bias him in favor of against of a possible diagnosis, but he assured me that it wouldn't make a difference, since my diagnosis would be based on my answers during the interviews and to the questionnaires. I ended up telling him that I suspected I had Asperger's.



However, after he diagnosed me with that personality disorder, I asked him if he thought it was still possible I had Asperger's, and he told me that possibility had been ruled out, since I reported not being the way I am when I was a child.

equinn:

Personality disorders are real enough. It doesn't mean anything that we all fit into all the catagories to a certain degree. The disorder comes when it starts interfering with the way you live your life.

Kind've like an anxiety disorder. Everyone has anxiety, it's a healthy adaptive emotion at average levels. That doesn't mean someone suffering from panic attacks and crippling phobias is fine and dandy.

Pretty much any psychological disorder is a healthy, normal trait taken to the extreme.

For the most part, young children with Asperger's are quite "autistic" when little, i.e., aloof to passive under the age of 5 to people outside of the family. Not wishing to approach others for friendship, and often times ignoring other children who aren't related (they "appear" to ignore them). This can stay the same, or more commonly, as the children develop, they begin to wish to approach others, they just don't know how to due to the social impairment. This is where the one-sided, verbose and insensitive social interaction enters. One can make friends, but many cannot.

At the onset of puberty/high school, it'll most likely degenerate from here due to an increase of self-awareness, a change of routine from primary/elementary school, people acting differently, etcetera.

This "course" outlined above is how many professionals see Asperger's.

Well, several folks said several times that you ought to seek another professional. I say so too still. Even if you do not have AS, that's usually the way to go unless you're the epitome of one particular disorder.

If you can get another opinion for free or very little money, what holds you back? It's not scaring you is it?

PD-NOS, if you have it, isn't that much of a concrete diagnosis to go by. Maybe someone else would figure it out better.

Avoidant personality disorder for instance can look pretty similar to ASD's, and vice-versa. AvPD is what I thought of before getting a diagnose - and I recognized quite a bit in posts on AvPD forums. There is quite some overlap in symptoms between ASD's and the Cluster A and C personality disorders, if you're curious, or in doubt, you can always ask them what was their reason to rule out ASD in favor of a PD-NOS

age of onset,MW99s age of onset was not in childhood,so it cannot be an ASD [CDD might develop later but it's on a different level to HF asds].

PDs are much later onset,there is nothing unreal about them,they cannot be applied to everyone,in the same way that just because most people will get a headache,it doesn't mean all have brain tumors.
the difference in PDs and NTs,is PDs affect the persons' life,and in the UK,the PDer can be sectioned for it.

Whatever are diagnosed with,as long as get the right help if its wanted,is what matters more than getting specific PD label as that diagnosis is a start.


and dont leave wp just because didnt get an asd diagnosis,if it helps being here,stay.

Yes, I guess developmental disorders are life long and this is what distinguishes them from other "disorders"

If you return back to your childhood, and you don't see any AS symptoms (as described by others and from what you've read) then you probably aren't on the spectrum.

obsessive interests (BIG ONE) in unusual things
ocd
aloof (social disinterest possibly)
desire to acquire gobs of knowledge about one thing
desire to bite, spin etc
inflexible either with routine or one imposed on you
love of objects rather than people
inability to identify social cues (when someone is getting irritated or bored with you)
inappropirate comments made due to bluntness
awkward in presentation (socially or physically)
internally distracted with vivid imagery, recall of media etc.
preference for adults rather than your peers

This is my son. Some of me (never been formally diagnosed and probably never will)

Go back and think about yourself as a child. Maybe this quetion caught you off guard.

After considering it some more, if you didn't have any of these traits, then move forward because you probably didn't develop AS later in life. It doesn't work that way (I don't think).


best,

equinn

for a full summary of my release papers including diagnosis: see my blog

Axis 1: strong suspicion of AS
Axis 2: personality disorder NOS (with XXX traits) - so it lost Pervasive

however, as far as i can see in the literature - i haven't come across
any other PD-NOS than the Pervasive one which includes ASD

the psychological evaluation provides the clue as to why they aren't really committed to go all the way, i.e. past mere suspicion:
(as both the psychologist and the psychiatrist also said):

"it is very difficult to definitely determine a developmental disorder fourty years after date" (sic)

so i walk like a duck, talk like a duck, am most likely a duck, but they're
just very unsure of how i walked&talked as a duckling
and i suppose theoretically i could have been a cygnet turned duck now

which is fair enough, as scientific prudence prescribeth

now Mw99: you're no spring-duckling: could this be the reason?

I think Schizoid Personality Disorder is a lot more like AS than AvPD.



KingdomOfRats, what do you mean by "be sectioned for it"?

I haven't been diagnosed with anything on the Autistic Spectrum, I am seeing a specialist soon, but I have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and I worked through a 20 week program to prove I didn't have it and my psychologist has finally convinced my psych that I should see someone to find out if im on the spectrum.

Don't trust a single opinion.

i thought personality disorders were responses to trauma, temporary personality changes, while autism/adhd were pervasive and developmental. i am psychiatrist-diagnosed thyroid disorder and emotionally-impulsive personality disorder but as i showed hyperactivity as a child, i'm adhd. on the MMPI-2, "faking bad" (in first half of test) and impulsive with red-flags for depression, anxiety, assault, sexual deviance, somatic symptoms, deviant beliefs, mental confusion and alcoholism. i suspect my executive control dysfunction is masking underlying autism, but they'll never catch it because i am high functioning, a social mimic... regarding attachment, i am securely attached, as is my child to me, but i am partially avoidant. i passed the parenting test.

tests... ask a dermatologist and he'll say i have a skin disorder and need a cream.

i'm still trying to find the PAI to do it. does anyone know a link?

I thought so too. From what I read, that diagnosis is given as to not freak out the parents. That PDD-NOS=ASD. I also heard that for children PDD-NOS gets less
state funded aid "since it isn't Autism".

I didn't think PDD-NOS as a diagnosis is really that cut and dry, totally separated from Autism.

I'd still hang out of the board. Far as I'm concerned PDD-NOS is just a label so the "powers that be", don't have to provide as many services.

neuropsychological status has been found to be independent of all but the SOM clinical scale of the PAI. a personality test wouldn't catch autism