This is getting annoying, really annoying.
Are there any studies that specifically say so about HFA? Quite interesting.
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Autism + ADHD
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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. Terry Pratchett
And OK, so I am verbal, can be in society, do things for myself, have a gainful job, etc..... SOME claim that means I can't have AS. To THEM, I say LOOK AT THE DSM!
So HEY, if I am to be viewed as a second class citizen, let's be HONEST and say others should be also.
You have it more than some of the actually diagnosed? Hmm...okay, maybe they were misdiagnosed?
That's my point!
So what should I do? Just be silent? I am voicing my opinion like everyone else.
I hope not.
Who said I have "little to no symptoms"? I actually have symptoms I haven't thought of for a while, or that are kind of hidden. Still, WHAT WOULD BE THE PROBLEM? I wouldn't speak in absolutes like some of the "diagnosed" and clearly misdiagnosed do. HECK, they make it sound like, if I had AS, I wouldn't even be able to survive! GIVE ME A BREAK!
I AGREE that people shouldn't make it sound like it is all positive, etc.... or like nobody suffers. Likewise, you shouldn't make it sound like everyone does. Some people even try to attribute comorbids and other problems to AS.
OK, I respect that, believe it or not. I UNDERSTAND it! But a lot of others are MORE troublesome as a group, and some of them are "diagnosed" and even psychiatrists or psychologists.
It's a suspicion. Yes, even if you took the online aspie quiz, it's not a diagnosis.
People who want to learn what aspergers really is are seeing people who think they have it and going oh...okay so aspergers is just not being the best at social skills. Yet it is more than that.
Aspergers is apart of the autism spectrum because there are alot of similarities but when people claim they have aspergers and become a mouthpiece basically stating otherwise that they don't have alot of autism tendencies or issues but claim aspergers it's misrepresentation.
It's misleading also when you say that you have aspergers even though you suspect that you do.
It comes across as though people want to erase the criteria of diagnosis and scribble in their own views of what aspergers is.
So yes not everyone fits the common stereotypes such as the same form of stimming, the same special interests and activities but do people who only think they have aspergers really have the right to "educate" others? Isn't it the same "educating" already tossed out in the media which is also misleading?
Then there are also people who are avoiding other diagnosis period because they've already set it in their heads that it's aspergers because of the internet. What if something else is going on and the person goes postal as a result, murders someone, is actually suffering from something else but then claims they have aspergers and try to make that their reason?
thats not really a fair thing to say when so many diagnosed aspies dont actually have. what they have is a rushed diagnosis but are probably just ointroverted or have APD.
But you see, if nobody in your life, particularly doctors, suspect you have it, then you probably don't. I think that people here are far too cynical towards doctors. I dunno, maybe I'm biased towards doctors because they gave me the help I actually needed. Maybe my AS is more severe/noticeable than I thought. But I really don't like it when people push for a diagnosis when they're the only person in their life who thinks they have it. Don't tell me you haven't seen threads like this on WP, because they crop up every few weeks, even days when we get a flood of newbies every once in awhile.
You are quite lucky you have grown up in an age where AS is known about. Asperger's has only been in the DSM since 1994. This means that this was when it was actually recognized, but that doesn't mean that most health care professionals knew what to look for. At that point, I was 12 yrs old, many others were well into their 20s 30s or even 40s.
You are lucky to also grow up in an age that your academics aren't the sole measure of a disability. From age 12 until I was well into my teen years, I was an excellent student. I passed my classes and could regurgitate enough knowledge to do so. But no one ever wondered why I never wanted to work in groups. No one ever wondered why I had a grand total of 3 friends. No one ever thought of the fact that I'd rather talk to the teachers for social conversation versus my peers. They just thought it meant I was shy and that I was smarter than my classmates.
I should also note, that no one ever suspected in all those years my more than obvious anxiety problems. As well, they never made issue with the fact that my father was an alcoholic and abusive even after I went to a teacher for help. So feel lucky you have grown up in the age you have. There were many of us who were not so lucky.
Yep.
They all pretty much state that after the early improvements in cognitive development in individuals with HFA (semantic problems being a big one), it tends to improve to a level that's similar to AS (the marked aloofness and stimming behaviour tends to vanish as those with HFA develop). Whilst as a whole, the individuals with HFA are more impaired compared to those with AS [as a whole] in relation to symptoms, they aren't too far apart in adolescence/adulthood.
Autistic Disorder starts off as "bad" or "really bad", and can improve to "not too bad", especially in those with HFA
AS tends to start off as "not too bad", and it generally stays here (albeit, it feels like it gets worst with age, but that's due to the impairment showing itself due to social expectations)
"Not too bad" above still equates to severe problems compared to "normal" people; this is just within the Spectrum itself.
It is a fair assertion that those lucky enough to be helped early on should not take this for granted, as to understand your differences and embrace your abilities is life altering. It should never be overlooked - the time others have wasted in their lives searching for answers, camoflauging deficits and working themselves into the ground to prove their worth, only to find their explanations and haven't the money or inclination to subject themselves to the scrutiny of 'professionals.' Encouragement is needed in this case, if you feel diagnosis is of major benefit in adulthood.
Last edited by Jenk on 03 Oct 2008, 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I've been seeing a psychologist for months, and I know I have Asperger's Syndrome.
I have eight hour testing on tuesday, I'm pretty anxious.
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There isn't a sharp line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. It's a very wuzzie line. It's a very wuzzie line,
and it's getting wuzzier all the time.
Quite a good point. And in 1994 it was likely not disseminated out to the larger psychiatric community. There's a lag with this sort of thing before the professionals read the journals, begin to accept the idea, then see it applied, before they begin to apply it themselves. Many probably weren't even looking for it in adults and many probably still aren't. The 90's are also the "golden age" of SSRIs - a development which made a lot of lazy psychiatrists' jobs very easy and lucrative.
I was 21 or 22 when Lorna brought Aspergers into focus. I was just failing out of college, getting fired from job after job, self-medicating and taking baby steps toward stability after tricyclic antidepressants facilitated a total shutdown in my teenage years. I did not trust psychiatrists to help, I trusted myself only.
So I can only speak from my own experience for certain, but there are valid reasons for not wanting to seek psychiatric diagnoses.
I was merely placed on medication that (I believed even more strongly at the time) harmed me greatly. I am certain that there are some undx'ed aspies out there who refuse to seek help because they have been otherwise harmed by the psychiatric community, restrained or institutionalized against their will, subjected to dissonant or deleterious ideas, verbal or possibly even physical abuse....
I have to agree. I'm self-diagnosed myself (there's not even one psychiatrist competent enough to diagnose AS in adults within at least 500 km radius from where I live) and I'm pretty sure about having AS- it's not like having a sore throat and a fever which could mean at least a few different things, I fit all diagnostic criteria plus those that are not in DSM but are nonetheless associated with Aspergers. I definately wouldn't go bragging about it to anyone though.
I really can't see anything "cool" about being labeled AS, quite the contrary. I can't imagine why your hypothetical attention seeker would pick just this label and not something that isn't considered so "dorky" and so widely socially ostracised.
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sinsboldly
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Joined: 21 Nov 2006
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Posts: 13,488
Location: Bandon-by-the-Sea, Oregon
Particularly in adults, diagnosing an ASD reliably (either its presence or absence) requires specialist expertise that most psychiatrists do not have. Without that specialist expertise a person is essentially a lay person in regards to diagnosing AS. I do not see why you disparage lay-self diagnosis, yet do not like those who do not accept a lay diagnosis from someone whose job title happens to be psychiatrist.
For many people no one knew about AS at all when they children and none of the professionals they currently might have contact with nor anyone else in their life is familiar with AS, much less has the expertise to detect it in adults. AS is easier to detect in children, and intervention (including identification) is aimed at children and information about children with AS makes up more of the available information, and is more wide-spread, and among health professionals, information about AS is primarily targeted at those dealing with children. Where from this set of facts do you induce that an adult with AS is going to interact with someone familiar enough with both AS in adults and the adult with AS, in order for someone in that adult's life to think they have AS?
and let's face it. Money. People with insurance and kids will pay good money for years of 'treatment'.
Merle
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Alis volat propriis
State Motto of Oregon
Yes, that is why I totally understand why some people don't want a diagnosis. If a psychiatrist had not already diagnosed autism as one of the first ideas he had about me, and then rediagnosed me after a lot of misdiagnoses and abuse in between (largely not by him but by others in the field), I would certainly not be seeking out a diagnosis of anything from psychiatry now.
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"In my world it's a place of patterns and feel. In my world it's a haven for what is real. It's my world, nobody can steal it, but people like me, we live in the shadows." -Donna Williams
I suppose I'm one of the "misdiagnosed" since I don't fit the stereotypes.
I find it very stressful when people go off on tangents about Aspergers being a personality trait rather than an impairment, because I know there are people out there (e.g. my relatives) who would use that against me in an instant. They already think that actually helping me would spoil me, and I'm sure there not the only ones who think that if a bunch of us were kicked off welfare, we'd all get off our asses and get jobs. So when I find traces of such attitudes here I tend to get knots in my stomach because for me the threat is very real. And I don't want to become homeless. I wouldn't last very long. And then people would say "Oh, well. What can you do?"
I know how problematic going to psychiatrists is. The ones who are very good are already booked solid, so people tend to get the second rate ones unless they have money or connections. Very sad, very stressful. And I know some people just couldn't deal with the upheaval of going through all the stress of diagnosis, even if it were an option. So I don't care if people aren't diagnosed here.
I would mind, though, if it turned out that a significant (or highly vocal) subset of people who were self-diagnosed had a picture of the spectrum that was significantly different from the experience of those with diagnoses, and they promoted that picture indiscrminantly, instead of just perhaps bringing it up for discussion and seeing how common a picture it was.
Anemone the whiner
That assumes that you know people who are familiar with it AND who will choose to say something. Which, perhaps for someone your age is a safe assumption. But we aren't all that young.
I personally don't think I have Asperger's. But not because no one else has said I do. I've no reason to think they would. Rather, I think, that while I have some traits, I don't have enough traits strong enough to have it. I do think I have enough traits to hang out here, though.

Anemone the whiner
I agree with this completely. And Anemone, you are not a whiner.
Misdiagnosis of schizophrenia for example would be one of those, "that sucks" things, as you'll most likely be prescribed medication that could very well harm you if you have an ASD (anti-psychotics and ASDs don't always mix), and hey, we're suppose to listen to the doctors, right?
I don't think this is likely to happen now compared to the past, unless of course you see someone who doesn't know what Asperger's/HFA is.
This whole thread annoys me. I felt that the first post targeted all of us self dxed as braggers who were stupid and felt sure of ourselves without knowing anything. I grew up an out cast, I don't need it. So yeah.... If you didn't mean us all, I can let it go.
If you meant just them, please try to specify so. What I still don't get is the problem some of you have with other people who just want a place to belong. If they don't know much yet, then whatever. Let them learn about it. I also think books recommended by people with it, and reading their experiances are far better than some person who has a little bitty paper and gives you their "say so". With the experiance stuff, a person gets to really try to figure it out for themselves.
About youtube commentors who are bone headed... There are always bone head thugs who leave dumb #@ comments. They do it to children and adult alike. Comments from the middle finger image, to "YOU SUCK fa***t". They do it to people who literaly mutilate themselves even. They are nothing but trolls without lives, who are incapable of acknowledging egsistance of life from another key board. They are all over Youtube.
Last edited by LiendaBalla on 03 Oct 2008, 10:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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