Misdiagnosis?

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I was talking to a friend yesterday who works in the medical field.

He told me that short man syndrome/napoleon complex is often misdiagnosed as aspergers disorder.

basicly the man who is affected by short stature sometimes can show an angry attitude towards the world and be anti social and even shy because of his lack of stature.

this sounds belivable.

in a way aspergers short man syndrome have many things in common

1. they both get discriminated in the work place

2. fail to build status and power in work and in other areas of life

and well the list goes on......

do you think its true?

I'm not interested in status or power.

Yeah it sounds true enough. Maybe you have short man syndrome, despite being averagely high.

I am 5ft10 so i am not that short.

Im short but im female (im only 4"10 1/2)

I think there are many with social problems who may believe they have AS but actually don't. That is not to say they are imagining their issues. If one feels one has social issues, then it's likely that one is not imagining it. However certain forms of schizophrenia, as well as schizo-affective disorder, schizotypal personality disorder and schizoid personality disorder can present as similar to AS. There are also individuals with low self esteem or who are traumatized from bad social experiences in the past, or who were raised in environments which poorly prepared them for social interaction. And then there are individuals who are just naturally shy.

The reason they may end up thinking they have AS, or being misdiagnosed with it, is because the NT world places emphasis on the social factors of AS. People tend to pay the most attention to those things which are the most important to them. For example, one experiment humans do to gauge an animal's perception of self is the mirror experiment. If an animal can recognize themselves in a mirror, often by reaching up to feel a mark placed on their face or head, then humans declare that animal self aware, and often very intelligent.

Cats are not regarded to have a high level of awareness of self because they generally ignore their reflections, and don't seem to care if there is a mark on their face. However another interpretation may be that since cats are more concerned with scent than vision, whether they have a mark on their bodies is irrelevant to them. Once a cat knows their reflection is not another cat, due to the fact they are concerned primarily with scent, their own reflection may be something of little importance to them.

If you put a strange scent on a cat, however...the cat will likely try to lick it off.

So people are very apt to label someone with social problems as having AS.

I'm kind of surprised someone in medicine told you that... they certainly aren't a psychiatrist or a pyschologist, that's for sure.

Short Man Syndrome isn't even in the DSM... that's because the concept of it is not rooted in any science. UCLan did a study a while back where they found that short men were less likely to loose their temper than men of average stature. It's just that when they do some people (like your friend) think "Haha.... look at him, he thinks he's tough. He's just trying to make up for his short stature" but if he was average height the thought would be "Uh, oh... he's mad. I better stay out of that guy's way or he might try to clobber me."

It's pretty hard to get diagnosed with a syndrome that most people in mental health think is made up garbage.

yeah, I don't know what to make of this thread. I also wasn't for sure if Moog was joking or serious.

Maybe the friend in the medical field was joking?

And the special interests, repetition, routines, fear of change, sensory issues?
Who is diagnosing AS these days? My psychologist would only diagnose me once she found out my interests were as intense as they were.

I think there are many with social problems who may believe they have AS but actually don't. That is not to say they are imagining their issues. If one feels one has social issues, then it's likely that one is not imagining it. However certain forms of schizophrenia, as well as schizo-affective disorder, schizotypal personality disorder and schizoid personality disorder can present as similar to AS. There are also individuals with low self esteem or who are traumatized from bad social experiences in the past, or who were raised in environments which poorly prepared them for social interaction. And then there are individuals who are just naturally shy.

The reason they may end up thinking they have AS, or being misdiagnosed with it, is because the NT world places emphasis on the social factors of AS. People tend to pay the most attention to those things which are the most important to them. For example, one experiment humans do to gauge an animal's perception of self is the mirror experiment. If an animal can recognize themselves in a mirror, often by reaching up to feel a mark placed on their face or head, then humans declare that animal self aware, and often very intelligent.

Cats are not regarded to have a high level of awareness of self because they generally ignore their reflections, and don't seem to care if there is a mark on their face. However another interpretation may be that since cats are more concerned with scent than vision, whether they have a mark on their bodies is irrelevant to them. Once a cat knows their reflection is not another cat, due to the fact they are concerned primarily with scent, their own reflection may be something of little importance to them.

If you put a strange scent on a cat, however...the cat will likely try to lick it off.

So people are very apt to label someone with social problems as having AS.





I THINK THATS THE CASE WITH ME POSSIBLY. BUT THEN AGAIN MAYBE NOT?

I think the OP is being silly but I'll take the bait.
AS is massively underdiagnosed according to recent research by the NHS with each GP having between 1 and 9 undiagnosed adult patients (The NHS is a conservative organisation and wouldn't say so lightly.). It is much more common for people to have it and not know they have it than think they have it when they don't. It's much more common for people to to have a misdiagnosis of something else when they have AS rather than the other way round.

I can believe that cause professionals misdiagnosed me at first but family and friends knew before I did and when they heard about my diagnosis some knew I had it years ago--why they didn't tell me I don't know.