Get the Feeling Others Discourage Your Search?

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My younger sister is the reason I'm trying to find out if I'm on the spectrum or not. She's very supportive of my search for the answer to this question. Most people around me, actually, are also supportive, because of the crowd I know. But my older sister seems to be very doubtful, and I think she'd rather that I just let go of this idea. I think she was irritated and embarrassed by me when we were growing up, and I don't think she wants me to have what she might view as an embarrassing condition as a legitimate excuse for my embarrassing behavior. Also, whenever I've said I was going to try something in life (such as when I first moved out of my parents' house), she's predicted doom and gloom for me. When I've tried to challenge her negativity, she's claimed she's just trying to prepare me. For what? Expected failure? That's nice. She's also always tried, no matter how others have treated me, to convince me that I always have to be the one to understand the other person, realize how what they did wasn't wrong or wasn't that bad, and how I'd caused whatever happened to me. She tries to phrase things nicely, like she's only trying to help, but I think I know what she's really doing. She's trying to say I'm always the one who's wrong and must change, no matter what.

She was very interested in reading the psychologist's report when my younger sister was helping me write my complaint letter so that i could get properly assessed, but she had no interest, really, in reading what was in the complaint letter. Some of her comments were constructive, but I've had two conversations with her about the matter (one that night and one since), and it seems to me that she's more interested in validating the psychologist's refusal to bother assessing me properly than in supporting my efforts to get a decent assessment done. She even said he might've secretly tested me by cleverly doing something during the process to find out if assessing further was necessary, though she had no suggestion of what he might've asked or done in order to accomplish that. She just assumed, based on the fact that someone she'd seen at a certain point, in relation to her divorce, had revealed having tested her by observing her reaction to his having been late to her first session.

I'm realizing I can't really discuss this subject meaningfully with her anymore. I also can't discuss it meaningfully with someone else who always mentions the clients she worked with in a residential facility, as if to compare me with them, and then says that everyone is somewhere on the spectrum. I know others here on Wrong Planet have complained of that kind of thing before, but that's an example of not being taken seriously. Has anyone else felt actively discouraged by someone to some extent, as I have by my older sister, from pursuing proper evaluation and diagnosis? I know my experience is probably mild, in comparison to what others may have encountered, but I still find it hurtful.

Friends and family, also therapists, clinicians and doctors..... may dismiss anything that may show them to have been mean and horrible to tards'

get used to it, tis the aspie curse of our time

( keep them in the dark, keep them apart, and feed them on BS )

Last edited by Surfman on 12 Feb 2012, 8:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Girlfriend: Encouraged

Counsellor on helpline: Discouraged

Health worker at autism centre: Encouraged

Father: Discouraged

GP (ie doctor): Encouraged

Psychiatrist the GP referred me to: Dropped the ball

I didn't tell anyone else.

I've since decided to stick with the diagnosis of schizoid personality I received 30 years ago, even if every day my girlfriend says "typical Aspergers" to me whenever I do something odd . When I was seriously trying to get feedback on the AS question it was hurtful not to be taken seriously by the three people who didn't take me seriously and I appreciated being taken seriously by the three people who did, even if in the end I've decided I don't have it. It is painful presenting yourself as possibly having a disorder to someone. They should at least respect you enough to take you seriously and encourage your search for the truth. I have read that where I live "only" about a third of the adults who present themselves for evaluation for Aspergers actually have it. In my view that's an enormously high proportion, even if I would belong in the two thirds who don't. I would imagine that in general medicine if a third of the people who presented themselves for cancer screening actually had it that would unleash a mass panic.

Though I don't have AS I continue to post on WP because I like it here .

My family has always discouraged any thought that there might be something different about me. My wife binned my ADHD meds when we first got together and The same with the Prozac..

It's natural and great that your family can accept you for who you are, but they don't know the struggle and the difficulty that is hidden inside your head. I have explained this to the wife now and she is encouraging counselling and is open to the idea, turns our she is horrified by the thought of a label, not at a label is going to make s lot of difference at my age,

Jason

Oh yeah, they always do that, you have to fight and insist to get anywhere, most people with mental health issues are incapable of the persistence required to get anywhere with NHS psychiatrists.. It saves them work I guess..

I have a dim view of psychiatry in the nhs and some friends have had some truelyhorrific experiences.

Jason

To be fair on the nhs, my experience was in Germany, but I had a similar experience with a doctor in the UK as well, many years ago, who said to me "if you have a job and are married there's no problem so why seek help?" and sent me away. At the time I was unemployed, had never been married and had almost never had a relationship and certainly wasn't in one then, but his manner was so offhand that I didn't point out to him that I was neither employed nor married or ask him why he thought I was.

The psychiatrist I saw here I was referred to because I wanted a professional opinion as to whether the schizoid personality I developed as a child and still have could have underlying or accompanying AS features, because the way I have been as an adult doesn't seem classically schizoid but certainly looks rather AS-like in its manifestations. The psychiatrist's first words were "why has she" (the doctor) "referred you to ME?" and her second words were "how am I supposed to know?". I was obviously naive in thinking they had the means to answer these questions, so now I've decided that I'll probably never know the real answer. The psychiatrist had a picture of her children prominently displayed on her desk, in front of the patient's gaze, and exuded an aura of self-confidence, which was very off-putting when you are trying to convince someone that your life has been a confusing mess in need of explanation. I felt horribly embarrassed there and will think twice about putting myself in a similar situation again.

Are you kidding? My mother's name should be Cleopatra! LOL

Sincerely,
Matthew