Self diagnosis failures

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With the poser thread still kickin':

I am curious as to what type of true diagnoses the self- misdiagnosed eventually fall into.

A post ( somewhere) quoted Attwood's stat that 80 percent are right or are correct in their initial judgment.

What about the balance, say of the other 20?

My assumption would be ADHD.

Any here have true data?

Any data will do.

Thanks

Last edited by Mdyar on 09 Jul 2012, 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No data, but it would make sense to have a lot of SAD and NVLD or even PDD-NOS. Those are all associated with the social difficulties of aspergers.

There are probably some with an anxiety disorder, perhaps some with a personality disorder. Maybe ADD/ADHD.

and I'd also say, at least some, might not have any condition at all.

In adults maybe schizoid personality disorder or avoidant personality disorder, though these have no special interests per definition but the focus could go to interests which leave out social contact. ASD and avoidant personality disorder can also be comorbid as far as I know. Fact is, that the onset of personality disorder is later in adolescence.
There is the theory of "double-bind" meaning that a parent (with mostly a personality disorder) communicates permanently with one or more conflicting messages which can lead for example to avoidant personality disorder, and in severe cases the children can get affected quite early in life.

Egon Bleuler defined schizophrenia and schizoid personality disorder and he used the word "autism" to describe the whithdrawel of people with schizophrenia, which is the origin of the word "autism".

Severe attachment disorder (maybe leading to psychogenic autism).

Tony Attwood stated that figure in one of his video presentations online. In another post somewhere I even linked to the video and mentioned the minute and second where the comment appeared.

I am too lazy to dig it up now, but I suspect - like many off-the-cuff statistics - it is more a personal impression from his extensive clinical experience, rather than a hard-core scientifically validated research finding.

Take it as "ball park", not exact.

Anyway, I was self-diagnosed. Then I went to a psychologist specialising in ASD and got it confirmed. Count that as one self-diagnosis that turned out accurate.

Some self-diagnosed people are probably BAP (broad autism phenotype) - i.e. they have broadly autistic characteristics, but don't qualify as impaired, and so don't qualify for a Dx. But they might have qualified when they were younger.

I have no problem with self-diagnosis. The very experts who can "confirm" are the same fools who cannot lift a finger to help. Asperger's is an intensely private experience and identity. I would suggest forgetting the poser issue altogether, in a year or two it won't be any more trendy than "those 18 lesbian" months at college.

Until i found out about aspieness
i thought i was from another planet
i knew i was different
but because i was aspergian
i didnt care as long as i had books n stuff
and weed to chuff

When I went for a diagnosis I was incredibly scared I was going to get a personality-disorder label, mainly because I have a relative with one and I've seen how people react to that (i.e. it's your own fault!). At the time I didn't even consider other possibilities like NVLD, PDD-NOS etc. (no idea why). Needless to say I was pretty relieved to be told I was a typical female aspie.

In terms of data, though, I'm not sure there is any. It would be incredibly interesting to see the results of a study if one was done...

...now you have me thinking of potential PhD topics...

Quite, in that thread "posers" I think I mentioned 80%. That was an uninformed estimate based on the 80:20 rule. Anyone who uses 80% or 20% as an exact figure is most likely using the 80:20 rule and in this case probably Attwood himself.

From a few posts on WP, it seems that many people are commonly diagnosed with "Social Anxiety Disorder" when they self-diagnose aspergers. The indicator of this is probably tracking it back through child-hood and not have a clinically significant symptons/behaviours in areas other than social communication and anxiety.

In this current thread, it's probably not worth dwelling too much on PDD-NOS vs ASPERGERS vs AUTISM. They are close enough.

Jason.

I know two girls who thought to be autistic, but weren't in the end.
One has paranoid schizophrenia and the other one borderline.
I would say that depents.

But I have to agree with Attwood that most are right. I allways self-diagnosed me correctly.

The person I know who was wrong has social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and depression.

This is a summary I made in a thread called "Which Conditions did you consider before AS?" ( http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4415970.html#4415970 )


I am aware this is the other way around, something people considered before being diagnosed, or selfdiagnosing with Aspergers, but I believe it is somewhat relevant, if 20% of those didn't have Aspergers.

Also, see this thread: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt201975.html "Aspergers, differential diagnosis?", it highlights the differences between Asperger's Syndrome(AS), Social Phobia(Social Phobia = Social Anxiety Disorder = SAD), Avoidant Personality Disorder(AvPD) and Schizoid Personality Disorder(SchPD). I believe those are near the top of the above quoted list aswell.

I would guess the memo here not to miss is the other ( non-social) behavioral criteria in the 299.80.

My hunch of ADHD ( inattentive) as firstline is due to the fact that enough report repetitive behavior and fit the other 299.80, softly - some soft signs.

Many here have a dual diagnosis, and some report they have it with undiagnosed ADHD - just miss it. The take home message: this could easily flip-flop.

But, I believe BAP alone( per one -A-N ) could fit that statistically over this type or expression of ADHD - by the numbers.

In summary, the pivotal point here in determining a spectrum condition is applying part II of that list. Likely, some have the "social"( maybe by other means); but I believe that generic introverted behavior can 'masquerade' in part two as "routines," perhaps missing the grit - missing the essence of that, via the unusual behaviors.

It would be interesting to see the "list" broken down - defined by the numbers.

Thanks to all the posters and to blownmind's effort in that extensive list.

Funnily enough, I mentioned to my psychologist (a specialist in ASD) that I had a close female relative with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and he replied that BPD in females could be ASD misdiagnosed as BPD.

Yes!