My Kafkaesque/Orwellian diagnosis nightmare

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So I got a referral from my doctor to first stage of official aspie diagnosis.

The first stage here in the UK consists of going to see a general mental health professional, apparently.

So I went. Within 50 minutes of the session she wanted to put me on mood stabilisers and had decided I am bipolar.

I had already explained to her that Aspie women commonly get misdiagnosed as bipolar. I knew she was checking for bipolar symptoms, as she asked about my typical day, sleep patterns etc. And whether I drank alcohol/did drugs, did careless sex or reckless spending - none of which I engage in.

She asked if I hear voices, I said I don't. She asked if I believe I have special powers and I said I think all of us might, as there as a study in a prestigious psych journal a few years ago showing 8 different tests that pointed to natural ESP faculties in humans, and I also said I'm interested in quantum physics and how the mechanical view of science is not the final word on how things are, and I am curious and open minded.

I explained about my childhood giftedness and even brought in some proof as people don't otherwise believe my young kidhood achievements; explained about my bullying and how all symptoms of female Aspies match exactly what myself and my life have always been like. She was not interested and kept asking me questions like the aforementioned ones.

Then she said about stabilisers. I said I dispute this diagnosis and asked her to forward me to an Asperger specialist. She refused, saying that I cannot undertake ASD before my bipolar symptoms are managed.

What bipolar symptoms??????! !! !! The fact that I listen to music with passion???? I am very confused...

I stood up and said I'm leaving. She said she will be in touch. I said please don't, because I will not be put on stabilisers.

Well then I come home and I get a call immediately from mental health crisis team, they want to visit me ASAP.

So these two people show up at my doorstep with a bag full of drugs in their hand. Seriously. I invite them in and have a chat (and secretly record everything for personal protection purposes - something I clearly should have done with the psychiatrist I saw in the morning) and it turns out the psychiatrist had now prescribed me ANTIPSYCHOTICS.

Are you having a f*****g laugh????! !! !

The two men said 'so this will help if you hear voices' to which I said 'I very clearly told the lady when she asked that I do not hear voices'.....

The men were much nicer than the psych(o) of the morning and left after 20 minutes taking their zombifying drugs with them. They seemed to agree that it has to be first ruled out if I am aspie or not; they seemed to agree that giving antipsychotics to someone who is potentially only just neurologically on the autistic spectrum is a bit weird... I cannot understand what the crazy psych(o) lady I saw this morning actually wanted to achieve, except to drug me up....for reasons I frankly do not understand.

Seriously, what on earth is going on????! !! !! !! This experience can be best described in my books as Kafkaesque or Orwellian. Just to reiterate, after 50 minutes of meeting me she had decided I am bipolar and need strong meds; then 2 hours later she had decided I am psychotic/schitzofrenic and sent a crisis team to bring antipsychotics on my doorstep.

Any views or sharing of own (similar crazy or different and positive) experiences much appreciated.Also, should I write a complaint of the psychiatrist? I am thinking I probably should... Putting people on strong drugs willy-nilly cannot be ethically correct...

What a creep!

I think you should report her. Reading this makes me so mad!

No one should ever be put on wacky medications like that for essentially no reason and certainly not when not in a hospital setting. And only under extreme and apparent need.

That would freak me out having them show up on my door step like that to try to make me take some medications.

Unfortunately, I know how some psychiatrists can be. They like to think they know everything about you. Not to mention that most doctors will try to disprove all of your health concerns if you think you know what's wrong with you or if you tell them the medication didn't work or that you had a bad adverse reaction. I was extremely sick with strep one time (couldn't drive, couldn't hardly walk, 103 fever,sore throat) and the doctor refused to believe me when I told him it was strep because I know how it affects me; he thought I was being dramatic because I was crying. The nurse denied it too. The rapid strep test came back negative like it usually does for me and I told them so. They offered me anxiety counseling. I called or got a phone call three days later saying the culture was positive and to come back for antibiotics. I was so sick I literally thought I was going to die.

It does sound like a nightmare. I would ask for a second opinion.

However, I would like to add that sometimes bipolar episodes include psychosis and bipolar treatment (with or without psychosis) can be treated with some antipsychotics. A wider range of conditions are treated with antipsychotics than just psychosis and schizophrenia. Especially when off-label treatment is considered.

Been there. Bipolar looks to me like a catch-all diagnosis which hasn't been adequately defined or really helped anyone. Supposedly a lot of people with ASDs get this diagnosis and I've come to believe it's most likely due to a tremendous lack of understanding of both conditions (to presume bipolar is actually a real phenomenon), it seems the medical professions have drawn just enough parallels between the two to jump to conclusions and pressure loads of us with thought patterns we don't want to risk towards a bunch of apocryphal psychoactive compounds instead of trying to understand what we have to say. I'm also reasonably sure doctors get tremendous monetary kickbacks from drug companies for prescribing things like antidepressants, antipsychotics and the hundred or so niche derivative compounds. I did a fair amount of homework when I was under said pressure and every compound I studied had its' own unique set of potentially very ugly side-effects. The brain is the most complex thing in the known universe, except perhaps the known universe itself and there are scores of people not only claiming to understand it, but that it should be medicated and viewed as an independent subset of the body.

Edit: This really is an absurdly difficult position to be in, PM me about it if you prefer. I'm going to hug my cat...

Last edited by cberg on 12 Dec 2014, 12:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wow, that sounds pretty awful. I think you should definitely insist on getting a second opinion. For what it's worth, after a bad run in with a general psychologist myself (though nowhere near as bad as yours) I found the book Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Adult Asperger Syndrome useful for learning about how a responsible and properly informed mental health professional should handle a patient seeking diagnosis or treatment for ASD. It could be helpful in avoiding another session like this one if you want to continue to seek a diagnosis.

That sounds horrible. Completely unacceptable of her to do that. I'm sorry that happened to you. I would be scared if they came to my door like that - also find it absurd and almost funny but - scary for sure.

I agree with filing a complaint. It may not change anything in the immediate future but it's a good idea to put it on record.

Wow...what an incompetent piece of -censored -

I second your recommendation of that book. I find that I am continuing to turn to it for perspective and have reread some sections several times.

In the US, the rule for selecting a healthcare professional seems to be "caveat emptor" or, see who is on your plan within a reasonable distance and hope for the best. Then discover that diagnosis isn't covered by any plan and look for an inventive alternative approach (e.g., volunteer for research studies.)

In the UK, the level of service in the NHS seems to vary very greatly from GP to GP in an unpredictable way. There is no way to use the system except to go through it, but there is no guarantee that doing that is going to get you anything helpful. The alternative is an expensive trip into the private system, often also calling for an inventive alternative approach.

In western society, the psych system is you are assumed guilty until proven innocent. Thus, you have to tread lightly when talking to a psychologist/psychiatrist as they can throw you into a mental ward. Remember you always have a right to talk to an attorney!

I can relate. I'm very happy for you that the intervention team was reasonable and didn't force their poisons on you. I had a similar experience but, being a child at the time and having parents who were so desperate for help that they never thought to question the doctor whom I told them was wrong, and so I had no choice in the matter. Sixteen years later and I'm still filled with rage and fear when I think of it, but at least I am on the road to getting an ASD diagnosis now.

Tardive dyskinesia, a "rare" but way-more-common-than-psychiatrists-want-to-believe side effect of the drugs they were so keen to pump you full of, is no fun I can tell you personally. You quite possibly just avoided something which could have ruined your entire life.

OMG She sent people to your house??! !?? Scary and uncalled for, for sure. No way I would have let them in Especially as there were 2 of them - the makings of something right out of a movie! They pin someone down, whip out a needle, and it's lights out, they're waking up in a padded room

Wow! What a story! It reminds me though of the long self-diagnosis threads that never die here on WP, because I have often said that head doctors seldom if ever, see patients that come in WANTING a specific diagnosis. 99% of autism diagnosis are done on children. Plus, most of the head doctors (in the US) want patients that come back on a regular basis to "manage" their meds. But when one goes into a head doctor's office saying that they want a dx for Aspergers or autism, the doctor is going to think that you want State benefits. It is natural for them to want to know what is hurting you, because they have a pill for almost everything that ails you. And, if you believe that people have psychic powers because you read an article about it... that borders on magical thinking... maybe.

If I would take one positive from this experience, it's the fact that the guys who came to the door with the meds had a better perspective on things, and knew, instinctively, that you don't need meds.

That assessor is a regular riot! She should be reported. I think the assessor's ego was bruised by some layman PRESUMING that she knew more about her own self than this assessor.

I would seek out a clinic which specializes in Asperger's.

Yep, had something similar happen to me. Went to see a therapist when I was a teen. Had some issues with depression because I couldn't figure out why I was so different than most others my age. I know now but at the time I had never heard of Asperger's.

Anyway, after a short interview she decided I needed to be on anti-psychotics (Thorazine). I disagreed. She apparently saw that as proof that she was right and threatened to have someone come in and give me a injection if I didn't agree to take the meds. I told her this was BS and that I was leaving..which I did.

Within 2 hours there were police at my door. Apparently the therapist told them that I needed to be committed to the state mental hospital because I was a real danger. All because I disagreed with her. I had to spend the night in jail...in seclusion. It was a nightmare. Luckily the judge I went before (for commitment) had more common sense and said I should be evaluated by a real professional. And surprise, the new doc confirmed after many hours of testing that I was not some dangerous psychopath lurking around town...but merely a kid with a very high IQ that was really different. The whole episode still gives me chills....40+ years later.

Thanks people.

Really valuable to hear your views and support.

To make matters worse, husband has been going at me the whole evening, about how I was disorganized with arranging childcare this morning, and how I'm a bad mother for not yet having arranged Christmas presents. When I argued back, he said "god they should have put you on antipsychotics".

What is it with people? It's like they smell when you\re in a bad place and come and trash and trample all over you. Even my husband whom everyone else considers to be the most patient and the nicest person in the universe.

I just told him I am out and want a divorce. God, imagine the psychiatrist hearing that. I'd be sectioned for sure as wanting to separate would obviously be a sign of irrational mania or something.

I'm fed up with my husband bossing me around and throwing his bags of s**t at me. To be honest, I'm at the point where I don't care if the shrink who has it in for me wants to section me - it's like if I can't even be allowed to be at peace in any way by others who want to impose themselves on me then really, do I give a s**t whether I keep trying to contribute in the NT world or shall I just throw my hands up and be a vegetable, what's the point.

I realise this sounds nutty but isn't that ironic. To divorce my WonderfulLong-SufferingHusbandTM.

I'm just fed up with the fact that no-one understands me. I used to blame myself for this and adjust to being other people's spitting bag but finding about autism and what it means, has somehow made me feel like 'f**k it, my whole life I have fought hard to fit in, and actually it turns out I cannot, and why the hell should I - I have done great things with my talents so why does nobody consider those worthwhile but always point at my flaws in practical life?'

Besides, my flaws in practical life would be perfectly acceptable if I was a man. It's cos I'm a woman that I'm apparently a bad mum cos it's 13 days til Christmas and SHOCK HORROR I haven't yet arranged my son's Christmas presents!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

Single life here I come it seems. (And potentially a sectioned life, because wanting a divorce 'all of a sudden' can surely be seen by said shrink as grounds for immediate sectioning, until I'm pumped up full of drugs so that I adjust to being a little whirling-round robot doing household chores all day, tra-la-la.)

I think that pretty much hits the nail on the head. On the one hand, it just leaves my mind boggling that a professional can make this kind of mistake. But, all the same, it sure looks like that is exactly what happened.

Plenty of people believe in ESP. That's no evidence of anything wrong with the person, and certainly no reason to treat a person poorly.

Plenty of people wait till two weeks before Christmas. Heck, to two days before Christmas. And again, certainly no reason to treat a person poorly.

I've never been married, can't really give advice on that. Just that I'm sorry that this is happening at the same time.

Be prepared to fight these battles alone.

At the same time, maybe contact a local Autism Rights group? Whether you consider yourself on the way to a diagnosis or tentatively self-diagnosed, might find somet