Doctors not interested in my childhood?

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I keep getting told that docs are not interested in your childhood. But my childhood was interesting! Screaming meltdowns everyday from emotional overload leading to special ed and personal aides, social skills so bad they put me in counseling and tried to force me to have friends, being crazy bird girl, ADHD-like behavior, etc.... I had only two docs look at that and one said Bipolar and the other not my regular doc said Bipolar and AS. I keep wanting answers for my childhood, I do believe the BP involvement is reasonable, but based on other symptoms, I want them to take Aspergers seriously.

For an ASD diagnosis, presentation in childhood is importatant.

What it boils down to is this, if you can see a Autism specialist with expertise in how ASD presents in Adult females do so. They can be very hard to impossible to find and unaffordable depending on where you live. Most doctors and even some Autism experts still diagnose Autism based on criteria designed for male children. Therefore if you do not go to a specialist and you are autistic you are likely to be not disgnosed or misdiagnosed.

i know it can be frustrating to not have answers. they may not have the time for it, just research it for yourself and make your own conclussions. My doctors dont focous on my childhood either, if i have any questions thouh i ask my psych or i look it up.

PS. i wasn't sure what to say on this thread, i just like your avatar.

Childhood bipolar disorder is very rare, and frequently much more severe than adult-onset BP. It often presents with psychotic behaviours, hallucinations, delusions, etc. If the BP diagnosis is correct, I suspect it didn't show up until adulthood, meaning it wouldn't have played into your childhood behaviour. That might be worth mentioning to the doctors, to see if they take the AS more seriously as a result.

I had a psychologist with a lot of experience with diagnosing ASD and the way women present as adults. She was most definitely interested in my childhood and I had to have my parents fill out a questionnaire. Most of the information that I have gotten about ASD indicates that childhood presentation is really important for a diagnosis.

Nobody really took me seriously either until I saw an expert. I was told that misdiagnosis is common, especially for women and girls.

I wasn't diagnosed until I was nearly 30, because girls weren't diagnosed with Asperger's or autism because it wasn't recognized in girls until much later. Even in high school, a speech therapist said that if there were such a thing as being a little bit autistic, that would be me, and that was in the early 90's.

Not only is presentation in childhood important for an ASD diagnosis, it is imperative. It is actually stated in the diagnostic criteria of the DSM 5 that the symptoms had to have been present in childhood in order to be diagnosed. If the doctors diagnosing you are not interested in your childhood experiences, I do not believe that they are qualified to give a correct diagnosis. They might end up giving you a correct one by chance but the diagnostic criteria requires that the symptoms be there in childhood. So, at best, they are not doing the diagnostic process correctly but they might still end up getting it right from what they see in front of them, but at worst, they will miss that huge detail and misdiagnose you. I would find someone who is competent.

I agree. You should find a doctor who will listen to what you have to say.

Do you have an offical ASD diagnosis? Is it written down on a form that matters?

My husband's psychiatrist told him he could tell about a specific childhood issue once. My husband has a zillion childhood issues that he ruminates over and the are all cemented in stone in his head. This ruminating and retelling gives them validity and life. It isn't useful in the long run.

Now, when he was working on social anxiety issues, the psychiatrist talked about how he handled things at ages 10 or 4 or 20. Then he got challenged if his assumptions, his interpretations were really true.

My husband is very black and white. Anything that causes the slightest unhappiness is deemed 10000% evil, wrong, injustices to his universe. This could have been a slight in elementary school, with his parents or me.

-My parents hated me because they moved when I was 6. My husband totally believed that. The psychiatrist called him on that long held belief. Reasonable? True? Let's rip this long held thought apart. It wasn't why did the move happen, but working on dealing with a very long held wrong belief.

That is very hard, uncomfortable work. Especially if your social skills are bad and you are missing a good 70% of the personal interactions with people. It's hard to here that what you perceived isn't probably true.

That's the only time I know when psychiatrists will dig up the past, to get you over a current issue.

My husband's psychiatrist said this when he he pushed "why did things happen this way? "

You have Autism, people didn't know about it back then (he was 50 at diagnosis)
Your parents were self absorbed.

If you have never had a diagnosis, I would get a different doctor. If you have ASD, most psychiatrists will not rehash childhood stuff unless it serves a purpose.

That's my experience.

For some reason its my past therapists that wanted me to have a diagnosis, i can think of at least three. BP or ADHD was also part of my childhood. Previous doctor drove me nuts when he said an AS diagnosis would not change my treatment plan but would not tell me know if he really thought I had it!

It would make me very angry that they are jobbing on the diagnosis.

My husband has horrible anxiety. It is due to his face blindness and social skills. 5 he treatment plan wants to work on the anxiety, but ASD IS the reason for his never ending anxiety.

Knowing my husband has ASD makes a big difference in how to approach his therapy.

I remember you are in Michigan. Do you have to churn through the state mental health services or is yours private insurance/private pay? If it's through the state, they are total vermin.

In the state mental health booklet (you can get it online), you have the right to know your diagnosis and treatment plan.

What is your ICD number on the billing receipt? That is what the doctor is telling the insurance provider what the diagnosis is.

Mine is always F31:74.

If it is the old code it will have xxx:x (numbers, no letters)