Help with Doctor -

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Hey everyone,

I want to get help, I believe, past therapists believed and the members of the family I have told believe I have asperger's syndrome. I'm 20 years old and I'm from N.Ireland. OCD, social anxiety, depression, suicidial urges or whatever you want to call them come hand in hand with me (That's not all) . I need to get some form of help. Only thing is I detest doctors, and rarely go outside unless I have to.

I have to goto the town tomorrow morning and I am thinking about ringing our local health center to book an appointment with my GP (he's so annoying you would not believe). Since I can't physically talk to someone about pretty much anything let alone how I'm feeling or thinking, I was thinking maybe I could write a letter explaining everything that I can't say to him or anyone else.

I'm kinda clutching at straws here, does anyone have any advice about what I can do, say or write to kind of get my point across to him?

What should I say, should I book an appointment and just hand the letter to him in the health center or just post it to him.

Thanks for your advice and opinions.

I write everything I want to say before I go into my therapist appointments every time... because I tend to only talk about one thing once I'm in there, lol. I don't branch out well like he'd like me to

My first visit, I wrote down what things are being interfered with in my every day life, and how (if I knew) I felt about it, what I thought might lead up to it, etc, to give to him just in case I chickened out or clammed up on my first visit It worked well, and now he uses things I wrote down almost every visit-he'll bring up something from my list to talk about when I can't think of anything else (which is rare), but even if I never get to it, at least he knows what is going on in my every day life vs. what I just say in his office.

writing is an excellent way for the doc to know what's going on with you. plus it's a sign of AS that'll go right into your file.
good luck. some docs are better than others, if you don't like that one, keep asking for a specialist.

Be upfront. Just ask him for a referal. If he wants to know why you think you may be AS, then you can have that written info. Even if he shows doubts, just remember he's not an qualified diagnostician, so it's really just an opinion coming from him. Unfortunately, it's an opinion you'll likely need to get a referal. But be firm.

I always write down the points I need to ask about when I go to a doctor. I'd never remember more than one or two otherwise.

Would just having it written out help you talk better? Or at least you could kind of hand it to him and just kind of say it's hard for you to express it or something like that.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I ended up chickening out of ringing to book an appointment, so I might try to get a relative to book an appointment for me, that way I will feel obligated to show up and will feel guilty for wasting time and resources if I don't show up. (How odd that I have to kind of trick myself into attending a doctors appointment).

Oh and in response to the post above, if I wrote a letter it wouldn't make it any easier for me to speak, I would end up staring at his shoes or the wall, mumble/stutter and skip half of what my brain is trying to get me to say. If I write the letter, give it to him, I could manage short answers. Only time will tell I guess.

Thanks for the replies, any advice is appreciated.

well, the good thing about the letter, is it gives some ground to start from-even if you don't talk, he will still know what is going on with ya and all, and that's a start.

I wrote the thing when I went just in case I bottled up and didn't wanna say anything-the opposite wound up happening. Up until the minute of the appointment I kept saying I thought I was going to just clam up. But once I got there, it was another story, I started to then realized I was in a doctor's office to talk, he's not going to know anything if I don't talk, might as well do what I went in for and get the intros overwith. I don't know if this happens with everyone, of course, but the letter was a nice starting point-we talked about one of the bigger things on the list that night.