Diagnoses Confusion

Post Reply New Topic

Five years ago my doctor referred me to a psychiatrist because she thought I had Asperger's. My mom told me when I was a baby I was born about a month early and had 2 cases of Roseola, with 105 fever within the 1st year of my life. She said I didn't walk or babble until I was 2 and missed the crawling stage. She said I would just rock my head back and forth and then one day I pulled myself up on the couch to a standing position and started walking. The earliest memory I have is being 8 years old and obsessively had headphones on blasting music and rocking back and forth wherever I could. I thought it was perfectly normal - nobody else seemed to think there was a problem. I continued to rock as I got older. When I was 20 I saw a doctor for my anger tantrums and severe depression. He put me on prozac, I got worse, he put me on Zoloft, I got worse. 2 years later I almost gave up from all of my internal pain, which prompted me to move to where I live now. So going back to the psychiatrist that I was referred to for Asperger's, I forgot to mention to him why I was referred (or maybe he knew? I don't know), but I took some tests for other things, told him my symptoms and he diagnosed me with Bipolar type 1 disorder, ADD, OCD, Social Anxiety Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder.

Is it possible that all of those "diagnosis'" can just be my Asperger's? or is it possible to have all of those things and have Asperger's? Truthfully I am afraid to go back to a doctor because I don't want another limiting diagnosis. And I say limiting because to me I am so closed off from the world and how I should be that I fear I will regress. It takes me months at a new job (4 to be exact) to even start to talk to people I don't know, and that is if they have made the effort first. My anxiety is off the chart where I will have a full blown attack by just seeing a glare off of a street sign at night -- when I am never the driver, always the passenger. I just don't want my fear of life to get worse. Is there anyone that might have some insight into this? or is it possible that I'm just wired completely wrong.

Thank you!

Wow, that's a lot of diagnoses.

We on WP (well, the vast majority of us) aren't professionals so we can't definitively tell you much of anything about your possible AS or possible anything else, but I do know this:
Everything you listed, including AS, is known to be comorbid. The chances of you having any one of them plus another syndrome is greater than the chances of you having just one affliction.

Also, the symptoms for many of the diagnoses on the list cross over with one another. For example, it took my mom and pediatrician a very long time to figure out that I probably have Sensory Processing Disorder in addition to the Asperger's they already knew about, because many of the symptoms of SPD also appear in AS.
So, it's possible that some of your diagnoses are incorrect and the symptoms are because of another disorder. It's also possible that they are all correct. And it's possible that you have AS too, but yes, it's also possible (although not likely at all) that you have severe AS instead of your current list of diagnosis. Again, we can't tell you anything for sure.

I wonder if some of your symptoms were used several times to have you fulfil the necessary number of symptoms for each disorder.

I have a diagnosis of ADHD and ASD because I fulfil both for different reasons. Meaning, none of my obvious ASD symptoms as according to the DSM or ICD are recycled and used to prove that that very symptom is also a symptom of ADHD.

Take "forgetfulness":

If I appear "forgetful" to the outside because I didn't give back something important to someone then it could be my autism! Perhaps I didn't think it was important and didn't see the situation from the other person's point of view.

If I simply forgot to give back the object it's probably my ADHD. I got distracted and didn't remember that I wanted to give the object back in time.

If I didn't remember to consider whether the person could want me to bring it back then the two disorders most likely added up. I'd need to investigate further then: I tend to be distracted (and thus forgetful) because of ADHD and perhaps I just forgot that as an autistic person I must remember to try to imagine what the other person is thinking. Because of the autism itself I am also missing the intuitive "social check" of non-autistic people that they just do automatically without having to first remind themselves of thinking in social terms.

What I'm trying to say is that mental health professionals check for behaviours visible on the outside and then usually try to pinpoint one or two causes for each behaviour. The same behaviour that other people get to see might have multiple and very different reasons on the inside though.

If a diagnosis is based solely on behaviours then pretty much everyone could get diagnosed with a variety of disorders. If you wonder whether you have all these disorder or fewer or even none of them, then you might want to investigate why you were given those diagnoses and think hard about whether your outward symptoms were interpreted correctly.

1) To diagnose both: Bipolar type 1 disorder and Major Depressive Disorder doesn't make a lot of sence.
Most autistic people who have depressions, have a typical Depressions. Anxieties occour a lot in a depressive mood. They come along with depressions or the other way around. I would guess that all three diagnoses are in reality just one.
Probably eather Depressions or anxiety, depending, with what you have more difficulties.

2) Autism overlaps a lot with those diagnoses: ADD, OCD and Social Anxiety Disorder. I wuld guess, you just have an autism spectrum disorder insted. I can't say for sure but I have the fealing that your psychiatrist diagnosted you a bit toooo much.

This is highly impossible that you have ALL those things and every good psychiatrist should notice this. My opinion.

Well, that's what I thought. That was the label they gave it. Personally, the thing I know for a fact is that I have crippling anxiety, extreme OCD and at times depression which when I think about it DOES usually occur during the anxiety or vice versa - I can't be sure. The bipolar diagnosis I disagree with and is the exact reason I usually don't seek out diagnosis'.

I appreciate your opinion. Thank you.

Oh, I wasn't asking for anyone to definitively tell me I have something. I was just attempting to be open on the forum and discuss what's been going on with me and possibly get feedback. I'm not here for someone to tell me I do or don't have something. It's apparent that something is incorrect with my brain.

I agree with you on some of the diagnoses being incorrect, I have never felt I had bipolar or all that other stuff. I just have severe anxiety, tantrums, ocd and attention problems. I'm 99.9% sure I have AS and that in itself doesn't really make me feel better.

Thank you for your feedback.

Thank you, this is what I was looking for. Just insight into the other side of things. I stopped seeing the referred doctors because of all the medication they gave me, the diagnoses they labeled me with and the end result it left me with; frustration. I don't really wonder if I have all of the disorders; I'm pretty sure it all stems from AS. Everything in between is tantrums, extreme social fear and ocd. I don't prefer the labels, I prefer to not feel like I need to be fixed. I know that my day is filled with word associations with food, number counting, inability to break any part of my routine without having a full fledged panic attack tantrum. Faking smiles because my face doesn't naturally know how to carry an expression. But inside me is love.

So, I guess what I'm saying is I haven't sought after a doctor to tell me exactly what is wrong because I fear knowing. When I saw that doctor and he diagnosed me with Bipolar he asked me specific questions about what went on in my mind. One of my interests is God and my inability to communicate with people has turned my attention towards continuous thought projection (if that makes sense). The doctor assumed because I talk inside of my head that I must be hearing things. I guess looking back on it that must have been what it is because I always give straight answers, or at least to me they are. I don't even know if that would constitute the reason for the diagnosis, but it is the reason why I dislike doctors. No matter how hard I have tried to communicate what is going on with me, its like they don't hear me and its probably because I cant effectively communicate without babbling on and on forgetting what I intended to say in the first place.

Discussing all of this just leaves me feeling vulnerable and wanting to retract everything I've said, however I am looking for someone that relates to me, or someone I can relate to so that I can feel understood.

Thanks