Greetings All!

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I mentioned in my first proper post, "The UK's NHS's Selective Manner of Autism Diagnosis", that I first started wondering if I was autistic when I discovered from the Wikipedia article on Asperger's Syndrome, that AS and OCD were 25% (now 30%) co-morbid.

Next split ...

So, something I'll note in passing on the use of the term "repetitive". As Double Retired wrote, autism and OCD have "many of the same traits". I do wonder about the confusion between autism and OCD among the professionals, especially when treating one that suffers from both. In particular, the use of the word repetitive is very unfortunate in that it seems to act as a catch-all for several different forms of repetition. In autism, I think of repetitive behaviour is referring to such things as echolalia (the repeating of words spoken by another person), or things like routine, where an autist likes to be doing the same task at the same place, same time each day. In OCD, I think of repetitive behaviour there as referring to re-attempting to achieve an outcome, but usually never succeeding satisfactorily, hence the repetition of the attempt. Yet, do the professionals understand the distinction? I suspect often not.

Another split ...

I was recently talking to someone in my CMHT about my seemingly different forms of OCD, and after I joined WP, I told him that I might not be a good research subject for OCD if I was autistic after all. He mentioned OCPD (the OCD personality disorder) versus OCD, and told me that I might have autism and OCPD, as well as my already diagnosed OCD. I wondered aloud to him whether OCPD is actually just the OCD like aspect of autism. He said he didn't think so, that all three are different things, but he also believes that the demarcations between these are poorly defined. That leads to abundant misdiagnoses, because many professionals confuse one condition with another by not noting the context of the symptoms, and they end up grouping several conditions under just one primary diagnosis, which then becomes almost unchallengable. This then leads to apparent "treatment resistance".

Yet another split ...

I also mentioned to him the demarcation between autism and OCD that jimmy m posted above, "distressing and unwanted" versus "soothing and purposeful", and also BTDT's "calming versus agitating" distinction here: https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=425661#p9641824. He thought that was clear. In turn, he told me about his idea that OCPD is a misnomer, because it doesn't really have any "obsession" to it, so what is the "O" of OCPD doing there? He finally finished with a question that has had my brain whirring ever since: what is the difference between OCPD and narcisism, and how are they distinguished diagnostically?

Split, split, split ...

I think I have some ideas now, and it's all fascinating stuff to me. Indeed, he seemed to imply that I might be an interesting research subject that has OCD, OCPD, and autism, all in the same brain, and can therefore explain quite objectively what the differences are. Wow! However, so long as so many psychiatrists still can't distinguish obsessives, compulsives, narcissists, and autists, I can only think it is a good thing that Wrong Planet is being inclusive of autism co-morbid conditions. Thanks WP!

Precontemplative.

*mutters to self* I hope I don't turn out to be a narcissist, cuz then I wouldn't be perfect ...

Also, by experimenting, I think I've found that Cloudflare triggers when I put more than one url in one post. I'll try posting in longer parts now. I hope I don't get banned for having 'inflated' my post count!

Ah, I see!



Charing Cross Road, I suspect? That 1555 A.D. book: Wow! Assuming it is in English, so old that not only can it not have American English spelling, it probably doesn't have contemporary British English spelling!

Precontemplative.

Actually the book was not in English but rather in Latin. Because it was not in English, I did not actually know what the book said. But modern technology has changed a lot in the past few years. My niece scanned in a page from the book and it immediately translated the words into English. That is quite remarkable.

You mentioned a post from someone with Asperger's Syndrome. This is a condition that I have. Perhaps you may also have that condition. The way you search very deep into a subject is one of our traits. If so, throw everything you know about yourself away in the trash. You have a lot of intelligence buried deep inside your body. You have many skills. But along with the skills you also have many problems. Let me put it this way. Most people have +s and -s. These are things they are good at and things they are weak at. But Aspies (those with Asperger's Syndrome) have ++s and --s. And some of us have +++++s and -----s. Take for example Elon Musk. He has a lot of +s. He builds space ships and electric vehicles and much more. He has a lot of +s. Some will call him a genius. So if you are an Aspie, then believe in yourself and learn how to use your +s to overcome your -s.

welcome, its a lot to sort. Glad you found us.