My psychatrist needs to talk to my relatives....

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Okay, so I asked relatives about my social skills, and I keep getting the response that they are really bad...

One relative refused to tell me what I was doing wrong, just that I do a lot wrong and it would take a while to explain.

One relative said that I don't do small talk and it's a big problem and that repels people.

Another said I need to shut up about the birds and that really scares people off.

I actually thought I was doing well in these areas kinda..... ghaw, how do I convince my psychiatrist that this might be AS? They already know my social problems, but they keep saying it's schizophrenia... my relatives disagree on that part and don't think that's right.

Get a second opinion?

The last point in asperger's definition is:
Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia.

Your phychiatrist may or may not be right but this should be a point to consider. Why does he think you've got schizophrenia?

I had some psychosis during a bipolar episode.

Do you suffer from hallucinations or delusions...hear voices or see things that are not truly there, experience any psychosis? These types of "symptoms" are evident in Schizophrenia... not Asperger's Syndrome. Schizophrenia typically shows itself in a person in late Adolescence, just as they are about to begin their college studies at age 17 or 18. However, there are rare exceptions of children developing Schizophrenia as young as age six.

Schizophrenia is a mental illness involving the chemicals, "neurotransmitters" (Serotonin, Dopamine, etc) in your brain when too little or too much of these chemicals is produced. Medication can often help to restore the balance of these chemicals.
AS is a neurological condition, a "hard wiring" in the structure of the brain...

If your present psychiatrist doesn't provide you with adequate answers then, seek out a second opinion from another psychiatrist.

Last edited by Zsazsa on 27 Jun 2010, 8:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That doesn't necessarily mean schizophrenia. There's a diagnosis of Bipolar with Psychotic Features. Especially if it happened during a bipolar episode. Even to get a schizoaffective diagnosis it has to be present after an episode ends.

If you had social difficulties in childhood that should be a clear sign that it's not schizophrenia.

In childhood, they even went so far as to assign a college student to follow me to try to teach me social skills and they gave me classes, it's very well documented that I had no social skills back then. Lots of my stuff sounded like ADHD too, and I had frequent meltdowns. I remember as a kid not understanding stuff like teasing at all. My first special interest was science in general back in kindergarten, then later on it was birds, then pokemon and now birds and Sonic and mental disorders.

Do you think it justifies your psychiatrist's diagnosis? You seem to be in favour of aspergers, so maybe indeed, a second opinon would be good for you.

No, I looked it up, Schiz very rarely appears before 15, and the youngest recorded was 7. Schiz people are normal before they get their illness, I was very abnormal.

From what you described it really does sound like autism. See a specialist, someone that would actually recognize autism, instead of a regular psychiatrist. Psychiatrists oftentimes would prefer to diagnose you with schizophrenia etc. because they can treat you with meds for it. Autism, specifically, cannot be treated for by medication.

I don't want to generalize but it's also my experience from the only time I've seen a psychiatrist. His diagnosis was based on one question "Do you experience happiness from being alive". It was such a new concept to me that I fell silent, brooding about it for a long time. When I raised my eyes again, he already had a prescription ready in his hand.

You probably should get a second opinion, if only to clear your doubts a bit.

It's just that I don't have much money. Plus the nearest autism dx people are still over an hours drive away and I don't even have the money to get gas to drive back and forth to it. Plus it's expensive.

Perhaps, gently educating your psychiatrist remains the only option then. As a professional, he will surely consider his opinion superior to yours and will react badly if he feels threatened in his domain. It's impossible to give any advice, since I've never seen you or your psychiatrist and what I can deduce about you is limited by the small amount of your posts I've read. What I'd do though, is arranging my thoughts as facts and conclusions drawn from them, supporting my case. I'd do that in time and place, where I could gather my thoughts comfortably and in peace, possibly writing it all down. Then, if the psychiatrist is overly concerned with his position and dominance, I'd break the news in slowly and in stages. If I had a feeling that he's primarily after truth, even at the cost of his authority, I'd probably confront him in a non aggressive way, holding that soggy bit of paper filled with facts in my sweaty hand.

I hope you'll come up with your solution and eventually things will work out for you.

Actually, your title kind of provides the solution: Have your psychiatrist talk to your relatives, over the phone if not in person. That's done all the time, when diagnosis is being made; people who knew you best when you were a kid, and can provide information of how you act "in your natural habitat", so to speak, can give the shrink a lot of good data that you mightn't be able to provide by yourself.

Maybe, also looking up mental health providers in my area, there's an ADHD/PDD expert working out the local hospital's psychiatric department, but she looks at children and I don't know how much help that would be. Also, I'm going to get more copies of my special education records, so if I see someone else, they will know better what was going on.

Edit: Sigh... that expert doesn't take my insurance.