You're crazy. You don't have AS!

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I was just wondering for those Aspies who had to do their own research on the disorder: How many of you were told by professionals at one time or another before your diagnosis, that you were crazy and had something else but couldn't possibly have Aspergers???

/me raises hand. Anyone? Anyone???

When my mother set up my appointment, she talked to the doctor and basically told her that I did not have AS or any problems.

Ten minutes into the appointment, she (the doctor) told me I had social anxiety and told me to go take SSRI's and see a psychologist.

This is going to make me feel a little bit better. I think it would make me feel a little bit better if everyone knew. I am wondering, why would anyone even consider posting this thread?

I saw several psychologists who all diagnosed me gifted with a psychologic problem or nothing at all (my parents say that I am a spoiled child, and this is why I have always been weird...), until someone told me that indeed, my story and characteristics sound like Asperger's.

In my first, and so far only, evaluation I was told by the psychologist "you have one friend and that's all you need to be psychologically healthy, so you can't have Aspergers". She outright dismissed more than half of the observations I made about myself.

I was not told that I was crazy, but two social workers told me that I did not have it. I think they thought I had Avoidant Personality Disorder. Six months later I was diagnosed with AS. When I first went to the doctor he said that I had some kind of social fobia but at least I got referred to someone who knows about AS. I am sure that alot of people with AS get misdiagnosed.

The developmental pediatrician I took my son to for evaluation for autsim said that she didn't think I had it (never mind that I was rocking almost constantly while there) and that she didn't think my son had it because he was cuddled next to us and autistic children do not cuddle or show affection!! ! (never mind that he didn't speak once while there).

A number of self-proclaimed experts who no absolutely nothing at all about Aspeger's or autism have declared that I am normal and teh psychologist who diagnosed me was wrong.

I could go into an extended seminar on this one, but I won't as I have a web journal, so I shall save it for that.

I am rather intrigued to discover - on the basis of what I have read on AS/ASD-related sites - the amount of scepticism in relation to AS/ASD shown by diagnostic professionals.

Is it simply that it is not widely understood within the profession, or is it the inherent (and perhaps sometimes necessary), conservative approach taken by the profession in relation to people proffering what they (the psychologists) may consider to be self-diagnosis?

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I have seen a great deal to identify with in what other people have written, yet I am also reluctant to commit to thinking I do have something like AS, partly due to 1). the fact that I know I would be greeted with scepticism by my two siblings as well as the few people I know around me (were I to tell them) and 2). the fact that the psychiatric/medical/psychological profession itself would probably laugh me out of the surgery or clinic I attended.

It is perhaps largely because although I personally think there is an incredibly strong indication/correlation that I remain concerned to try to be as objective as I can be. The obvious question would be 'why am I so sure of this at this stage in my life, when I could have been at this stage a few years ago.

I think that another part of my concern is that although I have always been an 'oddball', a 'freak' or just generally a bit 'odd', it seemed less threatening to perceive it as a personality trait rather than a 'medical' condition with a 'label' attched. This concern over 'labels' derives from a). the brief interlude of psychicatric hospital intervention in my teens (the fear instilled in me was that I would end up 'locked away in a loony bin'), together with the resistance to medical conditions instilled into me as a result of my 4.5 year stay in a therapeutic community that extolled traditional quasi-freudian psychoanalytic techniques over medicalisation. The approach by the 'talking cure' experts was couched in a manner to avoid 'judgementalism', but science has moved on since 1979, so perhaps a reappraisal is justified.

Does anyone else who posts here have a comparable personal history in regard to these matters?

At the age of five teachers realized something was "up"...

At the age of six I was diagnosed with Asperger's...

I was one of the first...

Well, I figure I'm crazy (mostly driven that way by the psych system) and autistic, so...

But in all seriousness, yes. I've been told this after I was diagnosed.

It was once even written into my medical records that there was a conspiracy between my parents and doctors to convince me that I was autistic to avoid making me face my deep-seated psychological problems. (This from a neurologist who'd seen me about 30 minutes, mind you he also insisted that my mother's claim that she thinks in pictures is a lie because nobody could think in pictures.) The basis for this was that I not only had an autism diagnosis, but a PTSD diagnosis, migraines, seizures, and a few other things he regarded as "subjective". (I'd love to give him one of my migraines and call it "subjective," and also to inform him that migraines, seizures, and trauma are par for the course with autism.)

There was also a concerted effort by one group of doctors to undiagnose me with autism, rediagnose me with childhood schizophrenia, and blame my mother for causing it. (This was 1996, long past when most people think that kind of person disappeared.)

And I received numerous diagnoses besides those. Mostly after the initial autism diagnosis. (I've been undiagnosed with most of them and rediagnosed with autism. Joy.)

So yeah, I'm autistic and the psych system drove me crazy too, although I'm sure they'd have a different take on all this and despise me for using an oh-so-"stigmatized" word like crazy.

You (collectively) have successfully convinced me not to seek a "professional" diagnosis, even if nothing else will ever convince my family that I am a "gifted introvert" because of an autistic brain structure. This really damages my faith in human psychological expertise.

One of my teachers (who is also a psychologist) thought that I couldn't tell the difference bwtween fantasy and reality because I was talking about dragons and stuff all the time. I can tell the difference. I just really, really like dragons. And everytime I mentioned dragons around her, I would get in trouble for it. I'm glad that she's not my teacher anymore. The teachers in the high school building know that I'm not crazy.