I’m not doubting my sz diagnosis at all. BUT.
My mother seems to still think I’m autistic or have Asperger’s, and I think it’s reasonable.
I mean. I’ve gotten alright at social interactions, but only after people have explained my mistakes to me, and I’ve had serious practice.
But I mean, I could be a high functioning asd?
I am a habitual person. I want to eat the same thing every day and know what happens when.
I don’t do well with change or spontaneity, anf I get uneasy when there’s something I’m not being told. Something I can’t know for some reason.
I used to have obsessive thoughts.
My emotional range is pretty flat these days, but I used to have terrible temper tantrums as a teenager. I was a pretty overemotional teen.
Sooo… If I want to be tested for autism/Asperger’s, but I don’t want to sound like I’m challenging my diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia… What do I say?
And if I get an asd diagnosis added on, what happens next? What help am I eligble for that I’m not now?
My mom always meanly jokes I’m “on the spectrum” or that I’m her “special” daughter. I have a lot of sensory issues, I can’t stand certain food textures or mixing food types and it was a struggle feeding me when I was a baby apparently I only ate canned Mac n cheese
I also can’t stand tight fabrics or anything making static and when I was a kid I’d constantly lick my hands and wipe it all over me to get the static off. And I do do hand flapping and scratch myself if I get really stressed. (Sometimes I do the flapping if I’m excited too)
I also had obsessions growing up and always got along really well with kids w asperger’s (my best friend in kindergarten had it) because I was perfectly content to talk about the same topic for hours on end. And their behavior to me didn’t seem any weirder than a typical person’s, it was just a different kind of weird.
The thing is that like you I don’t really have social problems. I’m great at reading facial expressions, and even if a lot of social etiquette seemed weird to me, I studied it (like literally wrote about it and made guides) and adjusted. So idk.
I heard autism in girls is very different than in guys and girls are more likely to be able to adjust socially.
If I do have it, I’m not really interested in a diagnosis, because I don’t see how that would help me. My social skills are fine. I just avoid things that give me sensory problems. You should ask yourself before going for that diagnosis (which is more difficult to obtain as an adult I think and like you said it may interfere with or even replace your current diagnosis, that has happened to people on here before), what would you hope to get out of it? Would this diagnosis benefit you to have?
My mother told me I have Bipolar purely because its what her friend has. Best ignore your mother and listen to your doctor, theyre the one with the doctorate after all… which is exactly what I told my sodding mother.
In that case it may be best not to pursue it. These diagnoses can come with stigma and a lot of potential limitations due to that so we always have to weigh cost benefit.
For example my brother got these weird “chills” all his life. We were told it could be mild seizures and if we wanted we could confirm this with testing. The seizures did not impact his life at all and were not harmful in any way. He was diagnosed with epilepsy and lost his license. He was only able to get it back if he agreed to do regular doctor checkups and go on a high dose of seizure med w bad side effects to control his seizures which weren’t a problem to begin with. He of course quit the meds and we ended up moving and he permanently lost his license in that state.
On the other hand, for me getting diagnosed w mental illness has raised challenges in getting approved to become a nurse in that the system has all the requirements for it and things you have to do to prove you’re “fit”, but the cost to me was infinitely worth the benefit because I would not be alive today if I hadn’t sought help.
It’s sad when a diagnosis and answers can significantly mess up your life, but that’s the world we live in right now.
I don’t see how the diagnosis could mess uo my life.
Employers here aren’t allowed to ask for diagnoses, and they can’t fire you for havibg one unless they have proof it worsens your performance
I felt the same way & thought the same thing initially but you’d be surprised. At the time of seeking my diagnosis I had no idea I’d ever want to be a nurse. (Or that certain careers require mental illness reporting as a legal issue) And I had no idea that I would happen to be living in the one of the only states that requires reporting on psychotic disorders or you could lose your license. (And you can’t exactly hide it even if you wanted to risk it if you need your work to pay for your insurance for your therapy and meds) And if you get approved to become a nurse, you have to be on probation which means following special protocol, meaning whoever hires you has to be informed you have to follow special protocol. It ended up being a huge mess I didn’t expect. My brother didn’t know that we lived in a state where doctors were required to report certain conditions to the DMV. Not all states do, the one we live in now doesn’t.
Also sadly even though it is illegal to fire people for their disability, I have had friends and known of a good number of people who after their employer found out about their disability, found some random reason to fire them, so it was allowed because they didn’t say it was because of the disability. Again for me any price I paid was worth it because I wouldn’t be here today otherwise.
Just be careful. The world of stigma is gross and many people have got screwed over by it, myself and close family and friends included.
no one caught onto my autism until i was 13 or so. the best way to know is to inquire about your childhood, as signs of it are typically present by young childhood
All that being said though, you could avoid any potential risk by being diagnosed off insurance. Paying with case pretty much insures anonymity because no one has any way of knowing what specifically you were seeing the people for. Then you could get a diagnosis but not have it be traceable that you have autism through insurance.
Oh yeah that’s another thing, idk if you live in US but w the new insurance policies where you can just be denied insurance if you have pre-existing conditions. I’m legitimately terrified that once I’m booted off my parents insurance I’ll be screwed because I am on so many meds and I’m just not a cheap person to insure in general. The world sucks sometimes.
Eugen Bleuler specified four “A”'s of schizophrenia: Association, Affectivity, Ambivalence, and Autism. You can find it in his classic book, Dementia Praecox. It was written before antipsychotic drugs were ever invented. All doctors could really do was shake their heads and take notes.
i kinda suspect i might have autism too, but i also probably had childhood schizophrenia to some extent so i was told it could be kinda hard to determine if i could also be autistic. i kinda hope i do get diagnosed though bc it would explain a lot that the schizophrenia doesnt
Well sadly they did many other things: insulin shock therapy, fever therapy, deep sleep therapy, cold baths, lobotomy, malarial therapy, cardiazol shock therapy …
I know it calmed people down or whatever. But it was basically inflicting intentional brain damage for the means of changing behaviour. It had also a lot of bad effects though.
Yes it was barbaric and shameful but we must judge it fairly and not generalize thinking that they cut people’s brains to turn every schizophrenic into a zombie or kill them because they were evil.
Haha, I think you are an optimist man. We’ll have to agree to disagree man. I think most people find that thing sickening. It is ancient history now. I don’t even like talking about it. I just want to act like it never existed.
