ASD and Conversion Disorders?

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so I just got out of the neurology ward of my local research hospital and I've been told I have Conversion Disorder.

basically it was explained to me that when some people in severe, long-term stressful situations don't have an outlet, they internalize their stress to the point you can sometimes see reactions as severe as blindness, paralysis to one extent or another, seizures, and generally problems that look like neurological problems but which are not actually caused by anything wrong with their nervous system. nothing wrong with the eyes or the optic nerve, still someone comes in with blindness. nothing wrong with the muscles but they can't move their arm, stuff like that.

I've been thinking I was epileptic this whole time (I have "fits", disassociative episodes, intense jamais vous, severe muscle jerks, minor muscle tics, half my face was paralyzed for about a month, etc) but they told me I have no epileptiform brain activity and that it's all most likely stress induced.

they actually sent in a social worker to ask me point blank if I was a child-abuse victim, since they're the most common group of people who end up with this issue. I'm not (though I grew up gay with parents who are extremely homophobic, which I've had friends argue is definitely a form of child abuse - "ex gay therapy" was just ruled child abuse in California this year), but I think being aspie (I was formally diagnosed less than 12 hours ago actually, pending one more test to be absolutely sure) may have contributed to it as well.

anybody else have conversion disorder? unexplained paralysis/blindness/deafness or things like that? I'm wondering how common it is for these things to go together.

I have had it on and off for years. Even as a child. I had it where my leg wouldn't stop shaking and it would do so 24 hours a day. I had to have neurological testing and it turned out to be in my head due to stress and anxiety. Then after I graduated college, I developed full blown pseudo seizures. I had to be put in a hospital for a few days with 24 hour a day monitoring. It also turned out it was in my head. In a way I wanted it to be real so people believe me. This has caused people to become suspicious of me, sometimes accusing me of lying. I have hurt myself with the seizures falling on the floor, sometimes getting bruises from falling hard. Trauma is a huge cause of conversion disorder. I had trauma when I was a child. With me when I am having a hard time it goes in several paths. I either have a full on psychotic break, or get suicidal depression, or the conversion disorder. I don't know how common conversion disorder is. But I don't think its as common as depression or anxiety which causes some doctors to diagnose factitious disorder if they never have seen a case of conversion disorder. I sometimes wonder if my eyesight problems are caused by conversion disorder as well but glasses help considerably. So it might be real.

I don't think I do.

I tend to get blamed with stuff like that until they find out that they were wrong and that my symptoms are real.

Conversion disorder symptoms are quite real, they are simply not caused by processes one would expect.

Ok, I realize that I phrased that completely wrong.

I wasn't saying that conversion disorders were not real. I was saying that my symptoms were caused by a non-mental illness (i.e., my low blood sugar symptoms were actually low blood sugar, not panic attacks or anxiety).

I realize now that it looked like I said that it wasn't a real disorder. That's not my intention.

I understand that frustration. I went for years being told my pain problems were anxiety and panic attacks because I would have anxiety and panic attacks in response to the pain. I finally got diagnosed with fibromyalgia last year.

I had a single incident that could have been an example. I was very stressed out as a teen, partially because of family circumstances and because it is my natural tendency to swallow anxiety. I was sleeping and awoke suddenly because I felt unseen hands poking me all over my body. I remember freaking out and trying to brush away the sensation. Years later I read that high stress can cause small spasms in the skin that feel like you're being poked by an invisible hand.

god, I'm glad that's never happened to me. the worst that I've experienced is spatial distortion during my seizures. when I was younger I could lay in bed and feel like I was on a rollercoaster doing flips and banking side to side and dangling upside down, all without moving at all.

mostly I get really intense "shivers" (like the normally brief kind as in when someone "gets a chill" that only lasts a moment) that can sometimes translate into more pronounced jerks of my head or limbs. it's like that "spine tingling" feeling all over whenever I feel strong emotion and sometimes for no reason I can recognize at all, and usually not localized to my spine, either.

nothing's ever felt...invasive, though. I'm way more likely to feel incredibly distant from the world and have a dissociative event than I am to feel too close to it during a conversion disorder event (whatever they're called collectively...) I'm really glad I've never had pokey-hands or spiders or something like that. yuck.