Page 1 of 4 [ 61 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3, 4  Next

Raziel
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Oct 2011
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,620
Location: Europe

21 Feb 2014, 1:28 pm

I've the feeling that I was miss-dx with HFA. We'll maybe not totally, but that some aspects where recognised as autism who are really not.

I had speech delay as a little child and I've also some routines and sensory issues and I was dx from an autism expert with HFA, so it seems like a clear cut case, but I'm not so sure about it. My social understanding is alright. I do understand double meaning and I can also recognise their feelings. When I was older I developed paranoid symptoms towards certain situation, thought disorder and other mild symptoms associated with the schizophrenic spectrum. It seemed more and more typical for schizotypal PD. What also made me suspicious that I seem to be more able to communicate in social situations that other autistic ppl, also my sensory issues got worse in adulthood. But what's seems to fit into autism is the fact that I had routines since bing very little. When I was asked what my special interest is, I answer "religion" and I've always been very interested in all kind of belief systems.

So I know that no one can answer me here if I was miss-dx or not, but I wonder how I could find out?


_________________
"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." - Woody Allen


LoveNotHate
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Oct 2013
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,195
Location: USA

21 Feb 2014, 1:55 pm

Deleted



Last edited by LoveNotHate on 22 Feb 2014, 6:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

Raziel
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Oct 2011
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,620
Location: Europe

21 Feb 2014, 2:17 pm

I know a lot about autism actually, because I've read a lot about it over the years. I'm detail orientated, but I'm not sure in how far that also occours in other disorders. To have sensitive senses for example and also social withdrawl can occour in both ASD and schizotypal PD. But I'm not sure wich criteria just occour in autism? And wich one just in the schizophrenic spectrum?
Also schizophrenic ppl were often "different" as children, but in how far, what does that mean exactly?


_________________
"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." - Woody Allen


Dreycrux
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Jan 2013
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 552

21 Feb 2014, 2:42 pm

Raziel wrote:
I've the feeling that I was miss-dx with HFA. We'll maybe not totally, but that some aspects where recognised as autism who are really not.

I had speech delay as a little child and I've also some routines and sensory issues and I was dx from an autism expert with HFA, so it seems like a clear cut case, but I'm not so sure about it. My social understanding is alright. I do understand double meaning and I can also recognise their feelings. When I was older I developed paranoid symptoms towards certain situation, thought disorder and other mild symptoms associated with the schizophrenic spectrum. It seemed more and more typical for schizotypal PD. What also made me suspicious that I seem to be more able to communicate in social situations that other autistic ppl, also my sensory issues got worse in adulthood. But what's seems to fit into autism is the fact that I had routines since bing very little. When I was asked what my special interest is, I answer "religion" and I've always been very interested in all kind of belief systems.

So I know that no one can answer me here if I was miss-dx or not, but I wonder how I could find out?


They only way to know is to have a partner or a family member and disclose fully with them your problems and how they could relate to Autism. I became fully aware of my autism and abilities by speaking with my partner or family member and them giving me spontaneous feedback about my behaviour. You have to put yourself in the situation to fully understand that you have autism. Feedback from others is very helpful.

"I'm just teasing you don't take it so seriously"

or

"Your a very sensitive guy"
"Wow, you are jumpy, I just said hello"
"That answer is so innocent"
"You forgive and forget easily, that's a good quality, I wish I could be like that"
"Your to trusting, you need to be careful"
"You notice everything around you, your always describing the beauty of things"
"You looked stoned all the time, are you?"

I use feedback like this to understand myself. It is more helpful then trying to look for this behaviour alone.


_________________
In order to prevent being blasted into the stone age by an asteroid we better start colonizing space as soon as possible.

Just look at the dinosaurs, they died out because they didn't have a space program.


DevilKisses
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 3 Jul 2010
Age: 30
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,067
Location: Canada

21 Feb 2014, 4:35 pm

Do you think your parents had any motivation to get you diagnosed with autism? I know that my parents did. My mom even told me that she only accepted the autism diagnosis for funding. She also told me that a lot of people said that I was normal. She doesn't really care about getting the right diagnosis for me. I was different than the other kids, but I don't think that difference was autism. I've also experienced random people doubting my autism diagnosis. If they don't straight up doubt it they usually say that I don't look autistic or I look less autistic than someone they know.


_________________
Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 82 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 124 of 200
You are very likely neurotypical


redrobin62
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 2 Apr 2012
Age: 64
Gender: Male
Posts: 13,009
Location: Seattle, WA

21 Feb 2014, 5:13 pm

Some people also doubt my autism because I come across as personable, make eye contact and don't stim in public. I wish I was one of the "obvious" (stereotypical) types, this way I wouldn't be doubted.



Ettina
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 13 Jan 2011
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,971

21 Feb 2014, 5:21 pm

Quote:
I've also experienced random people doubting my autism diagnosis. If they don't straight up doubt it they usually say that I don't look autistic or I look less autistic than someone they know.


For some people, not looking autistic just means you aren't nonverbal.



beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 42
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

21 Feb 2014, 5:31 pm

This makes me wonder about the boundaries between disorders. As we've discussed, Raziel, there is a psychiatric researcher in Denmark who has published in the peer-reviewed literature who thinks that high levels of self-disorders, such as those measured by the Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience (EASE), should point away from the autism spectrum and toward the schizophrenia spectrum.

In another thread, both you and I shared that we seem to have high levels of self-disorders as measured by the EASE (though of course it would have been better to have been interveiwed by a psychologist or psychiatrist who is familiar with the EASE), so it does make me wonder. I know that with the psychotic episode I had at 14 and psychotic-like symptoms since, as well as the observation that as a kid I had perceptual distortion and cognitive disorganization, it does make me wonder about the nosology.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


DevilKisses
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 3 Jul 2010
Age: 30
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,067
Location: Canada

21 Feb 2014, 6:19 pm

Ettina wrote:
Quote:
I've also experienced random people doubting my autism diagnosis. If they don't straight up doubt it they usually say that I don't look autistic or I look less autistic than someone they know.


For some people, not looking autistic just means you aren't nonverbal.

I know. I'm talking about people who know about autism. There was this one guy who had an aspie brother. When he found out about my diagnosis he was surprised. He said that I don't look autistic.


_________________
Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 82 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 124 of 200
You are very likely neurotypical


beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 42
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

21 Feb 2014, 6:37 pm

This is another interesting article. Note that references to autism are references to schizophrenic autism:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3353288/

Here's an excerpt:

Quote:
Autism is a concept that goes beyond psychiatric diagnoses, even if it finds in the sphere of schizophrenia its most complete and pervasive expression and characterization. It can thus be proposed that even if not all forms of autistic style are in themselves diagnosable as schizophrenic disorders, the core forms of the schizophrenias are unthinkable except as autistic. Indeed, for Minkowski, autism is not one of the symptoms of schizophrenia: it is schizophrenia itself, as a peculiar mode of existence. At the intersection of the cultural backgrounds deriving from Bergson's philosophy and from phenomenology, at the intersection of the concepts of “generative disorder” and of involvement of the entire personality, the turning point is Minkowski's conception of “autistic activity.” It is through this, the autistic person can no longer be considered as simply turned in on his fantasies, and autism is a phenomenon understood purely as interiorization, as “passive rếverie, absorption of the personality merely by its inner life” (E. Minkowski). The observation is that sufferers from schizophrenic autism are not all passively turned in on themselves, but even when they do act in the world, their activity has a profoundly morbid stamp to it, because they throw their act out into the world without taking account of it, in the sense of it not being sufficiently in agreement with “common sense,” so that the act seems “strange,” “inconsistent,” “stiff,” “overdone,” and burns out in itself (actes sans lendemain).


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


League_Girl
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 27,317
Location: Pacific Northwest

21 Feb 2014, 6:46 pm

I don't think there is such thing as an autistic look. They all look like normal people to me so I wouldn't even know they have autism just by looking at them. It's not like Down syndrome or any other birth defects that gives you abnormal body features. There are some autistic people with different features but they probably have something else that gives them that look.


_________________
Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.

Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.


DevilKisses
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 3 Jul 2010
Age: 30
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,067
Location: Canada

21 Feb 2014, 6:51 pm

League_Girl wrote:
I don't think there is such thing as an autistic look. They all look like normal people to me so I wouldn't even know they have autism just by looking at them. It's not like Down syndrome or any other birth defects that gives you abnormal body features. There are some autistic people with different features but they probably have something else that gives them that look.

I think there is, at least for the lower functioning people. The autistic look is more related to body language, grooming and clothing than actual physical differences.
I think when NTs say that I don't look autistic they mean that I don't behave like an autistic person.


_________________
Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 82 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 124 of 200
You are very likely neurotypical


League_Girl
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 27,317
Location: Pacific Northwest

21 Feb 2014, 6:57 pm

DevilKisses wrote:
League_Girl wrote:
I don't think there is such thing as an autistic look. They all look like normal people to me so I wouldn't even know they have autism just by looking at them. It's not like Down syndrome or any other birth defects that gives you abnormal body features. There are some autistic people with different features but they probably have something else that gives them that look.

I think there is, at least for the lower functioning people. The autistic look is more related to body language, grooming and clothing than actual physical differences.
I think when NTs say that I don't look autistic they mean that I don't behave like an autistic person.


Well if they are that obvious you can tell they have something, I wouldn't even say they are autistic, I would just know they have something. Even poor hygiene tells me nothing. There are people out there who don't bother to shower or shave or wear clean clothes or wear decent ones and I do see this a lot in my area and I doubt all those men are autistic, especially that one guy who stole my wallet. You really do need to judge a book by its cover even if it means being judgmental.


_________________
Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.

Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.


Raziel
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Oct 2011
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,620
Location: Europe

22 Feb 2014, 3:06 am

Thank you evereryone for all your responses. :D

DevilKisses wrote:
Do you think your parents had any motivation to get you diagnosed with autism?


No they didn't. I was dx as an adult. I've symptoms in my childhood pointing to autism, like starting to talk very late and stopping again, than suddenly starting to talk with an entire sentence, I didn't wanted to get touched as a baby and I liked to do things my way. I seem to have clearly routines. But my social understanding doesn't fit right and because of that I nearly didn't get dx with autism back than. But then I was still dx, because the other symptoms did fit and couldn't be explained otherwise. But thinking back I already had the feeling being 12 years old that others could read my thoughts and symptoms like those got more severe as I got older.

beneficii wrote:
This makes me wonder about the boundaries between disorders. As we've discussed, Raziel, there is a psychiatric researcher in Denmark who has published in the peer-reviewed literature who thinks that high levels of self-disorders, such as those measured by the Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience (EASE), should point away from the autism spectrum and toward the schizophrenia spectrum.


Yes I think the problem is exaxtly the bounderies of the disorders and that disorders are somehow "made up" upto a certain degree. It doesn't make fully sence to me thinking that I've no autistic symptoms at all, but it also doesn't make sence to me thinking having no schizotypal symptoms at all, but a combination also doesn't make much sence to me. Maybe McDD, but I dunno if this makes more sence to me. Also the overlapp of symptoms between schizotypal and autism is quite big. I don't quite believe anymore in a clear cut off between psychiatric disorders.


_________________
"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." - Woody Allen


Raziel
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Oct 2011
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,620
Location: Europe

22 Feb 2014, 2:23 pm

My test restults were:

SPQ (schizotypal personality questionnaire):

Ideas of reference 5.5 out of 9
Excessive social anxiety 7.5 out of 8
Odd beliefs or magical thinking 5.5 out of 7
Unusual perceptual experiences 7.5 out of 9
No close friends 2.5 out of 9
Odd speech 7.5 out of 9
Constricted affect 5.5 out of 8
Suspiciousness 5.5 out of 8
Total SPQ 53 out of 74

(Between 10 and 44 is normal, above and you are in the upper 10%)
__________________________________

Personality Test from similarminds.com

On this test 50% is the average:

Paranoia 66%
Schizoid 50%
Schizotypal 100%
Anti-social 33%
Borderline 55%
Histrionic 38%
Narcissistic 27%
Avoidant 50%
Dependent 66%
Obsessive 66%
_________________

The AQ (autism spectrum disorder test):

Score: 27

"In the initial trials of the test, the average score in the control group was 16.4, with men scoring slightly higher than women (about 17 versus about 15). 80% of adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders scored 32 or more, compared with only 2% of the control group."

"A further research paper indicated that the questionnaire could be used for screening in clinical practice, with scores less than 26 indicating that a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome can effectively be ruled out."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_Spectrum_Quotient


_________________
"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." - Woody Allen


beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 42
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

22 Feb 2014, 2:40 pm

Could you also post what anomalous self-experiences (or self-disorders) you have as measured by the EASE?


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin