Why not consider AS?

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As a child and adult I suffer from severe meltdowns. They want to say it's Borderline Personality, but that would not explain the child symptoms. Plus as a child I had to go through social skills therapy, I have extreme interests, several therapists considered me to be on the spectrum and mental health knows about it, etc...

My question is... why doesn't my mental health workers want to consider AS? One of my past doctors hinted it wouldn't affect my treatment plan for what is probably bipolar... but no pun intended a piece of the puzzle is seriously missing in my life.

Why don't you ask them and ask them how do they explain your symptoms in your childhood?

Check out the Everyday Asperger's blog. There is a very good article there on this, (and many other wonderful pieces of AS insight)

If you're a doctor, you ignore people, it's what you do. If you want to save 15% or more on car insurance, you switch to Geico, it's what you do.



The cat in this commercial represents your typical doctor. The guy sinking in the quicksand represents the patient begging for help. The quicksand represents the healthcare system.

You had me laughing so hard!

Thanks I'm glad you like my humor.

If you seen a Clinical Psychologist and they've deemed you as something else then what you need to do is understand WHY which means sessions to help understand your self and what you need to do going forward with someone of your condition.

This is why I dislike and hate these online xanga quizes that self diagnosisors tell us all is an exact science and if you disagree, "your evil."

I've seen this happen a lot this past year finally someone worked up the courage to see a professional and the professional ruled out Autism and diagnosed them with something completely different. I've seen this go one or two ways, those people live and get helped and better. Or they stay in denial and pray at the altar of the online quiz with the rest of the self diagnosisors and live in wonderland telling themselves they are autistic and no one else can tell them any different which shows the person has a serve problem of denial and that they refuse to address the real problem.

People with Autism are often friendless and we are a community that is often ostracized by society with people who do not understand us. I understand many self diagnosisors find it calming to fit in with a group of people who perhaps like us they also feel ostracized and want to find a place to belong.

I am not going to sit here and tell you not to listen to a medical professional and live in denial. I am also not going to sit here and play Dr Mom and tell you reasons why you're not autistic but I suggest you talk to a profession and start to understand yourself. That's the first key step.

Please don't fall into denial it's not going to change anything for you or your future.

- Learn more about yourself have your Clinical Psychologist help explain your condition and how he or she has come to that conclusion. If you didn't get a copy of your Psychological Report, everything should be in there.

- Once you understand the problem and the why or getting close you can then make a battle plan with your Clinical Psychologist on what to do going forward.

Last edited by HisShadowX on 27 Jun 2016, 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Perhaps you can get the "correct" diagnosis by going to a "center for excellence" which hires top doctors for those of us who have excellent medical insurance or can pay for it out of pocket.

I have had crappy insurances for the past couple jobs. I only paid a 30 dollar co pay for each visit.

It sounds like Angnix hasn't even been evaluated her to see if she has autism or not and her mental health providers are telling her it's not important even if she does have autism.....that's not the same as evaluating her for autism and saying, "No, you don't have it".

It also sounds like she has been doing what her therapists suggest and it's not working for the problems she wants to solve. She has also said her current diagnosis doesn't explain some of her symptoms. This doesn't mean that her current diagnosis is incorrect (or even if her current diagnosis is incorrect, it doesn't mean that the correct diagnosis is autism), but those are valid reason to wonder if maybe it is incorrect or if maybe she has something else that doctors have missed. Lay-people/patients can have valid reasons to doubt a diagnosis, or wonder about if they have some additional problem that hasn't been diagnosed.

Doctors (whether MDs or psychologists) are not all-knowing gods who never make mistakes; They can make mistakes and misdiagnoses and they can also simply fail to notice some problem a person has in addition to whatever correct diagnoses they made based on what they did notice.

Here's a cynical view:

Perhaps they believe AS requires less medication than Borderline, so they would prefer to diagnose you with Borderline Disorder, so that you'll get more medication--and hence more money in the doctors' pockets.

Like I said, it's a cynical view--and probably not true in at least some cases.

In at least some cases, clinicians believe that AS is over-diagnosed--so they look for something else other than AS.

Borderline personality doesn't just appear when you turn 18. Most people with borderline personality had symptoms in childhood, with symptoms like emotional outbursts and unstable relationships typically starting in elementary school or even earlier, and self-injury and suicide attempts usually starting at the beginning of adolescence. Although many clinicians don't want to diagnose kids with borderline personality (and many mistakenly think the DSM has a cutoff age for BPD - it doesn't and never has, only antisocial PD has a cutoff age) it can be reliably diagnosed in children as young as 11, and some researchers think it may be possible to diagnose even younger than that.

But BPD and AS meltdowns have different triggers. BPD it's all about conflict with other people, especially the people closest to you. Abandonment, feeling hurt or attacked, wanting help and not getting it, etc. For AS, it's sensory overload, change in routine, or social misunderstandings that tend to trigger meltdowns.

Honestly, BPD does fit some symptoms and maybe yes, I do have it, but does it explain special interests or behaviors such as stimming?

I've had therapists and lay people ask if I'm on the autism spectrum, my issue is that I feel that these symptoms are being ignored. I know i have other things, but having such a traumatic childhood based on my disability, I want an explanation.

This is a thing. You're a woman, right? Women get diagnosed with BPD. This is seen as a personality defect. And its treated as such. Men get diagnosed with ASD. Its seen as a developmental disorder and IN come the resources! Everyone is all about helping people (kids especially) with autism.

Autism shows up in women slightly differently. Primarily, women show up as much more normal looking. They don't have as many obvious outside signs. They tend to have fewer communication problems and more sensory issues. On average, diagnosed little girls have more behavioral problems.

One thing you can do is google the DSM standard for autism, and print out a list of your autistic traits, grouped according to the standards listed in the DSM. They are fairly simple and clear. List specific examples of why you think you may fit that criteria. Then hand that list to anyone you are working with right now.

The other thing you can do sometimes, even on crappy insurance, is to go to a clinical psychology evaluator. This is a person who looks into things like ADHD in students, or for people who are trying to get on disability. Since you are not applying for this stuff, I assume, you will be charged less to simply have autism ruled in or out. For me, the insurance covered the cost entirely. I got a nifty two page report to give to doctors so they can stop telling me I don't look autistic. Its so weird, but those two pieces of paper hold more weight than the number one expert in me, namely myself, who has been telling them this for years.

BPD does look similar to a woman with autism because the emotions are so intense. I really like DBT, btw. I like it way more than CBT, which does nothing for me. So you still might benefit from that kind of treatment.