Aspies For Freedom

If you are thinking of getting a formal diagnosis, or are seeking one for your child, or suspect that you are the kind of person who other people would like to label with a psychiatric diagnosis (i think this means most aspies), you should read this. I guess that most of these stories originate from the US, but I'm sure similar things can happen in Australia and the UK. These kinds of scenarios are the kinds of stuff that one of the elder Aspergians of our family warned about, when that person warned against seeking or accepting any psychiatric label.

http://www.psychdiagnosis.net/psychiatric_stories.html

It includes stories about people with AS being misdiagnosed, mistreated or both. Have a look at the story at the bottom of the page.

I get the impression that in the US at present bipolar is being massively over-diagnosed in situations that are clearly harmful medical malpractice (just like ADHD is still, after all these years, being massively overdiagnosed in some parts of Australia)

It's from the Psychdiagnosis.net web site, which appears to be the creation of Paula J. Caplan. I found out about the web site after I read a very excellent article by Caplan in a November issue of New Scientist.

http://www.psychdiagnosis.net/

What gets me is all the times when people are fairly certain that they or somebody they care about has AS, but the doctors won't diagnose it and persist in saying they have nothing wrong (when it's obvious they do) or make an inappropriate diagnosis and give medications that harm the person because they are for a condition they don't have.