Aspies For Freedom

Just one little thing niggles at me - I would have thought the ability to provide good overall mental health care was more of an art - than a science.

It worries me that Asperger's and related conditions are seen as mental disorders, that we have a "disease" that needs to be fixed.

We did this - repeatedly - the help we received from someone with assumed appropriate training - didn't help. This forum would have been more helpful than the help we got from the specialist. Too often the people who are supposed to be able to help - those with the training - don't help.
We learn best from life experience.

You mention about the need for mental health professionals to listen - but your words that follow make me wonder if you took on board and absorbed the message I tried to give in my post.

I wonder where you have seen members tossing round psychaitric terms and asking others for advice. Usually I notice (in the more constructive posts) people seem to listen, share ideas and refer people on to specialists if people are seeking help. I can accept that I may be missing seeing something that you pick up on.
In regard to how individuals see the world - this would apply to a diagnostician as well.

Did I chase him off Zacchie?
I agree with you about seeking out specialist help. I just got the feeling jos didn't listen and he made judgements that I felt were incorrect. People took the time to respond to him - but I feel he learnt little. Disappointing.

Oh - I'm sorry jos - I see on rereading you did acknowledge my point from my post.
I guess I still hold quite a strong grudge against the health professionals who failed to meet the needs of my son.  This perhaps is why I am quite hot on this topic - and  why I have a distrust of some professionals. I tend to be tempted to tar them all with the same brush - which isn't always fair. I trusted them too much - now I find it hard to trust them at all. I am very skeptical.
Apologies again!!

Just one other little thing - my son had to get a second opinion  of his diagnosis before he was granted a disability allowance - the doctor recommended to do this couldn't spell the word 'aspergers'.

Well, once I became convinced of having Asperger's, I would have kept going to health professionals until I found one who could/would give me an official diagnosis. It was that important to my family and myself that I get some answers to the questions that plagued me since childhood.

Hi Josh

I got  a good example why we are susipicious with professionals.

I was diagnosed by the autism rersearch centre at Cambridge last year 2007.  Before that the pychiatrist I saw dismissed it, she felt if I was on the spectrum I would not have been able to have had a relationship, work with learning disabled adults (she said they would all hate me), would not have been able to do a History degree and would have no friends.  She did not take a development history.

Yesterday my GP said my diagnosis was questionable and harped onto the above pychiatrist's opinion.  He said if I am I'm high functioning, well d'uh.  He then went on to say he knew it was a horible diagnosis to have ... what????  All this because I wanted a disability bus pass to improve my mobility, never been able to learn to drive, pretty dangerous on my push bike (poor attention, overwhelmed sensory stimuly, poor short term memory, difficulty telling left from right).  I love to learn to drive (if its possible, not even considering the cost for all those extra lesson's) and take my doctor for a spin.  I also have bipolar and my new pychiatrist excepts my autism and seems to understand, she seem's nice too.  I'm thinking off changing GP because I can't work with this one and his attitude is dangerous.

Mark - I am curious to know - How has Lexapro transformed his behaviour?

I don't know but what I'm saying is I don't want treatment. I'm not defective or broken. It's only that because of some of the communication impairments I have, I need some practical assistance.

This is likely always to be the case. It's not appropriate for them to ever think they can cure me.

That's a beautiful allegory.

If your life is without disorder - why would you want to consult a specialist doctor.

To be recognised as a diagnosable 'disorder' and to be included in the DSM IV - aspergers must be recognised as a disorder. Otherwise it shouldn't be in the DSM IV.

I can see someone may have disorder in their lives due to having aspergers - and this is where I feel it is important to  seek specialist help.  People can have traits of Aspergers and fit on the Austistic Spectrum without actually having the disorder. In this case - there is no need to seek specialist help, advice or a diagnosis.

Josh - You're a nice guy - I wish you well.

I read through a lot of this thread.  This is great and I respect you for your efforts at understanding us. I will try to keep this short (not a strong point for me).
I figured I had Asperger's in high school.  I was assigned as a peer tutor in the autism class.  I got a long in there great.  A little too well actually. When I had problems with my teachers (like those who can't manage to phrase a test with any grammatical accuracy), they would send me to the autism room.  This policy became so prevalent that by my sixth year in high school, my teachers told me I didn't need to come to class and to do my work in the autism room.  I was to place it in their mail boxes at the end of the day!!!!
I was told I was not a candidate for a learning evaluation because my state test scores were too high!!!!  I was told to try harder and not argue so much; that "little things" like unexpected changes in routine and people's grammar were not worth worrying about. Whatever.  I was further told that my "problems" would not be such an issue after high school.
Wrong. It got worse after high school.  I had no structure or schedule.  I didn't seem able to construct my own without some external influence (being told I need to be somewhere at a certain time).  I tried going to college.  The structure helped, but the vast difference of it caused new problems.  For example, I couldn't go to the writing center for help; it was down the hall opposite of my class and I just couldn't bring myself to walk down the "wrong" side of the hall.  I felt stupid telling people this so I kept making up excuses for not going.  I realize I've done this excuse thing alot in my life.  In my math class, I couldn't get the same numbers in the same order from my book or the board to my paper.  Copying numbers should not be that difficult.  I got extremely frustrated.  I would just do something else in high school, like read.  I could read a Star Trek book a day when I got frustrated with class.  But now I WANTED to do this and really couldn't.  I didn't have to in school now and knew if I let myself fall behind, no one was going to make the effort to give me "special" help.  I started doing odd things like lining up my pencils and such.  This became an obsession in algebra class to the point my instructor became worried.  One day after class, she told me about her daughter who has "issues."  She told me there were people on campus that would "help" me.  She walked me to the psychology clinic and left.  Longer story short, I explained all this and I got papers that say I have Asperger's.  It's the amalgamation of so many of these issues that forms the entity of Asperger's.  I have so many NT's (excuse the term) tell me I can't be autistic because I am "talking to them fine" or I have friends.  I remind myself they have "Neurotypic Disorder" (see Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical web site http://isnt.autistics.org/) and I just have to overlook them.  I once applied for disability (after losing three jobs) and the DHHR (dept. of health and human resources) sent to a "professional" to be reevaluated.  This guy was old and pulls out a derelict copy of the DSM-IV (it really was a -iv) and starts reading off the criteria for Asperger's.  (At this point he'd already told me he didn't know much about it.) As he's reading through this, he says well you have friends and you use hand gestures--I don't see how you have Asperger's.  Then he proceeds to pin everything else in the DSM and half the ICD on me.  At the end of this "evaluation" he tells me I'm weird (verbatim: weird) and tells me to go learn basic things and stop studying complicated stuff.  (He was aggravated because I could explain String Theory, but I have no idea which direction the sun rises.  I told him I don't get up early enough to check and it's not discussed in my physics book.  Actually I just suck with direction and can literally get lost by turning around in a room.  I know I've been told, but I know I'll get it wrong, so I refused to answer the question.)  Anyway, the people at the psychology clinic were patient and extremely helpful, and the old guy from DHHR needed to update his education.  (The clinic is run by graduate students and their supervisor signs off on the evaluations.  This wasn't good enough for Cabell County DHHR.)
Moreover, the Aspserger's isn't always an issue.  I can be fine for days, weeks, months and then someone decides to cancel class or the people at Church decide to repaint the building!! I had a person give me a speech about learned behavior (this guy's degree was NOT in psychology) and that I needed to just decide I didn't want to always overreact to little things. I'm still mad at that guy.  (That happened like almost 6 weeks ago and I still haven't gotten over it.)  
Furthermore, I'm going today to be reevaluated to update my "records" so I can still receive services at college and such.  I very much liked reading the thread and hope the people I see this time are as understanding and patient as they were before.  I'm paying to have the evaluation done at the university psychology clinic because I frankly don't want to run into anyone else like the DHHR guy.  I'm definitely going to refer them and my counselor I see to this thread.  This is great.  Everyone's input was very cool.

PS: Please overlook my 'slight' disorganization of thoughts and ideas.

especially these words.