Asperger Syndrome Support Group
Asperger syndrome - also referred to as Asperger's syndrome, Asperger's, Aspergers or just AS - is one of five neurobiological pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), and is characterized by deficiencies in social and communication skills, normal to above normal intelligence, and standard language development.
I've been meaning to post this for a while.
The headline is you can't diagnose anyone, including yourself with Asperger's.
There are several reasons for this;
1. There are alot of disorders (or common combinations of disorders) that look like Asperger's. Most don't get the same press as Asperger's and so if you go and look up the symptoms of Asperger's you may well get a match. But then you would have got a match if you had looked up one of the other disorders. (see below for a list).
It's a bit like diagnosing someone with scarlet fever because they have a fever and are flushed - when they actually have flu and a rash.
2. Many (most) of the descriptions on the net are either wrong or incomplete. Simply copied from site to site by people that don't have the skills to interperate the proper medical diagnostics.
3. The proper diagnostic information is a bit vague throughout. Terms like "significantly impaired" are used, ie lots of relative terms. So a diagnosis can only be done done by comparing an individual against a numbe rof pre-diagnosed cases and alot of people with other or no disorders. ie a psychiatrist.
4. It's not a single disorder. The shift to Autism Spectrum Disorders recognised that "Asperger's" is part of a set of spectrums of disorders.
Even for doctors it's hard to make a proper diagnosis - it's more or less impossibly for someone without the medical training and experience.
For the record here is an incomplete list of disorders that look like Aspergers.
The list comes from reading psychiatric papers on diagnosis of Asperger's.
certain forms of schizophrenia,
ADHD,
Avoidant Personality Disorder,
Schizoid personality (note that is not the same as schizophrenia)
Schizotypal personality disorder (note this is something different again)
Forms of OCD
Semantic pragmatic disorder
Multidimensionally impaired disorder
Cerebellar affective syndrome
Dyslogia
socialemotional learning disorder
Non-verbal learning disability
I have then found other web pages that reference these disorders as being similar
certain forms of Epilepsy
Fragile X syndrome
Hyperlexia
Dyspraxia
Prosopagnosia
Alexithymia
My personal story is that the possibility, only the possibility of being on the autism spectrum came up as one possiblility during a full psychiatric assessment with a senior psychiatrist with an eye watering resume. It was then only after several hours with both a psychiatrist and clinical psychologist, plus discussions with my mother (who is now in her 70s) was a diagnosis of spectrum disorder given.
So I hope this has shown it's not possible to self diagnose or diagnose others. That's what doctors are for.
The headline is you can't diagnose anyone, including yourself with Asperger's.
There are several reasons for this;
1. There are alot of disorders (or common combinations of disorders) that look like Asperger's. Most don't get the same press as Asperger's and so if you go and look up the symptoms of Asperger's you may well get a match. But then you would have got a match if you had looked up one of the other disorders. (see below for a list).
It's a bit like diagnosing someone with scarlet fever because they have a fever and are flushed - when they actually have flu and a rash.
2. Many (most) of the descriptions on the net are either wrong or incomplete. Simply copied from site to site by people that don't have the skills to interperate the proper medical diagnostics.
3. The proper diagnostic information is a bit vague throughout. Terms like "significantly impaired" are used, ie lots of relative terms. So a diagnosis can only be done done by comparing an individual against a numbe rof pre-diagnosed cases and alot of people with other or no disorders. ie a psychiatrist.
4. It's not a single disorder. The shift to Autism Spectrum Disorders recognised that "Asperger's" is part of a set of spectrums of disorders.
Even for doctors it's hard to make a proper diagnosis - it's more or less impossibly for someone without the medical training and experience.
For the record here is an incomplete list of disorders that look like Aspergers.
The list comes from reading psychiatric papers on diagnosis of Asperger's.
certain forms of schizophrenia,
ADHD,
Avoidant Personality Disorder,
Schizoid personality (note that is not the same as schizophrenia)
Schizotypal personality disorder (note this is something different again)
Forms of OCD
Semantic pragmatic disorder
Multidimensionally impaired disorder
Cerebellar affective syndrome
Dyslogia
socialemotional learning disorder
Non-verbal learning disability
I have then found other web pages that reference these disorders as being similar
certain forms of Epilepsy
Fragile X syndrome
Hyperlexia
Dyspraxia
Prosopagnosia
Alexithymia
My personal story is that the possibility, only the possibility of being on the autism spectrum came up as one possiblility during a full psychiatric assessment with a senior psychiatrist with an eye watering resume. It was then only after several hours with both a psychiatrist and clinical psychologist, plus discussions with my mother (who is now in her 70s) was a diagnosis of spectrum disorder given.
So I hope this has shown it's not possible to self diagnose or diagnose others. That's what doctors are for.
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I find myself going places in the car and not wanting to get out of the car. I come back home and I don't want to get out of the car. I think it's the only time I spend reflecting. Chronic tiredness from Long Covid plus the immunosupressing meds for my Crohn's is slowing me down but everything just seems a massive effort. I am dealing with the paperwork following my father's death but it's not...
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Wow, it's the middle of the week already!Today is our 11 year anniversary, so we're going out to a nice dinner. I'm losing a lot of sleep these days, hence a wonky schedule and uncomfortable feelings. But I know it will pass, eventually.I hope all of you have a peaceful day, and may good things come your way!
Also, to add to your list, obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD, not to be confused with OCD) is most like aspergers. In fact, it is very difficult, even for professionals, to differentiate between OCPD and aspergers.
There was a clinical study done where adult males with aspergers were checked against the criteria for personality disorders and it found that 40% met the criteria for at least one personality disorder, mostly cluster C personality disorders like Avoidant and Obsessive Compulsive personality disorders. So there is high comorbidity.
the alternative is that the disorders have been poorly defined and in isolation from each other.
I think the personality disorders in terms of definition are possibly the most suspect - there are no microbes to check, no changes in brain chemistry and I get the feeling few real tests that stand up to real scrutiny.
I say this from a perspective of botany and biology where even when we have much better evidence around sperateness and relationships (ie toxonomy) it is still subject to frequent changes.
These are man defined disorders rather than ones which so far we have been able to tie to any objective reality.
Sometimes I think we humans are trying to describe a complex universe with our conjured classifications and categories when the complexity is just too immense for our minds to understand. I remember when physics was so basic and sounded so simple...now we talk of alternate realities, increasingly bizarre particles, and bending space-time. The closer we look at things, the more complexity we find.
Maybe the answer is that because it's a spectrum of disorders and actually there is more than one type of Asperger's.
One of the things that one of the psychiatrists said to me is that Asperger's is just taking certain male traits too far. ie not being particularly good at reading emotions, tending to obsess over technical stuff, collecting things etc.
But then again, ther eis a rise in the diagnosis of women with Asperger's and it looks different in them generally.
I like the movement to call people either neurotypical or nontypical. It takes away the stigma of a diagnosis and the need to "treat" people who don't conform to expectations. After all, if more people were as detail oriented as nontypicals are, wouldn't everything work so much better?
What we need is more acceptance that not everyone is the same. I would have had a very different life if people had not spent so much time trying to hammer away my differences and make me just like them. People need to understand that we're not trying to be difficult, it's just who we are.
And poor self awareness is associated with other disorders and is pretty common generally in the population.