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Psychologists
Aug. 14th, 2004 03:29 amMy brother was released from the hospital today and came home. He seemed fine (which he can seem a lot of the time). He's on Lexapro now and he thinks it's making him feel peaceful (Lexapro was one of the meds I was on -- it did the opposite to me, but that's not surprising). I guess the staff that he talked with in the hospital were interested in the fact that I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. Partly, I'm sure, just to try and figure out why my brother apparently hates me so much. The social worker did say that next time we get into an argument he "might just want to back down." Heh. I can be very argumentative under certain circumstances. Though, anything I'm emotionally-involved enough with to bother arguing over is a topic I usually have plenty of evidence and logic to back up my opinions. And I have a penchant for picking wording apart under such circumstances (a combination of the fact that I get confused by wording easily and the fact that I am rarely understood without very clear, precise wording).
Supposedly the social worker said the clinic to which our psychologist and psychiatrist belong is known for being a great (if expensive) clinic, in general, and has experience concerning Asperger Syndrome. This surprised me, considering it took me so long to be diagnosed with that. Though, my psychologist doesn't seem to have many of the ignorant assumptions I've heard some people in the field have (such as girls don't have it, people outgrow it, etc.) *But* most of her experience is with males diagnosed with AS. I don't know her experience specifically with diagnosing autism and/or working with people diagnosed specifically with autism, but out of curiosity I think I'll ask next time. Because I spoke on-time (even though I didn't use words much to communicate and was selectively mute) and walked ontime (possibly even early), my diagnosis is AS. I don't have some of the "stereotypical" AS characteristics, so that probably contributed to the fact that it wasn't suspected. I don't tend to talk about my perseverations to most people (I don't have any desire to speak around most people, period) and as a child I lived mostly in my internal world with little interest in developing skills or obtaining most kinds of knowledge. Until high school, when I truly began interested in learning about certain subjects, my perseverations were not the type of thing I would even know how to go about discussing (eg. I was obsessed with creating art since around age 2, but never interested in learning facts *about* art).
I also am always described as having always been an usually easy child to have raised (hyposensitive, disinterested in my surroundings, content until starting school, non-violent, quiet, etc.) and there's a stereotype of AS children as being "difficult." After starting school I had problems (my disinterest began being termed "failure to cooperate" and "social immaturity"). I also began crying all the time, but I never really tried to "fight" anyone except my parents -- and even then only if they were angry at me, which would cause me to be angry with them.
I want to find out what my psychologist's records say about me. My brother was diagnosed bipolar almost immediately, but even after my psychological testing, no one seemed quite sure what was going on with me (other than being suicidally depressed with very bad anxiety). I know after the testing my psychologist concluded that I probably wouldn't respond much to medication or therapy, but I don't know what she thought my diagnosis was (or what she'd written about me and not told me). My psychiatrist at the time remained certain I was "schizoaffective" because the pattern of my test results most closely resembled the profile of someone with "schizoaffective disorder" with the exception that I scored abnormally low as "schizoid" (though, prior to college I think I would have scored quite high in that category). I know my psychologist mentioned something about thinking I was "very atypically bipolar." I want to know if that's what she was still thinking when I brought up Asperger Syndrome. My brother's getting off on his bipolar diagnosis now because I guess he read something in the hospital about it being the "genius disease"@_@.
I was never really told "oh, this is what's going on with you" or "you have this." I thought I had a few post traumatic stress symptoms and mentioned this hesitantly to my psychologist (who had never mentioned post traumatic stress aside from commenting on the high scores in my test in that area) and she said I had the worst case of PTSD she'd seen in a long time(!). We did talk about my difficulties, but she'd never mentioned this before so I assumed that meant she thought I didn't have PTSD. If someone doesn't directly tell me something or say something indirectly over and over and over, I assume they aren't thinking about anything regarding me. It really is important to me to know what someone else thinks is going on with me because I'm used to being accused of making up problems/exaggerating problems for attention and being termed a hypochondriac. I didn't even realize I had severe insomnia until college because nobody *told* me. I thought it was normal to take many hours to fall asleep and to not fall asleep at all 1+ times a week. Likewise, I spent several months completely blind in my left eye because nobody *told* me that meant something was wrong and not everyone suddenly loses the ability to detect any light in one of xer eyes (My other eye was okay, so I could compensate). I am seeing my psychiatrist later on this morning. I need to get something else to help me sleep on a somewhat-normal schedule. I seem to be working on a "stay up 48 hours, then sleep 14 hours" schedule. It can be a problem when I have to leave the house and/or do things at hours when most people are awake.
Supposedly the social worker said the clinic to which our psychologist and psychiatrist belong is known for being a great (if expensive) clinic, in general, and has experience concerning Asperger Syndrome. This surprised me, considering it took me so long to be diagnosed with that. Though, my psychologist doesn't seem to have many of the ignorant assumptions I've heard some people in the field have (such as girls don't have it, people outgrow it, etc.) *But* most of her experience is with males diagnosed with AS. I don't know her experience specifically with diagnosing autism and/or working with people diagnosed specifically with autism, but out of curiosity I think I'll ask next time. Because I spoke on-time (even though I didn't use words much to communicate and was selectively mute) and walked ontime (possibly even early), my diagnosis is AS. I don't have some of the "stereotypical" AS characteristics, so that probably contributed to the fact that it wasn't suspected. I don't tend to talk about my perseverations to most people (I don't have any desire to speak around most people, period) and as a child I lived mostly in my internal world with little interest in developing skills or obtaining most kinds of knowledge. Until high school, when I truly began interested in learning about certain subjects, my perseverations were not the type of thing I would even know how to go about discussing (eg. I was obsessed with creating art since around age 2, but never interested in learning facts *about* art).
I also am always described as having always been an usually easy child to have raised (hyposensitive, disinterested in my surroundings, content until starting school, non-violent, quiet, etc.) and there's a stereotype of AS children as being "difficult." After starting school I had problems (my disinterest began being termed "failure to cooperate" and "social immaturity"). I also began crying all the time, but I never really tried to "fight" anyone except my parents -- and even then only if they were angry at me, which would cause me to be angry with them.
I want to find out what my psychologist's records say about me. My brother was diagnosed bipolar almost immediately, but even after my psychological testing, no one seemed quite sure what was going on with me (other than being suicidally depressed with very bad anxiety). I know after the testing my psychologist concluded that I probably wouldn't respond much to medication or therapy, but I don't know what she thought my diagnosis was (or what she'd written about me and not told me). My psychiatrist at the time remained certain I was "schizoaffective" because the pattern of my test results most closely resembled the profile of someone with "schizoaffective disorder" with the exception that I scored abnormally low as "schizoid" (though, prior to college I think I would have scored quite high in that category). I know my psychologist mentioned something about thinking I was "very atypically bipolar." I want to know if that's what she was still thinking when I brought up Asperger Syndrome. My brother's getting off on his bipolar diagnosis now because I guess he read something in the hospital about it being the "genius disease"@_@.
I was never really told "oh, this is what's going on with you" or "you have this." I thought I had a few post traumatic stress symptoms and mentioned this hesitantly to my psychologist (who had never mentioned post traumatic stress aside from commenting on the high scores in my test in that area) and she said I had the worst case of PTSD she'd seen in a long time(!). We did talk about my difficulties, but she'd never mentioned this before so I assumed that meant she thought I didn't have PTSD. If someone doesn't directly tell me something or say something indirectly over and over and over, I assume they aren't thinking about anything regarding me. It really is important to me to know what someone else thinks is going on with me because I'm used to being accused of making up problems/exaggerating problems for attention and being termed a hypochondriac. I didn't even realize I had severe insomnia until college because nobody *told* me. I thought it was normal to take many hours to fall asleep and to not fall asleep at all 1+ times a week. Likewise, I spent several months completely blind in my left eye because nobody *told* me that meant something was wrong and not everyone suddenly loses the ability to detect any light in one of xer eyes (My other eye was okay, so I could compensate). I am seeing my psychiatrist later on this morning. I need to get something else to help me sleep on a somewhat-normal schedule. I seem to be working on a "stay up 48 hours, then sleep 14 hours" schedule. It can be a problem when I have to leave the house and/or do things at hours when most people are awake.
