Being autistic, adhd and random stuff

[Underscore_2]

Well the only reason that I've failed to obtain an official diagnosis is because there is only one specialist employed to cover a massively populated geographical area, and his expertise is based upon his own asperger experience. ie: "you fill the multiple choice questionaire with limited options that don't fit and if they don't tell me what I want to hear then I'm not interested in you as a client". I can't name him because I don't wish to face another court case. I've won every one that I've had to deal with but I just don't want the pain of it all. He's a charlatan and there's nothing I can do about it short of moving to another location where I'd be totally lost and know absolutely no-one.
The problem arises out of a health service run by a government that isn't interested in investing in adult mental health services unless there's a backhander or two somewhere along the line.

 

[Noor]

Well finally - I've got an expert to admit he's wrong... well maybe not just me!!

Not long after I was diagnosed, I saw a YT lecture fronted by world-leading autism expert, Prof Simon Baron Cohen, extolling his concept of "extreme male brain" to a spell-bound audience. Now he admits, not so much that he was wrong but that people misunderstood him...Oh how often we have heard this plaintive cry?

I nearly had a coffee spew moment when I read the linked article further, to find this quote
"I can't generalise, but many autistic people think differently..." I'm not kidding - he said that out loud!

Like the recently, and rightly disgraced, Uta Frith, Baron Cohen deserves to be ignored and ridiculed. He emerged back in the day when to be become an entitled academic, one only had to write papers full of made-up terms and then make sure one introduced long pauses in interviews to suggest he was thinking deeply and meaningfully. He's a fraud.

WHY DON"T THEY ASK US?

I suspect that we do think a bit differently, but that’s a good thing.

 

[Underscore_2]

I, for one, believe that I'm perfectly normal and think it's the rest of the world that's neurodivergent

 

[PMarky3]

I'm quietly dreading tomorrow in case she is away again... just need to see her and check in.

She was missing last week, and very much there this week. We have a lovely time catching up.

 

[liliput1]

I, for one, believe that I'm perfectly normal and think it's the rest of the world that's neurodivergent

I knew a guy when I was young who from some obscure screenplay had stolen the line:

"I am perfectly sane, it is everyone else who is insane and they're all trying to steal my magic bag."

 

[PMarky3]

Well the only reason that I've failed to obtain an official diagnosis is because there is only one specialist employed to cover a massively populated geographical area, and his expertise is based upon his own asperger experience. ie: "you fill the multiple choice questionaire with limited options that don't fit and if they don't tell me what I want to hear then I'm not interested in you as a client". I can't name him because I don't wish to face another court case. I've won every one that I've had to deal with but I just don't want the pain of it all. He's a charlatan and there's nothing I can do about it short of moving to another location where I'd be totally lost and know absolutely no-one.
The problem arises out of a health service run by a government that isn't interested in investing in adult mental health services unless there's a backhander or two somewhere along the line.

I was a bit surprised when I did not have a major fight on my hands when I wanted to get checked out. My health care is through my wife's retirement plan, and is pretty good, plus we are close to a major University Medical School, so there tends to be no shortage of docs apart from decent PCPs. However, it took two different doctors to come up with a diagnosis. Doc 1 was not interested in Autism/ADHD, so he simply screened me for early outset dementia, which was what the wife was convinced I was showing signs of having. Doc 2 ran the standard diagnostic tests on me and came to the conclusion that I am both ASD-1 and inattentive ADHD, and that medication might not be all that helpful because whilst it would damp down the ADHD it would make the ASD more noticeable. I suspect he rather enjoyed having me through his office as I am not ignorant of the basics in his field, and that made his life a little easier. Anyway, the upshot was that he suggested finding a counsellor. I was already doing that because I was having some emotional problems, and already suspected I was ASD-1.

The counsellor was picked on the basis of being comfortable with dealing with both mid-life crises and ASD, and it seems to work. I did suggest pretty strongly that they should not give me a male counsellor because there would be a strong chance I would clam-up or be evasive. The Counselling Center put me with a tall slim brunette who had recently qualified, and usually deals with ASD teenagers judging by the books in her office. Anyway, I got someone nice to look at but not "distracting" - which puts me in a cooperative mood, as well as a decent counsellor, and she gets a break from teenaged angst. Her favourite phrases seems to be 'have you considered...?' and 'How does that make you feel...? Though after the first few times she got my, "I don't do feelings!" response she added "why do you think you do that?" to her range of stock questions. The positive side is that I am feeling a lot less stranded, and not letting my emotional attachments obstruct my day-to-day life.

 

[stickygirl]

I suspect that we do think a bit differently, but that’s a good thing.

To be fair, it is like saying water is wet, but neither of us are professors!

 

[PMarky3]

To be fair, it is like saying water is wet, but neither of us are professors!

Sometimes the obvious needs to be stated because "the experts" have gotten wrapped up in their theories.

 

[Underscore_2]

Sometimes the obvious needs to be stated because "the experts" have gotten wrapped up in their theories.

And sometimes it's the simplest things because they're under the illusion that everything has to be complicated and thus needs a complicated explanation