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Anxiety or ASD is a label ?

amandacoutinho

would like to bring up something that has been upsetting me.

My whole life I have been told that I have an anxiety disorder. Even my GP has recorded it as GAS. However, I have an ASD diagnosis from two countries, Brazil and the UK. Psychiatrists have not said that I have GAD as a primary condition. They say that I am autistic, with anxiety as a comorbidity. In this case, is anxiety considered a diagnosis on its own, or just a comorbidity? At work in the UK, when I tried to explain that my diagnosis in Brazil was ASD, I was told that it was “just a label”, but GAD was accepted and I was quickly labelled with it.

Even in the UK, after receiving an ASD diagnosis from a psychiatrist, it is still sometimes seen as “just a label”, while GAD is accepted without question. I don’t understand this and it confuses me. My understanding is that I am autistic, with anxiety as a comorbidity that is triggered by specific situations or people, rather than being constant. Based on your experience, could you help clarify this for me?

Parents

  • I am diagnosed with ASD, GAD and social phobia. The extra diagnoses were made during my ASD assessment, while my, mild, OCD tendencies were ascribed to my ASD. I think that a lot is down to the particular opinion of the individual clinician and looking for hard and fast rules is probably pointless.

    My personal opinion is that anxiety, which up to 80%-90% of adult autistic people say they have problematic levels of, is a secondary facet of autism. It is caused by autistic people being immersed in a fundamentally hostile allistic world. Get rid of unwritten and illogical social conventions, fluorescent lighting, barking dogs, itchy labels in clothing, people dousing themselves in horrible perfume etc. etc. then autistic levels of anxiety would probably fall drastically. Perhaps they would fall to the same levels that allistic people experience now.

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  • I am diagnosed with ASD, GAD and social phobia. The extra diagnoses were made during my ASD assessment, while my, mild, OCD tendencies were ascribed to my ASD. I think that a lot is down to the particular opinion of the individual clinician and looking for hard and fast rules is probably pointless.

    My personal opinion is that anxiety, which up to 80%-90% of adult autistic people say they have problematic levels of, is a secondary facet of autism. It is caused by autistic people being immersed in a fundamentally hostile allistic world. Get rid of unwritten and illogical social conventions, fluorescent lighting, barking dogs, itchy labels in clothing, people dousing themselves in horrible perfume etc. etc. then autistic levels of anxiety would probably fall drastically. Perhaps they would fall to the same levels that allistic people experience now.

Children
  • in reply to Martin

    Makes sense Martin. Thank you. I will fight at work to be removed from this label of anxious or stressed person, if ASD for manager is a label then GAD is also a label for myself, above all without a diagnosis. I am just tired of being called anxious stressed nervous since child. Leave me alone in peace an I am very relaxed person Stuck out tongue