Self-Diagnosed for now, struggling to get diagnosis.

So, good news. I have an appointment to see a specialist. I've been researching on the subject a lot, it's really maddening to see how people with autism are so drastically different. One can experience A while the other experiences Z, I don't understand how they managed to make a model that supports the disorder with such wide descripencies. 

Mmmmm. I don't recognise your description of Trump I'm afraid. He has just fired the head of the FBI I hear. Not much compassion in that surely. Sounds like he is behaving like he is back on his TV show to me. I would use terms like ruthless, dishonest, devious, and yes cunning sometimes.

Good examples of capitalists? I would be convinced if you could find some.

Communism failed because of the financial pressure exerted by capitalism and because corruption amongst the leaders crept in. Animal Farm springs to mind.

I read George Monbiot talking about "commonism" recently but he has not developed the idea too far in a way I could grasp the concept.

No way are farmers working in the private sector. 70% of farmers incomes come from state subsidy I heard recently on TV. I agree the private sector should not be allowed to take over the NHS. That would be a licence to print money by big businesses.

I agree population and energy are the big challenges and yes the sun is the source of all our energy. Fusion reactors could provide endless energy but we do not have the technology to build them yet. China tried population control but it failed due to unforseen side effects. Voluntary self control might work but there are other influences at work particularly in certain religions where birth control is not permitted. That would need all nations on the earth to educate their populations to the same standard as the western developed nations on the unsustainability of population growth and need for restraint. Could that be done in time to prevent disastrous climate change?

Civilisations have come and gone on earth in the past (Incas for instance)

Will ours survive without dramatic change. Not confident at the moment.

Thanks for your thoughts anyway, Take care, Laddie

I am not pleased that you were wrong but I think it is good to know that everyone makes mistakes. Making mistakes is inevitable and educational and understanding our own fallibility makes us more human.

How would I persuade them to take a different view?

They perhaps have to be allowed to fail. But, even if they fail, they may not realise their mistakes. Some might say that Blair failed but he won't see it like that.

Trump is a capitalist but he is also other things. He is a unique blend of intelligence, cunning, compassion, integrity, insightfulness etc etc and capitalism is a thing that he does. It does not define him, or his policies, and neither does his example define capitalism. There are much more acceptable exemplars of capitalism than him. Deciding that capitalism is bad based on him would be like deciding that all dogs are bad because one dog attacked a baby. Equally, not all socialists are good and you cannot allow one person's example to decide that the whole idea is sound or not. In practice I think that we need a healthy mix of both because there are people who work well when they are in social establishments (e.g. staff in the NHS) and there are those who are better managed and motivated by living and working within private enterprise (farmers, car makers etc). The state should not pretend that it can run car factories and the private sector should not take over our hospitals.

Population and energy are the big challenges of our time. The population cannot grow for ever. We need to understand that we can live sustianably from solar (pv, wind, etc) - I like to think of the sun as our local (at a safe distance!) fusion powered power station. Population control means that we have to engender self control within countries that can see the benefits and then use that to set an example to other countries.

I agree they both make interesting subjects for study. Trump does show some classic autistic traits. His mother was from Scotland so I see a potential link to my own experiences in that. My classic "mysogenistic" comment in the psychology lecture would align with his attitudes towards women I think. We have all heard about that recently.

I have confused love and sex for most of my life and acknowledged that recently. Oooops I guess thats an admission I was wrong which I guess will please you?

How would I persuade them to take a different view?

I am currently reading a book "How Capitalism will end" by Wolfgang Streek in which he describes the rise and fall of our current global system. Trump is a classic capitalist of course and the problem with capitalism is the elites who benefit most from that system are threatened by the "inconvenient Truth" put forward by Al Gore some years ago and backed up by most scientific analysis that climate change is the major threat to our survival on earth. As yet no one has come up with a solution although people like Paul Mason and George Monbiot are trying to think this through and find one which might work. I think about it all the time these days and have been fairly dogmatic about it on other forums in the past where I was heavily criticised by many others.

I was accused of wanting to take our civilisation back to the dark ages or even the stone age to a time when self-sufficiency was the norm before the economy took off after industrialisation. Modern society could not survive under those conditions as most people are not capable of surviving such a dramatic change. 7 billion mouths cannot be fed without modern technology. I certainly could not live without a freezer, fridge, heat pump, TV etc. That does not mean Al Gore is wrong to point out the truth but politicians seem to be putting their heads in the sand and hoping for the best.

So at the moment I cannot think of a way of convincing W and T that they are wrong.

I am encouraged by the number of women in politics these days and hope that they can lead us in a different direction with a softer approach to civilisation's problems. It was a pity Ms Clinton lost the election although she seemed fairly capaitalist herself by all accounts (if they are true of course).

On the subject of drugs by the way Wolfgang Streek defines them into two groups. Performance enhancing drugs such as those used by athletes to cheat and performance replacing drugs such as alcohol cannabis, etc used by the rest of us. It is a clever analysis in my view reflecting my own views on that subject and relating it to the capatilist system of winners and losers.

Any ideas yourself on how to change their views?

Laddie.

Counselling probably isn't an ideal job for someone with autism! There are lots of things in my life like this that make more sense with hindsight and more self understanding.

Your experience in lectures, of being at odds with everyone else, is familiar to me. There were times when I was baffled by what other people thought and I guess that they were baffled by some of the things that I came out with. Having autism means that we are on a different wavelength in lots of ways. Sometimes that is good as we can often think laterally or differently to everyone else but it also brings the problem of being an outsider a lot of the time.

Wakefield and Trump make interesting subjects for study! I saw the program last night and was already familiar with W's work and T's weirdness. W strikes me as the sort of person who has fixed on a theory and takes all opposition as a reason to be more certain of his ideas. Trump strikes me as not scientifically trained, they say that he might be narcissistic which might suggest a degree of autism - he seems very self centred or self sufficient or something - he certainly doesn't seem to be a person that listens to reason, again like W, he seems to have fixed ideas - my way or the highway. How would you go about persuading either of them that their ideas are wrong? This is an interesting thought experiment because they are both objectively at odds with a heap of scientific evidence but they don't seem to care about that. Presumably they could be made to change their views but how?

Recombinantsocks,

Again thank you for taking time to reply.

You make some good arguments as usual and I recognise the concept of "the challenge" having taken an advanced course in person centred councelling 15 years ago. I completed the course but failed to meet the criteria for a successful career. I had not realised at the time I was autistic. The advice I was given was "now is not the time". In other words you need to become someone else before we will let you practice.

I remember one classic moment in a psychology lecture when the lecturer was describing basic human nature and explaining we all seek more fulfilment from life. I commented that councelling was a bit like prostitution "selling love for money". It went down like a lead ballon with the mostly female students in the class although the lecturer (male) did agree that I was correct, if a bit extreme.

Anyway my main purpose in posting this is to draw attention to the documentary investigation by Cathy Newman broadcast last night into the struck off doctor who first linked MMR vaccinations to autism. He is now pedalling the same nonsense in the US and also Europe. He has made a film about the subject and set up a "charity" and gives lectures. He also has links with Donald Trump who it appears agrees with him.  He has even claimed to have a cure for autism according to the programme. 40% of the donations to his charity have gone to him personally as remuneration.

He may  be an extreme example of "infiltration" but not unusual in my view.

The concept of picking a vulnerable group of people and setting up support charities to make a personal fortune from them is sadly a growing phenomenon it seems.

The first step is to create demand by raising awareness about MH issues then offer politicians solutions (at our expense of course) and bingo you have a business model which can be exploited. I agree I am cynical to the extreme at times but these are facts not hypotheses nor philosofical ideas.

I will look to getting a copy of the book you refer to once I have read up on the subject matter and summary of its contents. Thanks for the link.

Take care, Laddie.

Hi Laddie,

My opinions follow, you can exercise complete freedom of choice in deciding to agree or not with anything I say. Choice is a powerful thing for our wellbeing and we often don't realise what choices we do have.

Firstly, I apologise for seeming judgemental. I really don't mean to be but I know that I come across that way sometimes. I don't really know how to reliably make a post that presents my own opinion without it appearing to be critical. I struggle with this in the real world and the last straw prior to my diagnosis was to have a manager screaming at me saying that I was just negative and critical of everything. Another manager identified that I was Socratic and, having read Plato's Republic, I understand how my debating methods are similar to Socrates' and also how irritating that can be - Socrates' autistic traits may have lead to his demise in my opinion.

One of the things I do consciously do in these posts is try to challenge, with alternative views, if I think that someone's views are leading them into difficulties. How can I prevent a challenge, that presents some alternatives, from becoming a judgement? I can't tell anyone what to think but I can reflect a person's position back to them to say "Is this how you think you might appear to other people?"

I don't know what drugs can be prescribed to get someone off alcohol. A lot of alcohol abuse stems from some other unresolved difficulty. Prescribing someone drugs, when that person might benefit from tackling some other issue, would make the drug companies richer without fixing the root cause of the issue.

I understand now, your point about infiltration. In the context, I did take it to be a reference to the OP's nationality but misunderstandings are easy when we try to boil our thoughts down to a few words.

I understand, too, your references to the Nye Bevan era. The vested interests opposed the new system at that time. I don't think that is such a major issue these days - I know a lot of doctors and they are mostly compassionate and intelligent people who think of their patients first and the money second. There is a major issue that MH is largely invisible and very poorly understood by the vast majority of people (the general public, doctors, politicians) I don't know how that gets solved but the increasing recognition that the Police spend more time with MH problems than with "criminal types" can only help to push things in the right direction. Mostly, situations like the bad funding of MH services arise from ***-ups rather than conspiracies but it is all too easy to look for conspiracies and then struggle to decide that a conspiracy does not exist.

Have you read Being Wrong www.amazon.co.uk/.../184627074X ? I have just finished reading this and it makes many points that resonated with me (particulary the autistic bits of me) It is a challenging book (there are good bits and bad bits in it) and I didn't agree with all of it (I tend to disagree with a lot of things) but being challenged and learning how to accept and respond positively to people that disagree with one is a pretty vital life skill that I am only lately beginning to learn.

Recombinantsocks,

Thank you for taking the time to reply. No drugs bye the way, I was referring to alcohol when I used the term drugs. I asked my GP and psychiatrist to prescribe drugs to reduce my alcohol consumption but they both said NO. So I was brushed aside like the OP. I have not been back to see either since. Like you say they don't believe me. As far as they are concerned I am the one who is wrong about my diagnosis.

My point in raising the issue of "infiltration" was made clear by Trainspotter who had to pay to get his diagnosis. The only objectors to Nye Bevan when he started the NHS were the doctors themselves. They feared their incomes would be reduced by collective bargaining. Sad but true. No one can command a sick persons attention/wallet like a doctor. Again sad but true IMHO.

So my point was merely to raise awareness that there may be ulterior motives behind a lack of funding for our NHS. Obamacare has just been repealed by the US gov't in favour of a privatised healthcare system. I think it will happen here eventually too.

You may be right when you tell me it is me who is wrong and everyone else is right. I would not judge you based on your thoughtful posts on this forum but you seem to feel it is OK to judge others yourself. You of course are free to do so and I agree we all have a right to free speech even if it causes offence on some occasions. 

I base my opinions on our current society from the books I read by authors who have spent many hours researching their topics and studying them in much more detail than me. They may come to different conclusions than you do but I trust their judgement over yours I am afraid. I refer to people like Prof James Lovelock, Naomi Klein, Paul Mason, George Monbiot amongst others. I suggest you read their books before commenting further on the direction modern society is heading.

The older I get and the more I learn about human nature the more lonely I feel.

Take care, Laddie.

Laddie,

I don't think that anyone should bar you and I will support your call for free speech here.

I don't think that the OP deserves to be tarred with the accusation of infiltration. There is no evidence whatsoever of anything that he has said being in any sense motivated by big business opportunism. Perhaps you should read his posts and clarify why you introduced that subject into this thread?

It strikes me that if you are at odds with all of your friends then there are two possibilities

a) they are all wrong

b) you might be the one making an error

Sometimes, it pays to listen more and speak less. Perhaps the truth is out there but you haven't found it yet?

It strikes me that if you are taking drugs and alcohol in response to your situation then your post may be a product of that rather than of your own innate consciousness?

We do live in a democracy and, for all of its obvious faults, it is the least bad system for government that we have found so far. You can lessen its impact by withdrawing from social life, and society at large, but I don't think that that is a healthy route to follow.

I have been called a fraud because I dared to self diagnose myself as autistic. This despite 20 years of being bullied and blackmailed and coerced into "conforming" to the neuro typical mind set. Because I rely on drugs to replace a lack of "sucsess" in modern society my family and so called friends have deserted me. They decided to "force" me to conform to their way of thinking despite the very obvious and immenent collapse of modern society and the capitalist model of economic regulation.

So when I read posts from abroad (US) I begin to be suspicious about the true motives of the posters. Are we being infiltrated by big business only interested  in offering solutions to an incurable condition such as autism? The current UK government is so right wing it has plans to privatise the UK NHS by first of all destroying it. That is now clear.

The NAS is a government supported "charity" which puports to support autistic people and raise awareness of their problems. I have immense sympathy with those who suffer from a lack of ability to flourish in today's western society. The problems of the rest of the world seem to be ignored however. Homo sapiens (human beings) are by nature self absorbed (autistic) so interested only in self preservation. I am no different. So any person who claims to be altruistc is a liar in my opinion and merely trying to gain advantage over the rest of us who are less fortunate in mental capacity than them.

So I am cynical of any effort by politicians to convince me they are on my side.

As to what the alternative is to today's system? I have no idea.........all I know is it will end. Of that no one who has studied it denies. I will be dead before it crashes for sure because I am 68 and drink too much alcohol to survive much longer. But charities like the NAS are not the solution. I will probably be barred after this post but hope it gets through long enough to reach enough people to have some effect.

We need to take back control of our society before it's too late to avoid disaster.

Political power needs to be in the hands of local communities enabled to make decisions about their own future not dictated to by big businesses only interested in profit.

Take care, Laddie.

Des said:

Is there a specific reason why Adults are brushed aside in regards to autism? That seems to be a general concensus from what I've seen so far. Is it just a negative stigma (IE, grown individual should be able to take care of themselves)? It felt really crappy to be just pushed aside despite having very real problems.

Support for adults is very patchy. There is a dedicated support service where I live but that is unusual. A lot depends on the attitude of the individual doctors that you are dealing with. Many have not come across it and do not understand it. Mental health in our NHS does not get the funding and priority that physical health issues get. Various politicians keep promising to fix this but I can see a very obvious difference between the satisfaction that people have for MH treatment and their satisfaction for physical health treatments. I don't think that it is entirely about autism.

People with autism are also often hopeless advocated for their own treatment. There is a very real Catch 22 in this. If you can't communicate your problems clearly then you won't get much of a response from the doctors. In the UK there are advocacy services to help to get over this issue - I guess that you could look for a similar thing where you are?

If you are seeing a psychiatrist then I would be concerned if they did not recognise the importance of an autism diagnosis. Except, perhaps so many of their patients actually have similar traits and innate issues. Autism itself cannot be treated so I would guess that the most important things are that

a) you are getting treatment for your problems

b) that the treatment is tailored in the light of your autism.

(spellchecked after posting!)

recombinantsocks said:

As far as I can tell, Des is in America (Kaiser is an american chain of psych hospitals, he graduated from college and talks about 4th grade). He may not be aware that NAS is a british organisation. The advice we can give is therefore limited since the american systems of healthcare are significantly different to our own NHS based systems.

Des, you are very welcome to contribute and ask advice but the mecahnisms and implications for having a diagnosis are quite different here.

As far as I can tell, Des is in America (Kaiser is an american chain of psych hospitals, he graduated from college and talks about 4th grade). He may not be aware that NAS is a british organisation. The advice we can give is therefore limited since the american systems of healthcare are significantly different to our own NHS based systems.

Des, you are very welcome to contribute and ask advice but the mecahnisms and implications for having a diagnosis are quite different here.

That seems to be a common attitude of GPs at least but the NICE guidelines are quite clear really. Maybe have a look at the website of your local NAS, the one here has a page just on that very issue and they ask people to report to them if they got comments of that sort because it's wrong and they will get in touch with the GP to flag this up. Guess the same would apply to any other health professional. The NAS doesn't seem to do much for adults really but I think this one thing they really did. I had got that response from a GP who actually sits on the board that decides about the funding in each individual case and he told me I may well have AS but adults can't be diagnosed through the NHS. Then I got in touch with the NAS and suddenly it was possible after all. The argument about the coping mechanisms seems quite odd really, given the (current) problems you are listing there...

Hi Des

This attitude although shocking seems to be quite prevalent.

It seems to be a total misunderstanding by professionals as to how being autistic affects people.  Yes, we do get 'coping' strategies, but these only work in situations where we have developed them.  When thrust into a different situation, we do not have these strategies, we have not learned the 'script'.

I think of this like an actor learning lines.  An actor in Holby City can make a pretty convincing job of sounding like a doctor.  But their knowledge of medicine is limited, and I certainly would not want them to operate on me.

Unfortunately in the world, there are situations all the time we cannot deal with.  Often the 'coping' strategy is to avoid them altogether.  All well and good, but sometimes we cannot avoid them.  Hence meltdown, panic, anxiety, depression and all the other things that go with it.  And with a diagnosis the door is supposedly open to help.  Certainly in my employment no one ever considered the fact I was autistic until I had a diagnosis.  They just thought I was being awkward, troublesome and making things up.

I need to work at things in my own way at my own pace, continuing until I feel the time for a natural break.  Unfortunately, before diagnosis I was continually flung from one job to another, constantly interrupted and my performance suffered.  The damage done, there is a long, long period of recovery.  I am still a shadow of my former self, problems caused by my autism not being thought of as 'serious'.

Believe me, even high-functioning autism can create serious problems.  I look, and (usually) act 'normal'.  But hidden below the surface is a lot of internal conflict, confusion and something trying to make sense of the world.  And these needs were often overlooked on the premise that there is no need to do anything because I look 'normal'.  My diagnosis helped me tremendously.  It helped explain lots of things, from my fussy eating to my making seemingly 'stupid' comments.

I had to get a 'private' diagnosis since my gp said the same as your psychiatrist and he also said that my NHS trust did not pay for adults (I am 62 and was diagnosed just before Christmas) to be assessed and also that even if they did it would mean a wait of at least two years.  Although it was money I could ill afford, it was some of the best money I have ever spent.  It is worth mentioning that the final stage (most expensive) would not have been payable if the psychologist had assessed beforehand that there was something else the reason.