AUTZINE Issue 2

[Pinky]

Hey guys
i'm currently working on the second issue of AUTZINE and i have a few questions i'd like to ask for research for articles.

1: do you or have you had mental health problems, if so what is your experience with professionals (positive or negative etc.)

2. what are your thoughts on the proposed diagnosis change - getting rid of the term aspergers so we will all just be autistic? pros and cons etc?

you cam PM me your thoughts if u like
thanks again
asten

 

[Kempy]

I can only answer question 2, but I feel quite strongly about my answer. It is important that people understand that Aspergers is a form of Autism, but Autism is also a spectrum. Saying that somebody has Aspergers certainly helps in terms of working out where on the spectrum they are. Ideally, people could be diagnosed with their precise position on the spectrum. This is obviously impracticable so the spectrum has instead been split up into categories. The less categories there are, the more vaguely people will have to be placed. I cannot see any positives to the diagnosis change. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!".

 

[Pinky]

I can only answer question 2, but I feel quite strongly about my answer. It is important that people understand that Aspergers is a form of Autism, but Autism is also a spectrum. Saying that somebody has Aspergers certainly helps in terms of working out where on the spectrum they are. Ideally, people could be diagnosed with their precise position on the spectrum. This is obviously impracticable so the spectrum has instead been split up into categories. The less categories there are, the more vaguely people will have to be placed. I cannot see any positives to the diagnosis change. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!".

ok thanks for your thoughts.

 

[whale_bone]

Yeah I agree that aspergers should be recognized as a form of autism. But I am worried that because most people don't know that Autism can look very different in different people a lot of aspies would continue to go undiagnosed.

I think that what the DSM needs is research into gender differences in AS criteria. On a superficial level AS women tend to appear more "high functioning" and often go undiagnosed until the stress of it manifests in some other way and they end up with borderline personality disorder or anorexia. A recent study found 15% of girls with anorexia nervosa had underlying ASDs.

Re: mental health
I started seeing a psychologist for generalized anxiety & panic attacks. They tried classic CBT but it was incredibly frustrating and very unsuccessful. I started talking about what i saw as differences in my own cognition and how this underlines the anxiety symptoms. Yeah so eventually the psychologist got the brilliant idea that it might be some "atypical" type of aspergers (it's not, I am just not a boy) and I was referred to a specialist. I still see the first psychologist but now we just talk about life, theorize about psychology stuff and geek out. haha so much better.

 

[Droopy]

Hey guys
1: do you or have you had mental health problems, if so what is your experience with professionals (positive or negative etc.)

I don't have any mental health problems other than Asperger Syndrome. I did see different doctors and psychologists and eventually got an AS diagnosis from them. My experience would be good I suppose. Nothing I can really fault about it.

2. what are your thoughts on the proposed diagnosis change - getting rid of the term aspergers so we will all just be autistic? pros and cons etc?

I think the proposed diagnosis change isn't good for the same reasons that Kempy has already mentioned. AS is a form of Autism and there's no doubt about it. It is already on the Autism spectrum. I think that merging them all together into one would effectively lose the spectrum if everyone was merged under the same thing. Does that make sense? At the moment the spectrum is very big (even within AS there are different levels of severity) and putting them all together would just make things more complicated.