Quote:
Originally Posted by shichi
I'll answer the last question first - yes, my gender did affect my attempt at discussing the possibility of ASD with my last psychiatrist. While my psychologist thinks ASD is highly likely in my case [and she makes frequent references to it during our sessions], here she can't officially diagnose me; only a psychiatrist can. Anyways, my old psychiatrist rejected the possibility completely out of hand mainly because I'm female and, in his opinion, it's "unlikely" for females to have ASD.
When I tried to discuss some of my traits [that have persisted since childhood] with him so he could have a better picture of what is happening with me, he just thought I was/am an obsessive person.
However, I'm more likely to trust my psychologist more than my old psychiatrist, simply because my psychologist did take the time to listen to what I had to say.
As for gender differences between males and females...personally I haven't noticed much differences. What I have noticed is that ASD is truly a "spectrum" disorder and individuals are impacted differently by their symptoms.
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I looked at your profile shichi, you are probably kinda similar to me, since I am also dxed with Schizoaffective right now. In fact, my therapist (he's a developmental psychologist that works mostly with children) says I have Asperger's but my Psychatrist hasn't followed suit also. My psychatrist basically said that Asperger's was too overdiagnosed, and that my eye contact was too good. My threapist I've been talking to for almost three years now says for sure that I have some serious social cues problems, and a letter from my relatives didn't hurt, I didn't tell them what to say, but they mentioned lack of social skills and my tendency not to care about much unless it highly interests me.
Anyway, here is a website that says it has a list of Female AS characteristics and differences between male and female, though it is up to you to figure out how accurate it is:
http://www.help4aspergers.com/pb/wp_..._a58d4f6a.html
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