Sunlit Vampire

hi Rob And trekster, regarding my depression i don't know how it started, just one day i found that i couldn't cope anymore with it so i haven't a clue of how it started but i think my panic attacks had something to do with it. hmm, the group doesn't sound like a bad idea but there isn't one near me (actually Scarborough is fairly near, but it's still a push for me) David~ p.s Thanks rob, i built it myself

Hi i've been wanting to sort my life out, since recently i seem to have just stopped progressing in the way i want. now for starters i would like to move out since living at home is stressing me out big time but i have really bad anxiety and depression which stops me from enjoying anything and feels like a weight on my shoulders constantly, i also want to get some form of job/schooling as well, mainly to get some friends since i haven't got any that i can depend on, but the biggest problem i have with that is that i don't have very good school grades (G in English and mathematics) due to me leaving school at 12 years old, that was also the same time my anxiety and depression started hence why i left. I was in quite a bad state with it actually, with flashbacks and nightmares + the then new depression and anxiety attacks. I'm on flupentixol for my anxiety (which is the only thing it worked on even though it's prescribed for depression) and i want to take the weight of my shoulders to sort my depression out so i can do things again but i don't know where to start with that. where do you think i should start? and sorry for the long post but i really need some help with this. David~

hi yeah, i hope so anyway, i guess i have to wait until i see my psychiatrist again so i could see why she suggested that. david~

Hmm, AS isn't really classed as anything, just as you say ScienceGeek, i'm currently under Learning disabilities even if they don't want me there (but Mental health won't take the case as far as i know), depression wise, they should since it has very little to do with AS but i don't know what they may do once they hear that you have a diagnosis. David~

Hi, Yeah, i've got documentation for 3 years worth of work to diagnose me with AS. it is weird that the learning disability team suggested that, guess it must be more to due to experience than anything else. i'm actually worried i might lose my diagnosis since that is what i use to put myself into normality. David~

hi Hmm, I had always thought that it was pervasive, but then i always had some amount of self doubt that my DX was wrong, not because i want it to be wrong, but because i thought that i don't deserve the help i get because of it (i get rather guilty about it actually, [if you can't tell, i was really badly bullied about it] ). I guess when I get five minutes with my psychiatrist (in about a month) i will talk to her why she thought i had this instead of AS. Interesting, well that's not what she did so i don't think it's an actual diagnosis, in fact she called it a working Diagnosis (not too sure what that means) David~

Hi Karen A, interesting, i did question it at the time and the response that i got was that AS is Developmental and so means very little in an adult, and she does work with ASD (mind you, possibly Lower functioning than AS so i can't say how credible the experience is) also i don't think she knew much of my history because she was very unsure of a diagnosis of depression, instead she stuck with adjustment disorder. David~

Hi There, i was just at a meeting where my psychiatrist claimed i had some kind of schizoid personality disorder along with adjustment disorder, this confuses me since i was diagnosed at 9 with AS and i'm wondering, is this just a natural progression of diagnosis's or am i being diagnosed with something else entirely (in regards to the schizoid personality bit, the adjustment disorder is something else i'm dealing with, a co-morbid condition if you will) are they right to be re-diagnosing me as something other than AS or is it just how the adult learning disability team works (Mental health wanted nothing to do with me , but that's another story) Thanks David~

Hi again, haven't been around for a while since i've been dealing with really bad mood swings as of late (possibly due to depression/anxiety, but i'm not great at recognising the symptoms so i can't tell which) and have been prescribed Flupentixol because of them. i was also reccomended Amisulpride, however i hear it has worse side effects than this (based on my experiances of Respiradone, which is similar). anyway i'm wondering, what do you think about it and was it a good choice. Thanks in advance David~

Hmm, i have experienced something similar too with regards to certain smells, with cheap plastics and acylic carpeting (you know, like the stuff they put in offices) being the worst culprits. I remember that a couple of years back, i was in the back of the car and my brother had one of those rubbish cheap twist off top drinks, the ones which allways had the smell of cheap plastics. I was in the back of the car so i couldn't get any air from the window. I ended up being violently sick and passed out. It scared my mum so much that she thought i had some kind of heat stroke, but it was those drinks, Yukk. ( I can smell the memory of them now ) another time, i was in an office at my local collage trying to see what they offer (not much as it turned out, i hate meetings ) and i became dizzy because of the smell the carpet had. Other smells get to me too, the smell of alcohol gives me headaches and the smell of petrol makes me feel lightheaded. Well, i tend to stay away from smells that make me feel ill. So i don't really think there's much you can do other than mask it with something else, if you can't avoid it maybe a hankerchief with something nice smelling on it might help a bit . David~

Ahh, Sorry i didn't reply sooner . indeed, that is correct. that would be the dyslexia, i had slight difficulty with writing and spelling (more the former) and eventually grew out of it, but i suppose it's still worth getting dx for it. David~

How AS Affects me? hmm, i could spend weeks debating this with myself and not get anywhere so i'm just going to list the big show stoppers for me. Positively: i'm very driven by my interests (though some would say obsessive) i try to think before i act i prefer to speak politely i like helping people (sometimes, depends on day) Sponge up loads of useless information from everywhere i don't panic in a situation i will stick by people(well, this really does depend, i have made myself sick worrying before :/) i can hear things above most peoples audible range and at very quiet volumes i love routine and order (even if i struggle to keep it at times) overly patient (can be a problem too) Negatively: get depressed easily from worrying (in the past it didn't matter so much) i have anxiety about everything(to some degree) i'm an insomniac, sometimes i can stay awake for 48 hours strait i struggle with keeping conversation interesting and i know i can have this selfish appearance too scared to speak my mind i explode at random times, often throwing my routine off i have tinnitus (or ringing in the ear) which gets worse when i'm panicking due to the noise (which doesn't help) Sunlight gives me really, really bad headaches i walk like i'm on stilts (or waddle, depends on how i slept) i take things too seriously(not an exact bad thing, just have to spend more time analysing other peoples speech) plus most of what said. Thank you trekster you saved me from typing more than i wanted to David~

Indeed, i have hyperlexia myself (though i was never dx with it, but it does sound familiar to what i would do when i was younger) and i still struggle with the meaning of words. having an understanding ASD unit would help him a great deal with the like of comprehension and context of words(along with other things), something i had to learn myself at great difficulty. also, it did impact my results for things, since sometimes i didn't understand what was written or how to write my answer down in a way which got my understanding of it across, so i would, if he gets diagnosed, put it on his statement. hope this helped David~

Now this just upsets me. this is all a bit beyond me really, but i suppose if you enforce a rule to include those who need support with those that are less honest will inevitably lead to problems, that's common sense really. personally i think there looking for trouble, especially including families who have to fight the system to get them to help them. (since they may be caught in the crossfire) still, i do realise that if there is room for schools and dishonest people to exploit such a system for academic merit at the disadvantage of others then it needs to change. to be honest i don't know what i think about this, maybe it might force somebody to improve something or it could just dig the governments grave deeper, though i am inclined to think the latter. i'm gonna go to my hut and cry for a bit on behalf of anybody who fights the system to get what help they need. David~

Hello, everyone. i'm a 17 year old aspie and had come across this forum in the past but didn't have the confidence to join (still don't really, but i'm being brave). hopefully i'm not making a real hash brown of this at any rate i thought it would be beneficial to join and eventually share some of my experiences with you. but first, i need to settle in and adjust to this excellent forum before I do Thank you. David.