How did I skip over detecting Aspergians having difficulty expressing emotion when going through the asinine list of “Some symptoms and characteristics of Aspergers?” Wasn’t it just yesterday I expressed my Aspieness by speaking straightforwardly about the ridiculous statement about Aspergians having difficulty hiding true emotions such as anger and sadness?
How the heck can a person have both the difficulty to express emotion AND the difficulty to hide emotions?! Which one is it? I guess that’s another example of, “Where there is a will, there is a way.” However, in this particular case, that ‘way’ is also the way of DID (previously known by the DSM as MPD). Acronyms . . . don’t you just love them?! I don’t. DID stands for Dissociative Identity Disorder. DSM is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (translation – the shrink’s bible). MPD means Multiple Personality Disorder. Look how low the shrinks have shrunk. Walk into the wrong office, and you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. Is this sounding like I’m having difficulty expressing my emotions?
I don’t mean to imply that these illogical characteristics I expound upon off the list I add to from what I find said online about aspergers comes from the DSM book. That book’s diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s ‘Disorder’ contains a very short descriptive list and is actually in the process of being revised. Somehow I kind of think the new and improved version of their criteria still will lack accuracy. For starters, the way they come up with the information they publish is usually far from being scientific. I kind of get the impression that this book is made to match the pharmaceutical industry’s trend for their pills of the month club they plan ahead for.
Getting back to the way this must work then is, if I sat before a mental health ‘expert’ and expressed my emotions as I’m doing here, he with a notepad in one hand and pen in his other, could be secretively writing down, “difficulty hiding true emotions such as anger and sadness.” But, if I tried to ‘play the game’ by being nonchalant, then doctator (no, not a misspelling; just playing with words) could covertly jot down the note, “difficulty expressing emotion,” after asking some bait questions first.
In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the way I express myself at times wouldn’t cause a doctator to misconstrue my words as being an expression of paranoia. Don’t people ever wonder why the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is written so vague and often times gets reworded? But then I doubt such books are what people would browse through while having their morning cup of coffee. If someone does manage to get curious enough to take a peek at what the American Psychiatric Association is up to lately, most likely they’re going to do so after trouble has arrived down the pike to grab their attention first.
I’m tempted to give examples of how aggressive these large organizations are, along with how sneaky they get . . . but, wisdom tells me maybe I better cool it for now or else I might be having to find an attorney. Besides, people can do their own research on such topics if they want. I only bring up such things with the hope that people exercise caution today by treasuring the ability to think critically while we still can.
You’re right Ed. A person can have difficulty hiding and/or expressing emotions. I thought of that too, but I held off on bringing up that point because it seems like a classic example of one of those “it depends” scenarios that psychiatrists and psychologists usually don’t permit patients to expound upon.
Do you (or anyone else) think that maybe I should edit my post to adjust for this information or should I just leave it alone?
“Nice” if they asked for our input? I’d say, and then some! Obviously it’s easy enough for them to do, but I guess it’s not so obvious to many people as to why they choose not to.
“treasuring the ability to think critically while we still can.” is a good point.
I think I understand the difficulty with expressing emotion and hiding true emotions at the same time and why these evaluaters are describing it in this way but it would be more helpful if they at least attempted to define the inconsistancy.
So much of how the DSM IV describes Asperger’s/autism offers little or no explaination along with it. It IS vague. I agree that this is because of the aggressive sneaky ways these large organizations hide stuff. It would be nice if they asked for our input.
That’s a great analogy! . . . psychiatrists really are artists, but unfortunately too many are con artists with their own selves being deluded the most.
What I’ve heard (and probably many others too have heard this) is that the mental health profession tends to attract those with less sound minds because they’re really hoping to find answers to their own misery.
I don’t see anything in your post that needs to be changed. What you wrote made your point well and it was a good point.
Not allowing us to expand on the “it depends” scenarios that you’re talking about reminds me or hearing about how psychiatrists are artist rather than scientist. I often wish they would all buy a nice set of water colors and we could support them by purchasing their art instead of supporting their psychiatric artistic expressions. What they don’t know DOES hurt us.
If we keep educating the public,the doctors will eventually be curious about learning what we know that they don’t. I don’t think they will appreciate being ignored.