Misdiagnosed w/ Bipolar Disorder, but Suspect Asperger's?

Hi, I'll try to make this as brief as possible detailing/info-dumping my aspects that I feel relate to Asperger's/ASD, and those that may go against that diagnosis.

I'm 21, almost 22. I just took the rdos test and got 137 Neurodiverse/65 Neurotypical "very likely Aspie" score. I took the ASQ test and got 42. I've had depression and anxiety for a long time, as well as ADHD and obsessive thoughts, but as a youngin' I was fairly happy. I've *always* been very shy. I was really interested in science topics like dinosaurs, space, and insects in elementary school. I've always had a preference for non-fiction stuff like that, aside from art. I was put in the Gifted program but didn't care for it. I've also been really into art and computers/video games since I was little, ~3 and 5 respectively. I'm quiet most of the time but I remember being told many times when I was little that I talk too fast (when I got excited about a topic). When I was in preschool my teacher tried to show me the correct way to hold a pencil and I apparently flipped out. I have an aversion to being corrected, and I don't respond well to criticism (makes me sad or upset). I was always very particular about my hair and wouldn't leave the house/hotel/wherever if my mom hadn't gotten it gel'd and combed just right. I would throw a fit. I recently found a picture of me as a 2-3 year old lining things up (like VHS tapes/pillows), but the forum isn't allowing me to upload them for some reason...

In middle school my social/general anxiety started to appear, and by Freshman year of high school (I moved to England for a year that year) I had depression. I spent most of that year in my room playing RuneScape (online game) with a small community of friends I made on there. I was obsessed with that game. I used to make comedic Youtube videos using the game, and I showed my two younger brothers but told them not to show anyone else. One night I saw my whole family in the living room laughing and when I went in my mom said they were watching my videos. I absolutely freaked out and cried and ran into my bathroom and hid and then deleted everything. They were confused by my response since they enjoyed my videos, but I was just so embarrassed and angry.

In Sophomore year I moved back to the US and tried Metadate to help with my ADHD but it made me more cranky/agitated and sweaty. My grades went from perfect (from K-8) to average/below average. I started trying therapy but 6 years and 4 therapists/2 psychologists later I don't feel any of it has helped significantly. I have such a hard time with therapy because I don't know what to say, or how to answer their questions--I have a difficult time understanding how I feel, much less describing it to a stranger. It's mostly an hour of me being uncomfortable and feeling like I'm wasting my therapist's time/my parent's money. I can only best describe myself to them as feeling "weird" and "robotic". Like I'm not sure I even walk right, and everything feels scripted. I hate checking out at registers because the small talk makes me very uncomfortable/even more fake. This makes making new friends hard because socializing is just... eugh. I had a panic attack in art class a couple years ago because I couldn't focus on the in-class assignment, and I saw everyone chatting with each other and having fun and making progress and then I had a surge of "alien" feeling, like I just wasn't meant to be here. I freaked out and asked to leave then drove around and cried for an hour and tried to calm myself down from driving into a brick wall by listening to music. Two years ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, partially due to my mood swings, but I believe this was a misdiagnosis because I don't think I have mania or even hypomania.

I have a lot of trouble with eye contact. Being at a table with people is very scary for me because I never know where to put my eyes and there's not much I can do physically to relieve my anxiety without being noticed. I try to maintain eye contact but feel like I either look scared or stare-y, so I look away and then feel awkward or rude. I try my best to just avoid eye contact, as a result. I can't even make eye contact with my family that well and I sort of avoid them. My social anxiety knows no bounds, and even after hanging out with family or close friends for a while I need to retreat to my room. I spend most of my time in my room.

Romantic relationships have been a nightmare for me. I seem to fall for anyone who shows me affection, but then soon after I get anxious and can't help but think long-term and if the person doesn't seem like "the one" then I constantly worry that I'm dragging out the inevitable break-up. This might be tied to my perfectionism. Also, my social anxiety is still present around girlfriends and I just feel awkward and socially dumb all the time. I end up hiding my anxiety until it boils over and I pull away from the relationship and, when confronted about my being distant, it usually ends in them being crushed and me feeling like an evil robot incapable of love, furthering my depression and anxiety. It's been this cycle for the past 6 relationships (only my first relationship didn't end this way, and that's because I was dumped, Sophomore year).

I'm not sure what my true personality is since I seem to try adopting the personality of whoever I'm with. This makes big groups of people extremely exhausting and scary, and I hang around the closest friend for comfort to make it through.

As for stims, I don't have the stereotypical AS ones as far as I know. I chew the inside of my mouth and bite my fingernails *constantly*, but those are rather normal? Esp for someone with anxiety/ADHD? I'll also always play with my hair, either twirling it or combing it with my fingers. I also do that with my girlfriend's hair without noticing when we're cuddling, which kind of bugs her but I stop when she points it out. The only other thing I can think of is that if there's a blanket with those frills/threads going around it I'll bunch them up in my hand and squeeze the coldness out, and go around the whole blanket doing that. I don't know that I have repetitive behavior, since that symptom is foggy for me. Some examples would help. And I don't have too much trouble with giving double meaning/sarcasm--I'm a very "deadpan" person, without even wanting to be at this point. I think it's partially a defense mechanism, now. So I'm not sure I fit the "difficulty with humor" part of the Aspie profile, but maybe there are exceptions?

It's 2am now and I know there was a lot more I wanted to say before I started typing but I feel I've already rambled a lot. It's hard to relay your whole life experience in one post for a stranger to read without it being a chore to get through. I just feel like a lot of my quirks and social awkwardness (and surprising ASD test results) can be explained if I was on the spectrum. I told my mom my suspicions the other day and she got upset with me and accused me of being a hypochondriac ("next you'll say you have narcissistic pd, or schizophrenia!"), which made me really upset and I went to my room and knocked over my chair and threw things and, without thinking, threw my beloved MP3 player against the wall and immediately felt awful about losing control of my emotions. I forgot to mention that that happens. This is what I meant by mood swings... I self-harm when I lose control, often by hitting my head against something hard/punching my arms, legs, or face/sometimes choking myself--one time I carved into my leg with tweezers and it left a scar, but I'm afraid of needles/blades so I usually avoid any self-harm that causes bleeding.

Okay sorry for rambling again. Please let me know if any of this is relatable, if you think I could be on the spectrum, or if you think I just have acute social anxiety with coincidental co-morbid conditions.

Can't say for sure but what i usually say is that if you think you're on the spectrum then it's a really good idea to go and have an assessment done so you know for definite one way or the other..

I relate to a lot of the things you've described and it wouldn't surprise me to hear that you are positively diagnosed - on the other hand, social anxiety plus a mood disorder could account for a lot of things you describe..
Your moods sound a little ''off'' for aspergers to completely account for so i wouldn't rule out bipolar or another similar mood disorder just yet - even if it turns out to be simple panic attacks due to social anxiety and an inability to regulate your emotions due to aspergers - it is definitely worth keeping hold of the bipolar idea just for the moment because the meds and treatment for that can really help with the mood difficulties that people on the spectrum can face.

TL/DR/I didn't make sense; go and have a chat with your doc because I think a professional opinion is needed.

The disorders of depression, bipolar, ADHD, Asperger's, and schizophrenia, all are correlated, so if you have one you're more likely to have one or more of the others than the typical person.

Also, disorders aren't so much a matter of "you either have it or you don't", rather it's a spectrum. It could be the case that you are moderately on both the bipolar and Asperger's spectrum.

I will also point out that I can relate to most of what you wrote, though not so much the bit about stims, and that might be ADHD related because I relate to ADHD the least out of the 5 disorders I mentioned.

seabreezeblue wrote:Can't say for sure but what i usually say is that if you think you're on the spectrum then it's a really good idea to go and have an assessment done so you know for definite one way or the other.

How can I get a diagnosis for Asperger's? I have a psychiatrist at the moment, no therapist currently, and, looking up his info just now, he is apparently trained to handle AS but to what degree I'm not sure. Can any psychiatrist give you a screening, or do you need a specialist? If I don't have repetitive behavior, will that rule me out? Could you give some examples of what the repetitive behavior symptom would look like in someone's day-to-day? Sorry for asking so many questions lol

And I haven't completely ruled out bipolar spectrum (which was my diagnosis, not BP I or II), I've thought possibly I could be cyclothymic but I feel like I would know for sure if I experienced hypomania. Could that symptom be mild enough to be difficult to notice, while the other symptoms are still present?

I asked my doc and was referred to a specialist that did an assessment for me. I think that in your case, you can ask your psychiatrist if they could do an ASD assessment for you. Most psychiatrists should be able to do that and if they're not able to then they'll be able to point you in the right direction.

The lack of repetitive behaviour wouldn't necessarily rule you out - it's just one of the symptoms that is usually present but it's seen as a marker rather than a necessary or a positive diagnosis symptom.
This link explains it a little; http://www.autism.org.uk/about/behaviou ... tines.aspx

I wouldn't call the stimming a repetitive behaviour though - i'd call it a stim.. a grounding technique that brings me back into my body when i get overloaded (because i feel stressed, anxious and dissociative if i don't do this).
I don't do the hand flapping thing - i tap my fingers together a little bit, wriggle my feet, chew the inside of my cheek (now stopped the chewing one due to my dentist scaring me with tales of cancer developing due to repeated trauma) - fiddle with my hair, my ear lobe.. i do some slight rocking backwards and forwards when there's no-one else around (because it's apparently ''weird'' but it is comforting).

I'm not really sure re hypomania and if you'd notice having it or not.. i think it's possible that you'd think you were just in a really good mood and wouldn't perhaps label it in any other way. That question might be worth asking in the bipolar section though.. i'm not sure enough to answer that very well..
Do you have days/periods where you're happier/bouncier than at other times and you don't really have a reason for it other than you're just happy/energetic.?

Curious.. what do you mean by this?;

there's not much I can do physically to relieve my anxiety without being noticed.

^^ do you mean that physical movement (like the stims i mentioned) helps to relieve your anxiety but you're unable to do that as much as you need to with other people present?
If that's what you mean then something that might be helpful for you is to try out my foot tapping/movement thing - it's something that won't be obvious to others. I tap my toes/wriggle them/scrunch and unscrunch them while they're inside my shoes.. if you're careful then even your shoes won't move but it will ground you a bit xx

seabreezeblue wrote:I don't do the hand flapping thing - i tap my fingers together a little bit, wriggle my feet, chew the inside of my cheek (now stopped the chewing one due to my dentist scaring me with tales of cancer developing due to repeated trauma) - fiddle with my hair, my ear lobe.. i do some slight rocking backwards and forwards when there's no-one else around (because it's apparently ''weird'' but it is comforting).

We have a lot of the same stims! I also bite my nails until there's no bite-able nail left. And I still chew my inside cheeks/lips :/ Now I'm afraid of getting cheek cancer lol.. I wonder if constantly having overbitten nails can also cause some permanent trauma damage. *sigh*

seabreezeblue wrote:Do you have days/periods where you're happier/bouncier than at other times and you don't really have a reason for it other than you're just happy/energetic.?

Yeah I think so, possibly evidenced in that I'll have bursts of productivity where I get a lot of art or music done when I otherwise lack the energy required, but I'm not sure it passes the 4+ day mania/hypomania requirement barrier. And they would be few and far between; I mostly feel very lethargic, often sad, sometimes neutral. It's hard for me to know how I'm feeling though and I tend to forget how I felt just the other day, so keeping track of my moods is difficult. Like when the psych asks how I've been feeling the past few weeks on a scale of 1-10 it seems so arbitrary. I don't know how I felt, I just vaguely know how I feel now. There's so many variables and I'm so bad at gauging my feelings and worse at expressing them, I feel like cyclothymia would be very hard to detect.

seabreezeblue wrote:^^ do you mean that physical movement (like the stims i mentioned) helps to relieve your anxiety but you're unable to do that as much as you need to with other people present?

Yeah that's exactly what I mean; I have an urge to play with my hair or touch my face or do something with my hands or legs to relieve my anxiety but I get nervous that I'll look weird doing it and don't want to attract attention to myself, so sometimes I'm just sort of paralyzed and anxious (if I'm conversing with someone at a table, for instance).

Sorry for writing so much right now, but I have another question: People with AS have difficulty with eye contact not due to social anxiety, but because they can't read faces, right? So if mine is social anxiety-related, would it be unlikely that I have AS? If you have AS, could you try to describe your difficulty with reading faces? I can see peoples' facial expressions and can understand when someone looks obviously angry or sad (furrowed brow and intense eyes, or frown and vulnerable eyes, respectively), but less blatant expressions I often can misinterpret in a negative light as being bored or upset with me (if I'm interacting with them). Apparently people with AS, however, have a hard time registering boredom on someone's face? I guess I have a hard time gauging how people feel based on their face, but that might be to a normal degree, I have no idea.

Maybe I project my own fears of looking bored onto others; I feel like my face always looks bored when someone's talking to me because I tend to still be in my own head while I'm listening and I can't fully concentrate on their face because I'm trying to juggle listening to them and my internal dialogue. I often zone in and out and miss out on bits of what people are saying. I'll also mis-hear things a lot which can cause communication problems. In fact, when I lived in England one of my friends nicknamed me "What" because I would have to ask "What?" all the time because I never understood things the first or even second time. But I have good hearing, just not with words... if that makes sense. Another weird thing is that I'll hear noises and in my head it sounds like words. For example, we used to have a fish tank at my house and the filter would make a low humming noise. At night when I would go downstairs I would almost have a heart attack because it sounded exactly like two people whispering words to each other. I couldn't make out actual sentences or anything, though, so it wasn't like "hearing voices", more misinterpreting non-human noise as human speech.

Another weird thing is that I'll hear noises and in my head it sounds like words. For example, we used to have a fish tank at my house and the filter would make a low humming noise. At night when I would go downstairs I would almost have a heart attack because it sounded exactly like two people whispering words to each other. I couldn't make out actual sentences or anything, though, so it wasn't like "hearing voices", more misinterpreting non-human noise as human speech.

^^ completely and utterly within the range of normal.. I've not researched this but it sounds very very similar to the thing where if you look at the clouds, you can often see faces or other shapes in them. Our brains have a habit of trying to make sense of the information coming in through our senses and it can often interpret the information in interesting ways (such as interpreting a shape as a face or a noise as a voice).
I don't hear voices like that but i do hear it as a rhythm and my brain often turns that rhythm into a repetitive set of words that i quite enjoy and often turn into poetry.. I do the same with my footsteps or other noises - like the fan on my computer.. it's pretty loud (need it cleaned or something before it overheats really) but to me it sounds like the sea swishing.

I have issues with processing voices as well and frequently have to say ''sorry?/huh?/what?'' to people because i've not heard them/processed their voice properly.. some people i'm fine with (especially males.. the tone is easier to hear and they're generally slightly louder than females) but i have a friend from ''Up North'' as he puts it and his voice and accent is awful for me because i'm constantly having to ask him to repeat what he's said.

My issue with eye contact is that it feels intrusive - i can actually read too much on their faces and because i feel like i'm intruding by seeing all of this, i tend to look away. I also feel exposed.. naked when they look into my eyes because i feel that if i can read all of that on their faces, they may be able to read all of that on mine too. It's also too much sensory input for me.. if i'm listening to their words and watching the minutae of facial expressions and emotions then i have trouble with processing all of this at the same time so i tend to choose to break the eye/facial watching and just focus on the words.
A lot of the time words don't match emotions or what they're really thinking and feeling and i really struggle with that - because there are two conflicting sets of information to sort through and yep.. which do i respond to? do i respond to them saying ''hi, how are you?'' - or do i respond to their actual feeling of the moment which are ''i'm tired/bored/not happy/don't want to talk''
so yep.. eye contact is often off the menu unless i know someone well enough to know that they're okay with me knowing how they really feel - and then i just ignore the initial social ritual of ''hi, how are you?'' and say something like ''you okay?.. you look a little down''
feels far more honest for me to do it that way.

I undoubtedly have trouble actually recognising faces/people at times,, especially when out of their usual context but i have no trouble with reading emotions.. i actually pick up on them far more than anyone else i've met.

We have a lot of the same stims! I also bite my nails until there's no bite-able nail left. And I still chew my inside cheeks/lips :/ Now I'm afraid of getting cheek cancer lol.. I wonder if constantly having overbitten nails can also cause some permanent trauma damage. *sigh*

aww.. sorry - do try to quit the cheek chewing though.. I used to bite my nails as well and to the same level that you do - might be worth looking up at the effects of trauma on tissue but hopefully our fingers are tougher.. i would have thought that they're different since we work all the time with our hands and it's quite different to the tissue of the inside of the mouth.

Yeah that's exactly what I mean; I have an urge to play with my hair or touch my face or do something with my hands or legs to relieve my anxiety but I get nervous that I'll look weird doing it and don't want to attract attention to myself, so sometimes I'm just sort of paralyzed and anxious (if I'm conversing with someone at a table, for instance).

^^ yep.. sounds very much the same as my experience.. do try the foot thing - it should be fairly helpful and it won't be obvious to anyone xx

seabreezeblue wrote:^^ completely and utterly within the range of normal..
I don't hear voices like that but i do hear it as a rhythm and my brain often turns that rhythm into a repetitive set of words that i quite enjoy and often turn into poetry..

That's good to know, I feared for a bit that it could be signs of onset schizophrenia I do the same with noises as rhythms lol

seabreezeblue wrote:I have issues with processing voices as well and frequently have to say ''sorry?/huh?/what?'' to people because i've not heard them/processed their voice properly..

Is this a common issue for a lot of people, or is it more common with AS or some other disorders? Sometimes I wonder if my hearing's just bad or if everyone has a similar problem with hearing speech. I got my ear's checked by my GP last year b/c of this, thinking maybe my ears were clogged, but he said they were totally clean and nothing seemed damaged. Is this a problem with my brain processing words as opposed to my ears hearing them? Sometimes I'll not have a clue what someone said and othertimes I'll hear something but I won't hear what they said but something vaguely similar-sounding; They'll say something and I'll hear a few words incorrectly and the sentence will be completely different to me and very confusing/absurd. Last night for example my gf made a joke about a large truck passing by with a large tarp covering something and said "that's a huge dead body" and I heard "that's a huge bed bug".

seabreezeblue wrote:My issue with eye contact is that it feels intrusive - i can actually read too much on their faces and because i feel like i'm intruding by seeing all of this, i tend to look away...

I have this problem as well. I less feel the intrusiveness (though I do over-read every little expression and change and interpret them which is very distracting for my conversational thought processes) and more the nakedness and being exposed, which is too much for me. I feel like they can almost hear my thoughts if they can see into my eyes. And my anxiety makes me scared that I'm doing eye contact wrong. I don't want to seem creepy by giving too much or disinterested/rude/bored by giving too little, and switching between the two might show how anxious I am, which I don't want people to know either. And when I'm not staring back at them where else can I look? I have no idea. All real life human gestures that you're supposed to do in conversation feel so weird to me, like everyone just gets it naturally but I feel like a robot when I try to do it, and it's uncomfortable.

seabreezeblue wrote:aww.. sorry - do try to quit the cheek chewing though.. I used to bite my nails as well and to the same level that you do - might be worth looking up at the effects of trauma on tissue but hopefully our fingers are tougher.. i would have thought that they're different since we work all the time with our hands and it's quite different to the tissue of the inside of the mouth.

Oh man, I'll try to stop. It's just so hard, and I've been doing it since it was physically possible to bite my nails probably, not sure how long I've been chewing my mouth but at least 10 years. Not sure how to stop :/ Wish I could though, my fingers hurt today from biting too much.. I'll try that foot thing too

Sorry for the long delay in response btw, I just started taking Lexapro a month and a half ago and I think it made me even less motivated/energized, haven't even had the energy to reply to a few things including this, or do any homework or anything. I feel exhausted much more now and my insomnia seems worse. It might've helped sliiiightly with my anxiety and intrusive thoughts but not sure I like this trade-off, seems like little bang for the buck. I see my psych again in a couple weeks but I'm too scared to bring up my suspicion of being on the Autistic Spectrum, I thought about doing it last time but didn't. I just feel very hopeless at the moment

I relate to so much of the stuff on here. Sorry to suddenly join in, but this thread caught my attention since I was recently referred for bipolar, subsequently turned away by a psychiatrist who seemed to think the only way for there to be something worth his time was if I was doing badly at uni, or acting on suicidal/self-harm thoughts(I know I probably am not the sort of person to do this but it's hard to remember when the thoughts keep popping up). I really want to be able to give a really detailed reply to explain myself, especially because I feel embarrassed that I kept popping up on other threads and look like I'm a hypochondriac too(I have been off-and-on obsessed with mental illnesses for a good three years now, in my first year holidays I was reading about it at least 10hrs a day). But I've been having trouble getting stuff done and am pretty sure I'm depressed(regardless of what the other guy said). I did the rnet.com test and got 116 aspie, 77 neurotypical and that matches up with the tests I did in first year. The problems I have are very similar, only difference being I'm not shy, and that gets me feeling extremely uncomfortable around other people. I always feel after I've said something like the other person is going to react badly to something, and also because when they're silent I can't tell what they're thinking I end up talking more myself so it takes my mind away from the many possible reactions I might get. And this affects me everywhere, online and in emails etc I struggle to write something without becoming convinced I won't get the outcome I want. Now that I'm saying this it feels selfish but then I've been trying to decide why I don't feel like I can just dismiss everything as anxiety and it's because I generally don't feel guilty. After all I don't even know whether I should feel guilty half the time because of the usual not really understanding other people, instead I just get frustrated that I can't work out what their reaction will be.

This is funny, I was thinking I was going to write a short post since I was getting anxious because of the clock(other sensory stuff is fine but I am really sensitive to noise). But I guess I'm still into talking about this. Anyway I'm now thinking of bringing this up in my appointment. After all none of my friends would suspect I had bipolar and I had doubts as well(hard to tell the difference between elevated mood and just plain obsessiveness when it had been months since I lost interest in all of it and became depressed), whereas one of them always thought I had aspergers and my brother's girlfriend now suspects he has it too, plus my dad is certainly...odd. So maybe it's an entire family, not that I think they'd care to find out .