I don’t want others to get the wrong idea. I am aware that a comment of mine was taken out of context. I am now going to explain what I meant by the note to other autistic females about not letting themselves being labelled with a personality disorder. I wasn’t lucky myself. I didn’t avoid that suggestion on my notes. However, I walked out an assessment with a forensic psychologist who had an attitude with me which gave the impression that she was officially going to give me a diagnosis of a Personality Disorder. The most common ones that Autistic female’s are diagnosed with is Emotional Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD), Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) or less commonly Anti Social Personality Disorder (ASPD).
This is due to the fact that Autism in girls is complicated by hormones. Many females get moody, tearful and argumentative around their monthlies. That is part of being a female anyway not just being a female with Autism. The reaction to the trauma that a lot of us has been subjected to by the system is a factor to our issues but it is not a personality disorder. If they did more research in the field of hormones in females diagnosed with Autism then these diagnosis’s could be avoided in the future. I haven’t even seen any research in this area by Psychologists or even University students. Instead, there is a huge jump to label us with a condition when it could just be hormones conflicting with the female Autistic brain. Trauma has been proven to affect even those without Autism. This is never taken into account when we are being assessed.
I also feel that diagnosing female Autistics with a form of PD is a way of the system blaming the victims for their own traumatic experiences. It’s not right to label someone disordered when they are only reacting to the situations that the system has thrown them into or any other sources of trauma they’ve not chosen to experience. A PD diagnosis has implications for the individuals. It should not be used unless someone hasn’t been through trauma or hormonal imbalances have been ruled out.
This is the point behind my comment. I’m hoping that that people understand that I wasn’t getting at any one. And I certainly wasn’t lucky in regards to my own experiences. I lost my son to adoption due to these misunderstandings by mental health teams etc. I am seen as uncooperative because I refuse to accept an official diagnosis of PD. 1. I feel like it is medically labelling me evil and 2. There wasn’t trauma and hormones ever considered first before that suggestion was made in my paper work and later those sets of appointments more recently to confirm it officially now I’m older.
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