The difference is that it is considerably harder to get a diagnosis with the DSM-5 than it was with the DSM-4. To the point that I do not believe that I could get a diagnosis with the DSM-5.
I have the same feeling about that in my own case. Someone would make a fiscal-based decision in that instance rather than a medical one. Even when I'd have no intention of seeking entitlements and never have.
Whatever it takes to deny one access to entitlements to make the system work. Unless of course you have cancer....that's entirely different in their eyes.
Pretty much the only thing I appreciate about the DSM-V is acknowledging autism being on a spectrum. That I think is a legitimate conclusion. But how the diagnostics process is handled compared to the DSM-IV protocols....yikes.
Really makes me reflect upon the psychiatrist I saw this summer to tackle my "performance anxiety", who argued that he didn't believe my diagnosis, or most autism diagnoses, because the criteria had been extended so much that everyone could virtually be diagnosed (I got my diagnosis earlier this year, after years of debating whether I needed to get that piece of paper or not, and saving up to see a specialist). I quickly came to the conclusion that he was full of s..t, but boy, you'd think the guy would at least actually keep up with the news in his particular field, and know that DSM-V makes it
harder to meet the criteria for diagnosis, not easier. Psychiatry was not his special interest, I guess
Veering back to the topic, I'll be honest and say that I know very little about the guidelines that don't have DSM as the first 3 letters of their name, however: depending on the reasons you stated for going through the dx part, perhaps your specialist followed what they felt was most fitting to how you presented. They may also have an issue with the way and reasons for which the DSM has removed AS (including due to a political/big pharma agenda), and feel that it shouldn't be the ultimate reference when diagnosing Aspies. I'm not sure being Serbian comes into account so much; regardless of where your psychiatrist was trained, doctors moving out to another country are usually requested to update their knowledge and follow local guidelines. If your specialist was US-trained, that makes being Serbian even less relevant.
I don't think AS belongs in the DSM because it's not a mental illness, simple as that (and I haven't really seen used all that much to establish a differential diagnosis over schizoid personalities, BPD, psychosis, etc., so I doubt that it's kept there to keep people from receiving an erroneous dx for mental illness).
I also feel that while the spectrum is definitely the way to go, lumping all of the variations under one single umbrella is unfair to all spectrumites involved. I fear that it places exaggerated expectations on some, creates unjustified expectations of limitations for others. But then again, I strongly believe that it's not my neurodiversity that makes me disabled, it's how people react to it and there's nothing inherently wrong about me that needs to be fixed.
