littlelordfuckleroycurious about diagnosis status of people here
Self-diagnosisš§
What about it?
Why not just wait for a doctor to diagnose you before claiming autism
Because in some places it can take a very long time to find the resources to get diagnosed. Why do you think people should wait to look for ways to help themselves until they got an official stamp?
Help yourself without claiming your fake ass medical diagnosis to other people publicly
What you said, but phrased nicer, agree.
Iād agree in part. In my opinion self diagnosis doesnāt mean you get to demand accommodations or special treatment. Self diagnosis for me means that I have the terminology to look for things to change in my life to make things easier, for exercises to help myself and to accept that I might not be able to do everything other people can do. It allows me to stop telling myself that Iām lazy, stupid, retarded etc. It does not mean that I walk around demanding āattentionā.
Exactly! Couldnāt have phrased it better myself
Thatās why I donāt see a problem with self diagnosis though. I did fully explain why Iām not looking for an official diagnosis in a separate comment, thatās why I feel very uncomfortable with the reactions about self diagnosis.
I couldnāt have phrased it better
Will you list the results after a while? I want to see them, but donāt want to have to create an account on that site.
I voted then got a link to see results. Didnāt have to make an account
Not allowed to vote because I use a VPN, but am self-diagnosed and waiting for as assessment (scheduled for next Feb.)
RavenFellBladeSame. My GP concurs with my assessment, but is also very clear that they arenāt qualified to make such a diagnosis in any official capacity.
My neurologist says she suspects it very strongly and the test she administered was conclusive as well but sheās not qualified to make an official diagnosis and waiting times for adult women are between 3 and 6 years in my city (and thatās going the private route).
At the time I took this, 40% voted self-diagnosed, 22% adult-diagnosed, 18% child-diagnosed, 18% undiagnosed.
I voted self.
Professionally diagnosed, but Iām not voting in the poll because I donāt want anyone to know how many people here are self diagnosed.
Self diagnosing autism is certainly a pretty autistic thing to do
So you agree that self diagnosers are valid
Fuck no, lmao
Serious question: Why?
Gathering data like this for ācuriosityā is understandable, but too vague for medical and personal data.
Without a stated purpose, data can be presented to form any and all kinds of narratives.
Will it be used to form a tabloid piece about āoverwhelming of people in autism community arenāt actually autisticā fuelling some agenda against the āself-identifying victim mentality epidemicā? Because it can, whether it is the intention or not, and I want less of that.
Or is it used to form an opinion on whether a clinical self-diagnosis is important to people? If so, please word the questions differently.
MoegleHonestly Iād be very surprised to see an online autism community with a majority of people professionally diagnosed, even more surprised if the majority were diagnosed as children. Even setting aside how underdiagnosed large sections of the autistic population are, the people who need to seek support and validation that they belong to a community are much more likely to be those who didnāt have the right language or support as a child.
Looks like autistic people like to make and keep lists of things whether useful or not.
Thank you for asking this. If I am being completely honest, I asked this to get a sense of whether I am āvalidā because I am self identified too. The internalized imposter syndrome is strong with me. The toxic effect of this is that I project my own insecurity onto other self identified people sometimes and feel like I need to know the composition of the space to decide how āauthenticā the expression of autism is there. I am fully aware it is an extremely harmful view to have, but I unfortunately do have it.
Hey, thanks for answering my well-meant but somewhat blunt question :)
I feel the same as you. I have self-diagnosed after years of research and even gone to multiple seminars on autism due to diagnosed family members, and I still worry that itās not valid enough.
Not for lack of trying to get a professional diagnosis, Iām on my 3rd attempt now, but they generally ignore masking adults in my country. While the world in general is on DSM-5, weāre still on ICD10 (from 1992!!), so professional competence on adult and masked ASD is scarce.
In short: Self-diagnosis is 100% valid. It has to be, because not everyone are able to get one affordably or even at all (or may not want one because it locks them out of certain professions), but they still need support and understanding.
Didnāt find it blunt at all. Very fair and important question. I am a researcher in autism related field (I also have imposter syndrome about calling myself autism researcher, I prefer language researcher) and keep myself immersed in all the latest research. Yet I donāt feel like I have the knowledge required to decide and be sure I am right. It is somewhat a me thing but I recognize it is largely the unavoidable outcome of medicalizing an identity (would love to hear what others here think about autism as an identity). The individual can not be the authority.
Sorry to hear about your struggle with trying to get a diagnosis. May I ask, are you a woman?
Interesting angle about medicalizing an identity. Never thought of it like that.
Not woman, plain olā cis male.
If my own autism thought me one thing it is all intelligent consciousness is valid, no matter what species and divergenties.
I prefer a bigger open community where we can all respect each others quirks and differences away from neurotypical biases then a small exclusive group of āreal autistā gatekeepers.
Iām autism diagnosed as an adult, but as the years pass I wonder if thatās really the issue or if itās more likely to be ADHD.
There seems to be many overlapping features and mine are around poor social skills, feelings of being overwhelmed when plans change and long spells if decompression needed after doing almost anything.
I have high levels of empathy and have been a people leader for many years (highly rated) and Iām just not sure that autism is the right āstickerā.
I have high levels of empathy and have been a people leader for many years
These arenāt incompatible with autism. There are different social skills that are learned and performed in fundamentally different ways, to the point that Iāve met people who are great speaking in public but then become clueless and red as tomatoes when they want to flirt with someone. Developing relationships organically is pretty different from public speaking, fulfilling the role of a leader in a structured activity or organization, or debating.
The fact that thereās no āNo - I donāt identify as autisticā means youāre going to get a lot of extra noise in the āUnsureā bucket, plus a lot of people who just see āNoā and check that.
zarmantoI voted as āself-diagnosedā ā but thatās really an inadequate description.
Iām an adult with multiple autistic kids who have themselves each been professionally diagnosedā¦ and I share an overwhelming percentage of my personality and characteristics with them. But Iām clearly in the āhigh-functioningā category, and have managed to reach a certain level of stability and success in my own life; so even ignoring the obvious monetary cost of getting a professional eval, at this point there just isnāt much that such a diagnosis would do for meā¦ whereas my kids benefit by having that official piece of paper in their school records; it provides concrete evidence to justify the requests for accommodations which weāve submitted on each of their Individualized Education Programs (IEP).
Which is to say, I believe that there are certainly good reasons to go to a professional ā but there are also circumstances which can significantly mitigate those good reasons.
Okay, so I am kinda self diagnosed.
For once, when I was a child Aspergerās wasnāt even acknowledged yet and there was still the āgirls donāt have autismā trope going on. Also, my parents were both addicts and abusive. How things looked on the outside was very important to them though so acting and moving ānormallyā was literally beaten into me and I learned to mask pretty well at an early age. School was still hell though and I never managed to make any friends.
Fast forward to the time of the internet and I started meeting people who werenāt that different from me. I started to make friends and met my husband.
Even more years later all that trauma from my childhood reared its head and I went through lots of therapy. At some point my therapist suggested getting tested for ADHD and autism. I had to go private because it was pretty much impossible to get diagnosed as an adult otherwise and after three years of waiting I was finally tested for ADHD and diagnosed. The neurologist who diagnosed me suggested getting tested for autism as well and let me take the RAADS-R test and I scored a whopping 212 points. She was, however, not qualified to give me an official diagnosis.
Right now, Iād have to wait for three to six years until getting assessed and it wouldnāt change anything for me. I donāt need accommodations at work because Iām a stay at home wife and there are no other upsides to an official stamp. I simply use workbooks and other information to find ways to make life easier for me.
It says Iām on a VPN (I am not)
Formally diagnosed under the DSM-V as Level 2.
I was diagnosed last year with ASD and ADHD. Iām in my 40s. Still in the process of adapting.