Diagnosis worshipping

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I have never seen anyone here claim one cannot be misdiagnosed with autism, but doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Either way that is obviously not true, one can be misdiagnosed with anything.

How is it you judge they aren't autistic in any way?....or that WP is a haven for attention seeking bored people who just want to claim to be different because they are lonely. You wouldn't by chance be basing this off of very limited information you gather from people from a couple posts that hardly delve into their entire life experience....no obviously these are people you know personally who you are actually in a position to judge as having or not having autism because you wouldn't just make assumptions like that about people here would you?

Maybe a haven for elitist jerks that think they have the monopoly on autism and can judge over the internet with 100% accuracy which posters have autism and which ones don't as I have seen more of those than anyone I've suspected as being a total fraud.

Maybe they haven't claimed that, but the vast majority of WP acts as if you can't be misdiagnosed. If you've read the recent thread about that guy who thinks he was misdiagnosed you'll see what I mean.

+1
this.

You do make a good point devilkisses. I know you notice this. If I ever actually did get diagnosed, and they said no, I probably wouldn't believe them. I would come on here, and what you describe would probably happen.

For me, ASD was something they kept coming back to. By age 6, I was diagnosed with PDD-NOS; at age 13, I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome; at 29, I was re-diagnosed with ASD.

This increases my confidence in my diagnosis.

In most circles, autism and Asperger's Syndrome are not "hip' diagnoses at all. People tend to be scared of people on the Spectrum. There remains a stigma attached to it.

The movie "Rain Man" is now 26 years old. Kim Peek was found not to be autistic. Temple Grandin is admired--but probably because she was able to adapt to NT ways, despite her autism.

It is rather a "hip" topic of neurological research, though, for very good reasons.

I second you, DevilKisses. Actually I think it is high time someone said this, and good on you for doing that.

In that recent thread though, it wasn't a case of people trying to convince the poster he or she was not misdiagnosed it was more about asking why they were so sure they had been, given the obvious impairments they described. Any online discussion is always geared towards the counter argument, everyone joining in and saying 'I agree sounds like you have been misdiangosed' wouldn't really be a discussion, so people always ask the other to explain, and then play devils advocate back to them.

Other conditions get misdiagnosed, but from what I have read it is often the case that autism is the underlying cause at the end of the road of other misdiagnoses, where it finally makes sense. Probably can happen in the other direction but less likely, can't back that up with any figures but that is the sense I get.

This thread does seem really elitist, 'these fakers are encroaching on our autism' kind of attitude, it is such an internet thing, no one can possibly know if a stranger has it or not, to assume people are faking is based in cynicism rather than fact, id rather just respect that if someone has had enough challenges to get diagnosed or self diagnosed just to take it at face value.

I dunno. I used to run into Kim at the Utah Legislature (he lobbied for mental-health bills, while I lobbied for LGBT bills), as well as just around town. We apparently liked the same restaurants. He always had a kind of rock-star status and loved meeting people who recognized him.

I believe Kim Peek was a "rock star" because of his extreme savant abilities, rather than because he was autistic, per se.

The "real" Rain Man, I sense, was nothing like the "Rain Man" as played by Dustin Hoffman.

Especially in his later life, Mr Peek really did not exhibit autistic-type withdrawal--he was rather "neurotypical" in his desire for fame, actually.

He, himself, was most demonstrably not "neurotypical," though.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 07 Aug 2014, 5:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Something that isn't true at all. On here most posters are usually partial to the idea that the person is on the spectrum. Friends, family members and even professionals are all routinely thought of as being liars - only if they disagree.

If not, then their judgement is absolutely correct. People will even contradict criteria using that faulty excuse of "everyone is different on the spectrum", and no aspie is "alike". I think that applies to everyone on the planet.

But to be diagnosed you must fulfil the criteria, and the diagnosis has its distinction because of the impairments that come with it. Autism is characterized by the severity of its deficits, not a loose set of personality traits. People in that thread were saying nonsensical things about autistic traits being integrity, honesty, and a lack of greed.

Really?

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Last edited by Acedia on 07 Aug 2014, 5:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think the "autism type of attitude" runs the gamut, actually.

I've seen extremely conservative autistic people; and I've seen extremely liberal autistic people. I've seen autistics who want to separate totally from "neurotypicals" and form their own independent communities without any input from "neurotypical" ideas. I've seen autistic people who decry autism, and feel they must be "purged" of their autism.

I would agree with that, most people don't have a clue about it, and would not think of it in positive terms at all. Think it is far far more likely that people who end up on here are people with real problems, looking for answers, which may well be autism.

I guess I just have not seen that to the extent it seems like the vast majority of the site, but yeah i don't think I have seen that thread.

For what it's worth, I've always seen autism to be a diagnosis of exclusion even to a greater extent than other psychological conditions. It has been my understanding that a diagnosis of autism is reached only when other possible, though similar, conditions are ruled out (Excluded) such as an anxiety disorder, ADHD, and/or schizophrenia. In other words, it seems like it is more difficult to arrive at a diagnosis of ASD than it is some other condition.

If this is true, and ASD is the rarer diagnosis, it would seem to me to be a more accurate diagnosis especially if several professionals agree on the diagnosis. All this said, I'm sure misdiagnosis is possible, but I believe it to be less likely than other misdiagnoses.