Self-diagnosis

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I don't think it's fair to say that self diagnosis is the height of arrogance and that if people are suffering with the symptoms of Autism they should just go see a doctor and get diagnosed like they would anyway. I think that if they could, they probably would. They don't go because they just don't want to, they don't go because they can't.

When seeing a doctor to get diagnosed can cost thousands of dollars sometimes people just can't do that. And these people don't necessarily loathe doctors. I don't loathe them. But before I was given the opportunity I had to have my diagnosis paid for by someone else, I had no ability to pay for one or to be seen by a doctor who could help me. There was just no way that was going to be able to happen. I would not be able to pay for one now so if the people who helped me had not, I would still have no way of getting a formal diagnosis. And my symptoms are severe enough that I have been impaired by them since childhood. And they cause me impairment every day.

It's not my fault that I was born at a time when Asperger's HFA was not readily known especially in females. It was not arrogant at all for me to do the research and learn and identify with what applied to me and what does not. I am not an idiot and my symptoms and traits are specific and pronounced enough that I was able to figure out what applied to me and what did not. Did I get every detail right? No, in fact, when I got diagnosed I found out that I was actually much more Autistic than I had figured out in my own self assessment. But everything that I did figure out myself about what put me on the Spectrum, was 100% correct.

And I don't know that there are a bunch of people going around false advocating. Usually people who advocate say whether they are formally diagnosed or not so you know the difference.

Last edited by skibum on 05 Jun 2016, 4:28 pm, edited 7 times in total.

Which you then follow with what you believe are the intentions of someone else....

Notwithstanding the hypocrisy of this, I'll address your issues:


Agreed. The activists hate it, as it reveals their hypocrisy.

Again, activists hate to be proved wrong. They often struggle with cold logic.

'More' useful is subjective.

If a thread such as this helps someone with autism (i.e. they realise they truly are/aren't having functional difficulties as a product of the applicable characteristics as expressed in the autism diagnostic criteria), who is anyone to say one issue is 'more useful' than another?

By this reckoning, we should only ever discuss one issue - that being the 'most useful'.

I don't MIND discussing this, Sonically....

I just don't like the hurt it might cause, and the feeling that we are beating a dead horse, and that we will never come to a resolution.

As long as there's no personal insults, it's cool to have a discussion, but not to expect a resolution.

To know that people have varying opinions---and that they all may have validity, whether these opinions were formulated through objective or subjective means,

If you really need an argument, you'll have to find some else.

I disagree. As individuals we lack objectivity with respect the mind.


Therefore they are not autistic until diagnosis.

Therefore they are not autistic until such time as a diagnosis is given.


I didn't say they all loathed them. I'm sure I said 'many'.

Look through threads in this forum and you'll see the opinions of doctors often being completely dismissed.

The doctors are the barrier to what many so readily desire i.e. a diagnosis.


I don't dispute any of this.

But I would dispute you describing yourself as autistic prior to receiving your diagnosis.


As above.


This doesn't make sense to me. You mention you don't know if people are advocating, then describe the nature of those who are advocating.

So someone with AIDS doesn't have AIDS unless they go to a doctor and a doctor diagnoses them?

I think "self-identified" is a fine compromise.

To say you are "self-identified" takes the "lie"'entirely out of the equation, even for those who are semantic sticklers.

When I said advocating, I meant false advocating. I just skipped a word in my typing like I do all the time and I had to go back and correct it. So yeah, that was a typo.

And I did not become Autistic when I got diagnosed. I have been Autistic since I was born. Just because it was not recognized or labeled for 47 years does not mean I was not Autistic. You are Autistic because of how your brain developed in the womb, not because you got a diagnosis.

Why then try to end the thread before it has even began?

Could you address why you replied with 'we've been here before' (or words to that effect), but don't do so on other issues.

I'd rather an undiagnosed activist was offended than the image of autism being tarnished as a product of the undiagnosed declaring themselves as representative of autism.

Therefore leave the conversation rather than trying to end it when an individual visiting this site was asking for opinions on it.

It's almost impossible these days to have a conversation without someone taking something as a 'personal insult'.

I firmly believe undiagnosed declaring themselves as autistic is arrogant, as they assume to have the objectovity/knowledge of a medical professional.


Agreed. But someone shouldn't refer to themselves as autistic when they are undiagnosed.

I care not if this offends many people who are reading this thread - but you are potentially causing great harm.

That makes no sense; how am I causing great harm?

It can't be referred to as AIDS until it is diagnosed as such.

It can only be suspected to be AIDS.

Many conditions present very similar symptoms.

I have never met anyone refer to themselves as Autistic without being diagnosed without also saying that they are not officially diagnosed. I have met many people who have told me that they believe they are Autistic but do not have a diagnosis.

And what's wrong with that? They are not making a false claim.

They are truthfully stating that they have suspicions.

kraftie are you undiagnosed?

If so: by believing your opinion is representative of autistics when you aren't diagnosed as autistic.

Your opinions could be representative of something else.


Others who visit sites such as this could form a skewed vision of autism by reading the views/opinions of a collective of undiagnosed and believe these views to be representative of living with autism, when many here may not be autistic - therefore do not represent autism.

Autism has existed throughout human history. Yet, autistic diagnoses have only existed since the 1940s. Still, Hugh Blair of Borgue (Scotland) lived in the early 1700s, and exhibited what we now recognize as autistic behaviors, characteristics and comorbids. Since he was a lesser noble (Laird) at the time, many contemporaneous descriptions about him and his behaviors survive for us today. His story is taught in colleges and universities as the prototypical class of behaviors, characteristics and comorbids for autism. No less an expert about the subject than Uta Frith has diagnosed Blair restrospectively.

Self-diagnosis is more than a claim of suspicion.

It is a declaration.

Read the previous thread I posted in on this subject and see the reaction I got when I wrote 'therefore you can only suspect'.