Doctors don’t believe me

Post Reply New Topic

Welcome to wrong planet

As said above the key is finding a clinician that understands how autism presents in females. If you go to university the psychology department or the disability office. If not the local Autism/Aspergers association might have recommendations.

Of note not understanding emotions or expressing them atypically is an autistic trait.

Agrees with this post

That is obviously false since females are diagnosed according to the same diagnostic criteria. Even the ones who get a late diagnosis are diagnosed according to the same criteria.

Honestly it seems like whenever any female person comes on here suspecting that she is autistic, the "women present autism differently" brigade comes and suggests the same two things: finding a doctor who specializes in females and looking up female autism presentation.

Doctors who specialize in evaluating females are rare. This person has said in the OP that she can't access another doctor right now. So this is not good advice.

A lot of the information about how females manifest autism differently is anecdotal. And we don't know OP; she could have some typically "male" autistic traits, she may be undiagnosed for reasons other than her sex/atypical presentation.

So maybe the knee-jerk "female autism phenotype" WP welcome is not the best response.

There are girls and women who present in the “conventional male manner”

There are also girls and women who exude the “female presentation.”

Even a few males present in the “female” manner.

She said she can not afford a private clinician because she is out of work because of the pandemic. That makes finding and being able to use a competent clinician more difficult. It does not make it impossible. All I did was point her to sources who might be able to give her recommendations.

Doctors and specialists interpret both what they observe and the diagnostic criteria differently. Some do not take the criteria literally, they use them as guidelines, not as rules.