A question for the self diagnosed

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And that's perfectly acceptable in your situation.

But needless to say, and what this thread is really about, is if you were going on and on about how you successfully treated your autism, without having been fully officially diagnosed with autism, then being undiagnosed would be an issue.

There are some things one must have an official diagnosis for and that is one of them.

Also one must go to college, get a degree and spend years in the field of autism research, before making claims about discovering what causes autism and discovering how to treat it.

Otherwise you just have an undiagnosed, unqualified, uneducated (in the field) person spamming on an autism forum.

And of course this person will come up with all kinds of arguments about how being undiagnosed, unqualified and uneducated doesn't matter.

And he will keep going in circles with people about it for as long as the moderators let him.

That's fine, but it's not anywhere close to the formal education and experience one needs to make a formal diagnosis.

This the topic of self always comes up all I had to do is go back to a note file I created just for this type of occasion


Here is my general opinion and observations on the value of self-diagnosis or self-identifying.

I define self-diagnoses as being sure enough that you are Autistic to proceed with life under the assumption you are or Autistic despite lack of professional diagnosis

You will not receive benefits or supports from self-diagnosis.

Even without benefits diagnosis of any kind can provide an explanation needed to move forward with one's life.

Some people need professional validation.

Knowledge of how autism presents in adults among psychologists is lacking. The older you are and if you are female the more likely even if you are autistic to be not diagnosed or misdiagnosed.

Other issues are lack of insurance for adult assessment and fear of employers finding out.

Even the most knowledgeable and careful professionals have confirmation bias and misdiagnose so you really can't be 100 percent sure even if you get a professional diagnosis.

Autism assessments are based on behavioral observation and recall making it more subject to error than other diagnoses.

While the self-diagnosed are subject to more criticism and doubt from others, professionally diagnosed people are far from immune.

Conclusions:
If professional diagnosis by a clinician of how autism presents for your age and gender is available my advice is to do it. Professional diagnosis by an expert in how autism presents in your age and gender is more likely to be accurate than even the most well-researched self-diagnosis. Even if you do not need benefits or supports at the moment it can provide insurance in case things start to go wrong. It will be more difficult later if you are desperate and financially less well off.

If a professional diagnosis by a clinician of how autism presents for your age and gender is not available due to competency or financial issues etc a thoroughly researched self-diagnosis is a good workaround. Several experts such as Tony Attwood agree.

Mental health is billed by the media as being in a state of crisis, yet it is the only branch of medicine where a self-diagnosis is not heavily scrutinized. If we had people diagnosing themselves with cancer and perusing treatment by fetching a vintage color TV set and removing the shielding around the high voltage circuitry for the radiation as make-shift radio-therapy it would be all over the news, but people self-diagnosing themselves with some disorder and smoking weed and/or popping all the vitamin pills in the store aisle is accepted by society. Just think of how many times you hear the cringe-worthy statement "I'm a little OCD", usually a statement on the person's ignorance of the subject(and grammar).

If you were going to get a diagnosis, then you would just go get one, instead of coming with some preposterous scenario of why you won't.

EzraS, how do you explain multiple recent ASD articles/studies confirming everything I shared here 5 years ago if I made it all up? Everything from the intestinal gut dysbiosis cause, to salicylate acid sensitivity, to inherited gut bacteria, probiotics & intestinal cleanses as treatment and on and on. It’s all out there now in mainstream science for anyone to read.

Right, I just send a few messages to NASA and SpaceX personnel, especially Elon Musk, so that means I'm directly involved with the mission to Mars project.

You can find studies saying anything if you look hard enough, one researcher tied autism to internet usage, another tied it to time of mother's pregnancy.

I’ve been very transparent about why I did not seek one, besides discussing it wobbles my GP, 6 years ago when I first realized I was on the spectrum.

I’ve also been transparent about why I did not conduct a medical study on myself and have lab samples analyzed and so on when I learned how to treat my symptoms: I was too busy saving my own life to simultaneously design and conduct a medical study on myself.

Except the one year old study I am referring to is not a brand new fringe science study. It’s the compilation & culmination of info drawn from 137 prior ASD and other medical studies by an international team of ASD research doctors.

Does this mean that you have no formal evidence of any of this, just anecdotes that you are peddling?

None of those studies mention you because you have nothing to do with them.

And others were posting to WP about autism treatment via probiotics before you.

My own doctor put me on probiotics a long time ago which of course had absolutely nothing to do with your years long repetitive routine on WP.

Of course it does. Which you're supposed to argue with him about until this thread gets locked. And then the process will begin all over again in the next thread he starts.

B- Bu- But Goldfish21 discovered it first, perhaps he needs to sue in court to re-establish his righteous role as first to bellyache about bellyaches.

Which of course is a different scenario from the statement I replied to.

And what's more is that you will continue repeating the scenario I replied to, just like you always keep repeating the same scripted lines as if they had never been addressed.

But of course none of this is a well polished routine, despite how scripted, repetitive and predictable it appears to be. That's all just in my imagination.

Last edited by EzraS on 30 Jul 2018, 5:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

I spent a good 8 years reading up about the autism spectrum, obviously my research into the subject is going to be way more superficial than the one of a professional, so I was never too comfortable giving myself the "self diagnosis". The debate went on for years, made worse by the fact that I went to a dyslexia and learning disability centre where they focus on learning disability and was diagnosed with ADHD and Dyspraxia and since then whenever I went to a GP to discuss wanting a referral i'm given the "you already have a diagnosis" chat or "ADHD is under the umbrella of many comorbid behaviours.. blah blah" eventually, I just had to put my foot down and say I know myself best and I feel ADHD and Dyspraxia don't account for SO MANY things, like difficulties forming and keeping friendships since i was a child, taking things literally, explosive meltdowns and sensory sensitivities... among others... being on here has given me more confirmation.