why are self-diagnosed aspies considered "posers?"

Post Reply New Topic

I think that I may have aspergers,I've been researching it for almost half a year now, and the more I find out the more I think it fits, it even runs in my family with at least two others having it for sure. However, I could never imagine saying that I have it for sure without the opinon of a professional. I don't have insurence because I aged out of my parents plan, but I am saving up the money nessesary to get the diagnosis. Autism and Aspergers are so complicated that I can't imagine the general public being able to just diagnose themselves. I'm sorry if this will offend some people but it's just like any other field, take photography for example. You'll always get the people who go out and buy a DSLR and suddenly claim to be a photographer. Yiu cant just suddenly say you have whats nessesary to diagnose something that people spent years of their life learning about through college and hands on work. Sorry if this doesn't make any sense. I think its fine to say you suspect, but I just don't believe in self-diagnosing as being valid.

Yes, there should definitely be a profile option like that... "diagnosis pending", or " still in the lumbering diagnosis machine"

Well, I had this talk with a psychiatrist some time ago: I said to her I was diagnosed with AS for the first time when I was 6; I also told her that my mother told me I had it when I was 13, and I've never suspected anything. Then I asked her why some people understand they have it before they're diagnosed, and others don't. She answered that those who think thay have a disorder probably don't have it, and also said that if you have something, you're often the last one to understand it; I don't know if this is true.
However, I think that if someone haven't been diagnosed, they shouldn't assume they have Asperger's. It's ok to say "I might have Asperger's", but I don't think it's a good idea saying you have it for sure when you haven't been diagnosed. For example, I have a lot of symptoms in common with people with OCD, but I've never assumed I have OCD(I neither think I might have it), and I'll never do, unless I'd be diagnosed with it.

However, I think self-diagnosers are considered "posers" because of those wannabe kids you meet around the web.

self-diagnosed aspies are considered as posers, because some think that ASD is thomething totally unique and not everyone is allowed to have it, because it takes away their uniquness and think that they are like Einstein, Newton or Mozart, because some researcher suggest that they had it too.

Well, I've also read articles, claiming that they had schizotypal PD, others that Mozart was Bipolar, Borderline or Tourette and so on.
I really don't care anymore. Most people aren't clear cut cases, so you just put them in the next best category, that's psychiatry to me.
Maybe online tests and selfdiagnosed people aren't even worse in their diagnoses than most psychiatrists, who knows...!?

Last edited by Raziel on 30 Sep 2012, 6:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

I was officially assessed and was diagnosed with AS this year, yet I don't feel like an Aspie. I hate it when people say they must have it, yet don't know if they had language delay or not as a child. I get really peed off!

True; and they're really stupid for thinking it. You don't need to have ASD to be unique. And we'll never know if Einstein, Newton or Mozart had Asperger's. Personally, I think telling that famous people had an ASD is another internet stupid thing; it's like saying that everyone who has a special talent is autistic, which is not true.

How do we know if Mozart had language delay,Einstein.Bill Gates have Aspergers, if we no one knows if they had language delay? Also, only a pyschiatrist trained in spotting HFA/AS, can really know. The Psychiatrist isn't allowed to tell anyone except the patient.

So Bill Gates has not got it after all. Sorry wannabe Aspies !

Not everyone with ASD had language delay and deffinitly not everyone with language delay has ASD.

And even experts tell every time something different.
In the past it was more ADD/ADHD and Borderline who were modern in psychiatry.
Psychiatry tells all the time something else, depending what's "moden" at that time.

In the ICD-10 schizotypal PD is not even a personality disorder, but part of the schizophrenic spectrum, but in the DSM-V it is and so on. In the past most considered AS as an autistic personality disorder and AS was seen different than HFA, now in the new DSM-V we will have ASD, one spectrum and now they claim they are the same and in the future they will claim something else again, who cares?

Last edited by Raziel on 30 Sep 2012, 6:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

I find that statement to be very ignorant. If people don't have something if they think they have it and do have something if they don't think they have it how would anyone get diagnosed? You don't go to see a doctor because you think everything is ok and there is nothing wrong with you.

By that logic I will now think I have every mental and physical illness and disorder in existence and become perfectly sane and immortal.

I wouldn't get worked up about it. At the risk of stating the obvious: it's not productive. The anecdotes on this board serves as a touchstone (for a diagnosis) for many. There will be many who are right in their personal assessment of themselves and some who will be wrong.

Nothing is going to change this dynamic.

I think it is silly to suggest telling someone to "think better about it" ................ "you might not have it" ...................... etc.

Do you not think that they can think? C'mon now.

Last edited by Mdyar on 30 Sep 2012, 3:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Raziel~ I am talking about Aspergers.People with AS have not had language delay, whereas those with HFA have.

This is the main difference between both conditions.

I was diagnosed with HFA..... mild Aspergers,, as I spoke at age 3, even though I was quiet(due to my loudmouth sister).

I think you made it all quite complicated with your answer.

Well, this is true. Though it wasn't my decision to go to a psychiatrist when I was 6; my mother brought me there because she suspected something. And this is the same for all the other people with ASD I've known in real life: they went to a psychiatrist because their parents brought them there.
But, it's true that there are some parents that don't accept it, and ignore the fact of a possible diagnosis; at least, some people told me so.

True, but that also doesn't tell at all if a person is on the autistic spectrum or not.

Diagnoses are just made up because of often occouring simmilarities and people are just put in those categories to explain their behaviour somehow, nothing more...!

You know what really makes professionals mad? Question their authority by daring to assume you know something that they don't.

There has been study on self diagnosis. In some instances it's a good thing and some times it's a bad thing. The interesting part is that it seems some issues have a very high rate of accurate self diagnosis.

I don't know; but I always trust a lot more the diagnosis made from a psychiatrist. Maybe it's just me.

Yeah, because some of them know, that they have no clue and that they have nothing more than made up theorys and their narcissistic fiew that they are "better", that their patients, because they are allowed to tell who is "crazy" and who isn't.



I also believe that, even more accurate than some psychiatrists are.
Do you have that study?