I want my autism!

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@DarkRain

Maybe, and certainly you are not alone in that, but there are others who can and do tolerate, and join discussion. And I think that those opinions have equal right to be voiced out just as much as you have the right to voice your own.

I don't think that this topic should be locked or that this topic shouldn't be discussed on wp.

As public awareness of autism grows, more people are going to recognize autistic traits in themselves, and it is a serious issue what someone does about that, including self-diagnosis, if that is a good thing for the people self-diagnosing and how that affects them and others.

N.B. I understand what the opening poster is getting at, and I get that this is a collective b****ing session, but I am sick of listening to this. I want you to keep in mind that my counter-b****ing is not intended to be directed at anyone in particular, it's only meant to be aimed as a counter-point at the general sentiment displayed on this thread. And I'll repeat that I know what you're all saying, I've just been stewing on this thought for weeks now, and it's time to let it out. I know that this message is stronger than I intend it, but I'm b****ing.


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I have "mild" autism. Huge parts of my adolescence and childhood were horrible because of it, but I can (99% of the time) pass as an (rude or eccentric) NT because I'm "mild". I know that you all (well, most anyways) don't mean to sound like they're bashing "mild" ASD people, but when you sit there and bloviate about how bad you have it, and how there's all sorts of people who're pretending to autistic to get sympathy, or belong to a "special group", the only thing it does it make the "mild" people who actually could seek a diagnosis feel like they're just faking it and cause them to assume that their just making a fuss over "nothing" (which could actually be "something"). At the end of the day, people with mild ASD don't just have NT's telling them to suck it up and "stop being weird", they have the autistic crowd, too, sitting there saying that they're just whining or faking because we can act like NT's better than they can. It's repugnant. One of the largest reasons why I didn't seek a diagnosis until 25, even though I pretty much had guessed back when I was 16. I was sure that I was just one of those whining, weak NT's who're just "too introverted", "too smart", or "too eccentric" for their own good.

And now I'm actually going to say something harsh. It seems like people are clinging onto their title of ASD only as a crutch for explaining why their lives have so many terrible moments. There's no doubt, if you didn't have ASD, you'd be doing a lot better. I get it that severe autism is a serious medical problem. If I didn't have ASD, however "mild", there are aspects of my life that would be tremendously easier. But don't use the fact that some of us can function --or that we can hold the pretense of being normal-- as evidence that we're not "really autistic". Because you know what?


1.) The only people you're helping here are those a**holes at Autism Speaks by saying that it's not ASD unless it's severe and then only focus on how much ASD does bad for you. Guess what? I wouldn't trade my ASD in for the world. I think it's quite brilliant, really.

2.) The only people you're hurting are people who're on the so-called "mild" end of the spectrum.

3.) Guess why? The people who don't have it, the ones who're quirky and introverted but still NTs, they don't give a s*** what you have to say, anyways, and it wouldn't even occur to them to come look at a forum like this to ask for your opinions.

4.) More to the point. Seriously, are these "fakers" actually HURTING you at all? If anything, they're just raising awareness and once/if they get themselves tested, they'll find out that they don't have it. You're not the judge of it, their psychotherapist is. But I get it, you want that magic autism spectum sticker all to yourself and your problems. My advice? Grow the f*** up. You know what made me feel better? I stopped spending so much time focusing on what I cannot do and spent a lot more time focusing on what I can do. When you do this, you'll realize that you have a lot gifts that are great to put out into the world, even if it's really hard to make it happen, it's worth it.



Honestly, my first instinct when I read or hear someone who says that they think they might have ASD is to listen to them and give them objective assessment as to whether or not it's worth pursuing an official diagnosis from a psychiatrist or neuropsychologist. If your first instinct when someone says they might have it is to tell them "your problems aren't as bad as mine, so obviously you're just faking it to make yourself feel better", then please, go get f***ed. Even better, just shut your mouth and try listening for once. You might learn something about that person that you didn't know, seeing as how most of you say this about people online who you've even spoken a word to or seen once in your life.


It's seeing stuff like this --while being happy that I know I'm not the only person who's like me-- that makes me just want to walk away from the community. You're just feeding Autism Speaks. I love the idea of helping each other deal with our terribly complicated social lives (or lack thereof), but what I don't have time for is this idiotic, irrelevant, ultimately harmful witch-hunt for who's "really" got it and who hasn't. So if you think that this witch hunt is more important than proving autism is valuable to the world, then kindly piss off and stop berating people.

Am not angry. I don't know if I have an ASD and I don't want the official label if I do. I just want to know what I am.

I don't know what my official IQ is these days, I don't believe in IQ tests and won't take one. It used to be between 133 and 143 which to my mind is not really that high. I got A grades at Uni, started school early because they thought I was exceptionally bright, I got those grades and never needed to revise due to my excellent memory...big whoop. It didn't get me anywhere. I am on disability due to my social issues, I am bullied everywhere I go, I have no friends and I am single. I don't even have any family these days and am completely alone.

No career, no family, no friends, no partner...all due to my eccentricities and social issues.

I just want answers...and for society to accept me even if it does keep telling me I am weird. I just want to be accepted for myself whatever I am.

I don't see attacking diagnosed people with mild autism as the topic of this thread or what most people are doing in it.

I see this thread as bringing up some issues with self-diagnosis and public awareness of autism.

I can understand particularly the thing about the high schoolers forming cliques around the idear of them having AS when they don't and being nasty to the people who ackshuly have AS, as that is something that I have read on wp threads going back a few years, and it seems to be relatively new phenomenon of claiming AS due to increased public awareness of AS and media stereotypes of AS.

In my life, most self-diagnosed people I know are not harming others in any way that I can perceive, but I have perceived some problems in misunderstanding autism spectrum due to many bap or nt people recognizing their own mild autistic traits that don't reflect the traits of autistic people, again caused by increased public awareness of autism.

Is this the let's get angry about everything thread? I'm really not following. I'd prefer not let things bother me but my own unstable emotions.

By the way I actually do know what this thread is about and have no need to be told.

People don't tell me they want Asperger's just that I should probably live without the label. I only really have the label and cling so tightly to this community because of my social anxiety and my damn mood disorder makes me feel all kinds of self-doubts.

Those people tend to tell me other people could have AS when they were never diagnosed and as a result I think of AS criteria in a very strict way.

But because of my lack of exposure to it people pretending to have AS doesn't bother me at all, and I know mild AS can be a real problem for some because I'm probably more high functioning in some areas and not-so in others but I just have to see AS in a very strict way because of how people say to me that anyone with a few quirks could have it.

Anyway, I'll leave you angry people to go back to your angry thread of angriness.

By the way, I self-diagnosed myself before I was officially diagnosed, 3 times. My psychiatrist has a memory problem.

IMO, the internet age has led to lots of people self-diagnosing all sorts of conditions. It's great that we have all this information at our finger-tips and can research health conditions. Identifying symptoms or signs in yourself and then seeing a doctor is the right thing to do, IMO and there's nothing wrong with having an idea in your head that you might have X condition. It may led to unnecessary anxiety but I'd err on the side of over-vigilance so as not to be remiss about my health. However, deciding that you have X condition for sure and not Y or Z doesn't make sense. Even if you do very thorough research and find reliable sources through a uni database or something you're still not a doctor specializing in the condition who has more than 7 years of medical education and dedicated your life to medicine. Seeing a doctor for serious behavioural, psychological or physical symptoms is important because your symptoms could indicate something that can and does need to be treated. Some of the symptoms of ASD could indicate a mental illness like Schizophrenia or a neurological condition like MS or a tumor if they showed up more recently and you can't remember whether you had childhood issues. They could also indicate something like social anxiety disorder or just be a normal variation in personality. Doctors aren't perfect (see paragraph below) but they are more expert than you and they aren;'t useless either. I was diagnosed as a child but those are just my thoughts on the subject of self identification and diagnosis.

Of course, the other problem is that ASD may be over-diagnosed just bcs it is a fad now. A lot of disorders go through fads when they're just beginning to be recognized. ADD did in the 90s, Asthma in the 80s and Schizophrenia in the 30s. It becomes a research fad as well as a media driven one and all the money is in researching X disorder,ASD in this case.It gets on the doctors' radar , so to speak. This isn't necessarily good for people who actually have the condition bcs then others may think they're just jumping on the bandwagon and it's bad for those who are misdiagnosed because they may not get their actual symptoms/syndrome treated. On the other hand it may be a necessary evil for getting awareness, recognition and intervention strategies in place for a disorder. Fads eventually die down and the rates of diagnosis drop a bit.

I also find it annoying when people actually think ASD is cool.It obfuscates the serious problems with social interaction, non-verbal communication and with sensory issues as well as many other problems that people with the disorder have. I don't think there are a lot of deliberate fakers out there but some people do have the attitude that ASD is the smart guy's (or girl's) condition and that it's desirable. My friend from an ASD support group at my uni was saying that someone she knew who self-identified as ASD said that it was "kind of a cool diagnosis bcs even people like Einstein had it". My dad's new wife's daughter is a speech pathologist. She's very intelligent and erudite. She told me that she wondered whether there was any difference between ASD and giftedness. I explained that they are very different though not mutually exclusive and tried to explain some of the symptoms of ASD. She said she thought her kids might have ASD because they were very precocious and gifted and had many academic interests. They were also sort-of quiet as kids and one of them had a speech delay. In my abnormal psychology class when the topic was autism one dude put up his hand and asked whether it was true that people with Asperger's had above normal abilities like the ones they show on T.V The attitude is out there.

[quote="Agathon]

Im not convinced that AS is in any way a fashionable disease. Whenever i hear it discussed doutside of Wrong Planet however it is DEFINITELY understated. Ive literally heard people armchair diagnose based on people displaying mildly egotistical traits. People tend to break all mental conditions down into a single symptom however. I dont think aspies should claim to be the only ones effected.

How about schizophrenia being about "Hearing voices"> How about bipolar disorder being "mood swings". Finally what about OCD being a matter of being somewhat anal about your spice rack?

Aspergers is not an attractive or glamorous condition by ANY stretch and it is very galling to think that there are people who believe it to be the "tortured artist pining away in hermitude". If one of these poor deluded souls saw me groaning like a wounded animal beating at my head and baulking at every sound above 10 db's they'd redress their opinions.

What is not being discussed in this thread is how getting an "official" diagnosis is just inaccessible both financially and geographically for many people and the real life negatives of getting one. You really have to go to a specialist otherwise you have a good chance of running into a clinician who does not understand or believes the whole thing is hype. And if you do that you will go backwards in your search to find out who you are and solve or treat your problems. ,The DSM 5 is really a product of American Psychological Association and what does a vote to take the diagnoses away tell you about the beliefs of a significant part of the USA psychological community? A specialist who "gets it" could be 1,000 miles away.

Of course you have a better chance of a correct diagnosis with a pro. But not a 100% chance. And some of the tests are created by reputable universities who will take into account confirmation bias. As a officially diagnosed person myself my opinion is that while self diagnoses is not optimum if a professional diagnosis is inaccessible it is still a pretty good "plan B" if done thoroughly and much better then doing nothing and probably better then going to a General Practitioner.

There are real insurance and discrimination risks that come with an official diagnosis.

I see 2 basic types of "Do I have it" Posts . The clueless about what it is. But what I mostly see is people who have done their homework and their traits/symptoms fit. And they get immediately jumped on and invalidated.

That all said number of "Do I have it" posts is onerous and sometimes frustrating. To improve the situation why don't we put all "Do I have it" posts in one thread like we do with AS - NT conversation. When a new member joins that person should be told about that thread.

Public "awareness " is nice but what is needed is public acceptance.

Sometimes it's a lot easier to accept that something does not sit right than to run around in circles thinking "I'm fine there's nothing wrong with me" then thinking "but maybe there is", especially when you don't have an exactly normal background. It's much better to have a positive direction to go in that includes admitting your shortcomings. If those shortcomings are very much like aspergers, then so be it. But I think you're somehow wrong in what you think, I doubt there are drones of people who want a disorder or syndrome - do they really want severe difficulties in their life? There may be a few people like that, but I don't think there are drones and drones of them. That's why there are psychiatrists, they can tell people exactly what's wrong, in that context do you care what they think about themselves?