Self-diagnosis

Post Reply New Topic

I would suggest you seek an official diagnosis. From my experience, issues with burn-outs don't just go away, and as I get older I don't bounce back like I used to. They started to affect my ability to work full time. If it's similar for you, you're going to need your workplace to understand, but they won't offer any support unless you have a formal diagnosis. I had to apply for reduced working hours for medical reasons and because my GP knows nothing about autism I used her diagnosis anxiety/depression, even though I don't think that diagnosis is correct as it's basically autism causing me trouble.

Yep, it’s just the “level 2” part that’s self-diagnosed since I wasn’t assessed when they were doing “levels.” Probably my autism has also gotten worse, or at least become more apparent, since my original diagnosis.

They keep moving the goalposts for those "levels" anyway. They don't seem very relevant to me, because I'd estimate that while my special abilities are from AS, my special difficulties that I'd want help with are about evenly divided between AS itself, the attachment disorder I got from my "cold mother," and the PTSD I got from trying to relate to other women.

As someone with a self diagnosis and a recommendation/ highly likely from someone who works within the ASD patients, but I have to wait for a full one. I realise I seem to be fine telling those actually close to me or those that are quite distanced from me (either physical or emotional distance), or anonymously like here. But the whole section in between I simply wouldn't without a professional diagnosis, some I still wouldn't after (due to predicting their response), a lot of the not immediate family make up this group. So the lack of a diagnosis does limit on the who I feel like it's a subject I can talk about with, but I doubt that is making any significant difference to my life.

As I talked about in another thread, I was just officially diagnosed after a lifetime of being diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression. I had a friend with Asperger's who once suggested I should get tested but I thought surely my doctors would have caught something like that. It took another burnout for me to realize that something was wrong and remembered my friend started looking for answers on my own. I realized that ASD explained my entire life. My therapist refused to give me a referral for evaluation at first because I wasn't like her brother who had Asperger's and she's seen me cry and express emotions. I'm not kidding. I had to get my primary care doctor to help me find a psychiatrist in my state that accepts medicaid. And even after all that I'm still fighting with my local mental health care services to recognize the official diagnosis.

My point is, I think people who are self diagnosed should not be discounted. Self-diagnosing can lead someone on the path to finding answers. People on the spectrum can be misdiagnosed and fall through the cracks. That said there are a lot of other disorders that can have similar traits with autism so I can see people misdiagnosing themselves as autistic. We need better testing criteria and easier access to it.

Where i live people who managed to finish college don't get an autism diagnosis so had my therapist told me. Most people don't even know there is such a thing called high functioning autism. And there is not much support for it anyway. The information i researched from the internet stopped me from hating myself and hating my father and helped me a lot in other ways. So yeah i support self diagnosis.

No one with Autism can finish college?! Where are you from? That's an extremely unfortunate misconception.

I read that as an assumption that Aspies and Grads are discrete groups. If a grad, must not be an aspie.

That's it if i am able to graduate i am not considered disabled I personally know someone diagnosed who is a college graduate but never mind that! I am from eastern europe btw.

I would say when one is functioning at a level equal to or better than the average of one's same age non-disabled peers.

Have had that sort of experience too, kinda like if you able to achieve something like graduating, their logic is its impossible there's anything 'wrong or different', you're not taken seriously basically. I can predict some people being like that which I know too, but worse when it's those working in health related roles. Avoidance and find more useful people has been my only strategy so far, which might be very slowly working. Though I don't think that attitude is just for ASD and people are like that for other things too.

Oh gosh yes. I have had the kind of Autistic burnout that is so severe that it has crippled me for life and the effects can actually be life threatening. I am no longer able to work in any real capacity at all anymore, even part time. And MrsPeel is right, you don't always recover fully from them. So please, get a diagnosis if you can. There are resources and helps that you might need that will not be available to you if you don't have one.

What country do you live in? That is horrifying.

Yes. In order to have an Autism diagnosis, you have to be impaired. You also have to have been impaired since you were a small child. Impairment levels can look different for everyone but impairment has to be in the picture. There are people who don't realize how impaired they are because it is their normal. I was one of those people. But even though I did not realize it, I required a tremendous amount of support for all of my life even though I did not really understand the nature of the support I was getting. If that support had even been taken away, I would not have survived. My parents attributed that the reason I needed the support they were having to give me as me being lazy or making bad decisions or not trying hard enough to succeed. But the real reason was that I was Autistic and no one knew because high functioning Autism was not known then. So it is very possible that people don't even understand the support that they are getting and why they are getting it. But if it is ever taken away, they will not be able to survive. They don't realize how impaired they are until that support is gone.

^^ There is a very wide range between impaired function and non-viability. The only support I got was from living where starvation is rare for NTs as well.

Sadly that's true. What is sadder is that if i was diagnosed i don't think anyone would hire me for a job. People like to act like disability doesn't exist here. Is it okay if i pm you for further details?