Self-diagnosis

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^^ "All the time" does not mean "every time." Whenever a prescription is quickly changed, it means that somebody took a guess, and then found it somewhat wrong. People expect a prescription after a short appointment, so doctors must guess as a normal part of the job, and treat it as experimentation. However, we can't expect the shrinks to do better than the body doctors at diagnosis, and those are often wrong too. Even when the diagnosis is not in doubt, competence is still too much to expect. I live two blocks from a hospital, and went in with a simple fracture of the thumb. Three weeks later, they still had not set it, but had ruined my general health and budget with distant appointments. It healed by itself.

There is also a very real possibility that a doctor is primarily interested in earning bonuses, such as luxury vacations, from the drug companies, not helping you be healthy. The standard treatment for toenail fungus here is both expensive and dangerous, but I saved my toenail with Tea Tree Oil. Doctors never check on the basics - food, sleep, and exercise now. We are being fed by companies that pay no attention to health, and medicated by companies that pay no attention to nutrition. It is a very profitable arrangement.

I don't automatically trust anyone who says that they have self diagnosed Autism.

^^ I don't automatically trust anyone. Period.

I self diagnosed but only after extensive research. I have always felt different to the mainstream and the social world has always baffled me, so after looking into several different disorders mild ASD seemed to fit me very well, almost scarily accurate.

I feel like if I have made it this far in my life (30s) without a diagnosis I probably don’t need to obtain one now, unless I was looking to get some sort of disability benefits, which I’m not. The purpose was more for me to understand myself better and why things in my life happened the way that they did.

I’ve heard it can be very difficult and very expensive for an adult to obtain a diagnosis. Also, if symptoms are relatively mild you may be told that you are wrong and/or misdiagnosed with something else. This is why I support self diagnosis in adulthood.

My family was slow to reproduce, so they still followed Victorian advice, which included NEVER giving a child food if they asked for it outside of meal times. Mother included just enough Dr. Spock to get it wrong.

^ Parenting is an extremely difficult job and there is no training for it, except possibly how your parents behaved, which means you either parent like they did, or try to find the opposite of what they did. I blamed my parents for many years, but realized probably in my late 20s, early 30s, that whatever my parents did, life now is up to me and not what happened then. I needed to look at my life and construct it as I saw at the time. Which has changed over the years.

I can look over my life and see where my parents influenced even current behaviors and feelings, but I recognize it as just that: something that happened a long time ago and I need to let it go and/or fix it. Or figure out a work-around.

I have known many parents and families through my work as a hospice nurse and with people with developmental disabilities. There are wonderful parents whose children turn out quite wrong. There are terrible parents whose children are as good as it gets. This experience over a lifetime leads me to believe there are intrinsic qualities in a child that have some effect on his/her path to adulthood that are not particularly affected by parenting style or lack thereof.

There may be statistical studies that show one type of parenting or another in general produces better results than another, but it still largely, I think, pot luck in how your kid turns out. I am sure there are parents here who will disagree with me and that is okay. I'm used to being on the wrong side of many opinions. But the point is, that at some point in a life, you have to decide if you are going to blame your parents forever (and this is a modus operandi for some people) of get up on your own two feet at do something about it.

^^ Sure, genetics are important, but I think that a lot of the variation in results comes down to the timing of various events vs the stage of development. My life was permanently affected by a very minor incident that nobody else would remember. There were probably dozens of similar encounters that I have never managed to dig out.
My parents did try to avoid the mistakes that their parents had made, and give me what they would have wanted, but they didn't know to copy the things that had worked for them, and could not imagine how that left me frustrated.

First of all, how is a person going to determine whether her self-diagnosis is "correct"?

Second of all, self-diagnosis of autism is not an answer to that question. Self-diagnosis of autism is basically just the belief that one has autism and (if one tells others) the statement that one has autism. Beliefs and statements of belief don't provide answers to questions of objective fact; evidence provides answers.

The belief may reflect something true, and it may be well-informed, but only the evidence behind it (if there is any) can provide any answers about what is "wrong" with a person.

Believing oneself to have autism or stating that one has autism doesn't really explain anything because the belief/statement says nothing about which autistic traits or struggles one has and because it says nothing about how one's autistic traits manifest or what effect they've had on one's life. "I have sensory sensitivities," "I have executive dysfunction," etc. are explanations. "I'm self-diagnosed with autism" explains nothing.

All you are saying is that your beliefs about yourself and your understanding of autism bring you psychological comfort. Neuropsychological diagnoses are not designed or intended to comfort people.

You've help me prove my point: Self-diagnosis is nothing remotely like a real diagnosis, and self-diagnosed people tend to have suspicious and irrelevant ulterior motives for identifying with autism. You're admitting to using autism as a crutch for your self-esteem problems. Self-hatred has nothing to do with autism, and diagnoses of neurodevelopmental conditions are not intended to affect self-esteem or address problems with self-esteem.

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Does that apply to a 60 year old who's very probably on the spectrum , but hasn't been able to afford a professional assessment ?

I personally get sick and tired of those born after the Asperger's dx became official , criticising those of us who were born way before that dx came into being .

This is completely irrelevant to the topic because self-diagnosis has nothing to do with lack of a real diagnosis. Lack of a real diagnosis doesn't force anyone to self-diagnose, and self-diagnosis it not an alternative to a real diagnosis. They're two completely different things.


What is a "successful" self-diagnosis? And what determines whether a self-diagnosis as "accurate"?


These are the kinds of things I meant by "ulterior motives." Autism diagnoses are not intended to help people feel good about themselves, and people self-diagnosing to feel better about themselves are abusing the concept of diagnosis, abusing the concept of autism, and likely failing to properly deal with their emotional issues.


Which organization helped you because you were self-diagnosed? That sounds bizarre. Did they help you because you said "I'm self-diagnosed" or did they help you because you said that you wanted to get diagnosed or needed help with some particular struggles?

By "self-diagnosis of autism" I mean "coming to the conclusion that one has autism." Is that what you mean by "self-diagnosis"? Seems like maybe we are talking about two different things.

That depends on the explanation they decide on. Some explanations are deceptive, self-deceptive, or incorrect. And as I explained two comments above, self-diagnosis of autism doesn't explain much.


Yes, believing something mainly or solely because it gives one piece of mind is self-deception. People should stick with what they know (and avoid beliefs), try to derive comfort from facts/truth/reality, and, when facts and evidence are not available, find ways to be content without understanding. But someone who has lived with autistic traits already has a lot of self-understanding. And someone who researches conditions and comes across autism has even more understanding. Taking that final step and self-diagnosing—deciding that one has autism—does not add any understanding.

No one should use neurodevelopmental conditions for peace of mind. That applies to everyone: Everyone autistic or not, diagnosed or not, should do the psychological work to be content with themselves and understand and better their lives in terms of verifiable facts, not rely on beliefs about being a member of Club Aspie to feel better and not writing things off as "oh, I'm autistic, so that thing I hated about myself is ok after all." People who hate themselves (this is not directed at you personally) need to work on not hating themselves, not on self-diagnosing themselves.

How much are the professionals paying you for the free PR campaign?

That applies to everyone on Earth! Do you understand that healthy self-esteem comes from understanding and accepting oneself, not from a diagnosis? It has nothing to do with whether anyone can access an evaluation.

This is a support site for people who are neurodiverse, or recognise neurodiverse traits in their behaviour.

Trashing people's psycho-emotional awareness isn't supportive, and I don't believe it's welcome.

The moderators have already posted that self-identification is acceptable on this Planet, and inflammatory or provocative statements are against the rules.

Please stop flaming.

^^It seems that much of your ' self esteem' comes from criticising others . Indeed given your stance your posting here makes little to no sense .

Successful seemed like it was part of their route to a full diagnosis and possibly started to use it help themselves while waiting. While if one claims self diagnosis before then receiving a professional diagnosis means that their self diagnosis was accurate surely?



So what if I spend time researching before deciding to self referral (not a rushed decision to begin with), this referral led to a highly likely recommendation but they are unable to diagnose themselves so are placed on a long waiting list. The AQ50 test that was part of that screening process also suggests that I have ASD, along with any other tests taken in my own interest. It has been suggested by my lecturer, my GP (who wasn't interested in helping) and my sister (who works in a school and saw the similarities between me and diagnosed kids). Researching further into it (including scientific papers) and discovering similar behaviours of others through sites like this. Not having the idea rejected by anyone I've told so far and I explain it fully if they're willing to listen, including the waiting issue so I don't pretend I have anything.

So viewing that as a physicist/ logically, that's a lot of data points for me suggesting that I'm on the spectrum, with the only obvious incomplete data point being a professional diagnosis. Also that the diagnosis isn't really for me personally, it's more often a way of explaining myself to others. I don't have a problem with myself but I want to understand why I've been treated the way I have so often and can I change that through understanding? So for someone to say that anyone in similar to my situation are supposed to just sit here and not use a self diagnosis for the years it might be and not attempt to make anything better in the process. Well there's no polite response to that.