Are you able to diagnose yourself?

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i know myself pretty well but objective opinion is important too

Well, for myself I seemed to have desperately needed a diagnosis while telling myself it wasn't important.
But I didn't see why a professional was more qualified on the matter than myself and my friends, so I did a bunch of research and argued the matter with a couple friends and sorted information until I figured that neurotypicals probably don't exist after all.
...then once I was convinced they do, I settled that I'm not one of them.
Though I did go back-and-forth on the matter for a while. I'm sure I would have with a professional too.

In the past I have talked with many people of whom I had the suspicion they had a certain disorder and voiced this to them and when they went to get an official diagnosis, my suspicions were correct.

You can of course diagnose yourself if you have the knowledge. Still, psychiatrists are professionals and that should not be underestimated. It is their job and to become a psychiatrist takes an awful lot of work.

I had suspected I was autistic for a long time. I did the research like you and decided to see a psychologist. The testing took 5 hours. I was diagnosed as high functioning autistic, or Aspergers. But also found out some things I didn’t realize. Like I was diagnosed with severe social anxiety. That has lead me to exposure therapy (which I have yet to start). I also have Prosopagnosia which is an inability to recognize faces I should know. (That’s a dumbed down description). You know yourself. But get a professional diagnosis. At least then you have proof and can stop wondering if it’s true. And can start learning how to truly know who you are. Knowing has really changed my life for the better. Good luck. And read this site. It has helped me feel a LOT less alone in this crazy stupid world of insane NT’s.

I guess so. But they're not free, and an official label isn't worth paying for to me.
I even wonder whether having that on a permanent record could cause a problem in some regard later in life.

I think I approach this like I do with socionics: there are people who have studied the theory to great extents, but I knew my personality type (and those of everyone in my immediate family) within the first few hours of learning the system exists. And some of the people who know the theory frontwards and backwards aren't actually good at typing people. Because they don't know them. I tell people it's more about knowing the person than knowing the theory.

And I know myself better than most people do. And my closest friends know me better than irl people do. And I guess I'd be hesitant to believe what a stranger says about me. He'd have to have a really good explanation.
Maybe explanations always come with it though. I've never actually seen a psychiatrist or a professional psychologist, besides passing one on the street.

You're able to present a compelling and expansive case for somebody who can diagnose you, with me, I had every reason in the world to pursue the possibility but I firmly clutched the alternative, there was something else, a further overwhelming influence casting a shadow alongside the mental health issues I'd already explored utterly. Autism to me was a very viable route to plow on down but I would not paint myself or declare myself as anything without somebody externally assessing and advising me, I could only search for the possibilities I thought most appropriately reflected my internal digging. Autism would've been the first condition on the list so I attacked that, there was no doubt I had something else going on around all I'd uncovered in extensive therapy. I specficially stated at every turn, I can best correlate it with autism but I am not the expert, if it's not please direct me onwards so I can get some answers. I was just some screwed up dude with a map I was constantly sketching and resketching. I don't think a diagnosis can be bestowed by yourself, no matter how certain you are about it, it don't sit well with me.

I couldn't answer the poll question because diagnosis in a clinically professional sense would mean that a competent medical professional would have to formally diagnose. However, I believe "self-diagnosis", while not official, may be accurate depending on the person.

I'm self diagnosed at this point. However, after researching as I have over a period of years, and of course knowing myself all of my life, I simply can't see how I couldn't be on the spectrum. I've been very tempted to write a lengthy piece in the introduction area of the forum detailing all of my characteristics, the struggles and challenges I have and have had through my life with dealing with "the world", but I think it would bore people.

I know what NT people are and I am not, nor have a I ever been one!

Well sometimes I wonder, I mean it really seemed to make sense after my sister and a counseler I saw thought it seemed like a possibility. But still seems like I had to fight a while to get a diagnoses of that, even had to go back to the childrens hospital they had done blood tests on me before because as a kid I had a couple seizure like incidents and things like that so they were trying to see if there was anything physically wrong with me, never occurred to them to look into autism...but this later time they did more neurological testing and determined I could have an autism spectrum disorder, and their opinion was I should definately get SSI. They had to put it as Developmental disorder NOS because, I didn't have all the exact symptoms for one catagory.

It just makes me wonder if its all in my head, or if I do legitimately have a hard time getting on with the world due to my neurology. I mean do I just appear as having a DD-NOS because I never did anything with my life thus far....then again there are all the effects being bullied in school had on me so that held me back to.

Yeah I can understand the difficulties some people who posted here have faced, with self diagnosis and the like. Even though you might have not formally tried to make a self diagnosis, you tried to understand what your problem is. It's difficult to do that all by yourselves, I can agree with that, and understand that.
I remember when I started really caring about what my social issue was, I tried to approach social situations and people in many different ways, some of them came across as weird or stupid to the other people involved, and it made me embarassed.
But, I had to go through unpleasant things to realize something important. That's how it is for many other people, I'm pretty sure. You can never go through these things without any unpleasant period, or a difficulty. That's life, eh? I guess, you can't blame anybody.