Are you able to diagnose yourself?

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Yeah I agree, I remember trying to explain the matter to a professional and he didn't believe me.
In my country they demand seeing many medical documents, etc. before concluding anything about you.

^this

Some people are perfectly happy and able to self diagnose and that's all they need. I couldn't self diagnose due to confirmation bias.

It's always nice learning new words. I have learned a few new ones on this site myself.

I was formally diagnosed by a neuropsychologist. I have been seeing him once a month ever since then.

That can make it very difficult. When I was preparing for my diagnosis, I got a book called The Complete Guide To Asperger's Syndrome by Dr Tony Attwood. It is very comprehensive and it really helped me understand a lot of my symptoms. I was able to use that book as a guide also to write memories about my childhood. I ended up writing six pages of typed notes about my childhood experiences and that really helped the diagnostician with diagnosing me since my family was not available to give any comments.

I agree with this.

Sorry the professional didn't believe you. I was lucky for my psychologist and psychiatrist to listen to me and give me a diagnosis. But before that all of my autistic traits were frustratingly blamed on OCD. I got CBT for my OCD and it really helped my actual OCD (which is 99% better now), but it didn't change any of the autistic traits and sensory issues. This was extremely frustrating because I knew it wasn't OCD but they didn't listen until autism came into the picture. But, when I realized I was autistic, everything made so much sense. After I asked my psychiatrist about autism, she actually said "I always thought of you as on the spectrum" which was even more annoying because if she knew I was autistic this whole time why didn't she bring it up instead of saying everything was OCD? While many professionals are amazing, some are very uneducated, especially when it comes to autism. My psychologist is good by the way, I don't mean to downplay how good she is.

I'd say it can be done, but it takes a lot of research, effort, and self analysis. I think a lot of people who self-diagnose haven't (or perhaps even can't) put this level of effort in.

I did vote yes, but with the caveat that, while it can be done, it often isn't done correctly.

I have the ability to see myself from a third person perspective as if watching a movie of myself and I can self analyze really well. I don't know if this is common in Autistics or if it is something that I am just really good at. But that ability is really helpful when it comes to self diagnosing. I can also do that with my memories. I am curious if a lot of you have this ability also.

How interesting that at the point I decided to post the results were exactly split at nine votes for yes and nine votes for no.

It does match my personal experience.

Early on in my researches I concluded I could not actully diagnose myself. I had the view from inside, I had my store of memories from a fairly long life, but what I did not have was the view from outside of my traits if there were any, I did not have the view from outside for my communication style. Idid not have the distance from my own history to be able to tell how selective I had been with my memories : Had I only noted the ones which were consistent with beign somewhere on the spectrum and ignored many more memories which would suggest my style and profile was actually pretty much in line with the population as a whole.

Then, a point came when I decided I would like some clarity. I would seek an assessment against the criteria by someone with some experience and competancy. I wanted to stop short of a full medical diagnosis. If I had simply strung a false conclusion out of unduly selective data I did not want to be told so and feel terrible for wasting a professional's time and the resources of the country's health service, and most importan of all, taking a place ahead of someone with much greater need for an assessment.

And following the assessment my view changed. The diagnostic instrument used, designed for use with adults, guided the assessor to find a spread of 15 out of 18 areas, where 10 was the threshold for autism spectrum, a gentle leg pull that the 25 pages of documents I had sent in advance of the face to face had set a new record in their files, my profile was definitely autistic "Could see it a mile off" and I had managed to make such a good use of the strong points of my autistic profile to the point I would be unlikely to be formally diagnosed because there was no obvious hardship resulting from it.

So, while i had cautiously concluded I lacked the detached position to diagnose myself, I had in fact diagnosed myself without realising it.

Funny old world as they say.

I agree. One of my favorite people on WP (who was an autism researcher) used to say that Autism is defined from the outside by behavior, not by introspection from a first-person perspective.

When I first learned about Asperger's (~ 5 years ago), I never officially "self-diagnosed". I simply suspected. Then again, I suspected a whole bunch of other things as well.

I think that autism is defined by both behavior and inner thoughts. Some autistic people can mask their traits, especially as they get older, so I think that in order to diagnose someone you have to take their point of view and thought processes into account in addition to their outside behavior.

It's possible that I don't understand above. But, most definitely, my inner thoughts have changed dramatically since I was diagnosed. As the diagnosis (along with the subsequent process of doubting the diagnosis and then eventually accepting it) really changed the way I think about myself, the world and my place in the world (and, hence, my inner thoughts).

Most definitely, the person who most influenced my journey of self-discovery was the autism research that I referenced in my initial post on this thread. I met her on two separate occasions and had the privilege of participating in 2 of her experiments (one an eye tracking experiment and another an eeg experiment). Her ability to explain what it meant to be autistic had a profound impact on my life.

Not to mention expensive

I find it really interesting that they would say this, given that the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria actually state that symptoms "may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities".

Essentially, as I understand it, in order to decide not to diagnose you on the basis that you make good use of your strong points, they wouldn't just have to be saying that your autistic profile doesn't negatively affect you in your day to day life - they'd actually have to be saying that they think that, even in the worst possible circumstances, it still wouldn't negatively affect you.

My family suspected I had it which led me to read up on it and eventually self diagnose. I was able to have an evaluation, and I received an official diagnosis later. I’m pretty lucky that I was able to be evaluated at no cost to myself.

Diagnosis made a big difference to me. I was able to learn more about myself, work on areas that I can improve on, and cut myself some slack when I’m overwhelmed or overstimulated. Before I was pretty tough on myself and thought I wasn’t trying as hard as I should be when I was actually at my absolute limit.

I needed an official diagnosis. I would’ve driven myself crazy without it because I wouldn’t have been sure I have it. With that being said, I still doubt my diagnosis sometimes even though the evaluation was very thorough.

This, very much for me!

It sure seems common for those with ASD to really need the diagnosis to be sure, and also common to question the diagnosis once it actually comes. I'm wondering whether desperately needing the diagnosis and then questioning it after the fact can be read as a sign of ASD.