Self Dxers Who Don't Want a Diagnosis; Why Not?

Post Reply New Topic

It's much different with me and others of my generation. We learned coping skills and "sucked it up" because we had to and there were no supports that I'm aware of. Bad behaved children were on ritalin or kept out of school. I would never have been diagnosed - I was simply an introvert, shy, a bookworm. No one knew I was trying to be invisible, that I could hear a dripping tap from a mile away, that I couldn't wait to go barefoot, or that I only felt comfortable with adults. I only ever had one birthday party because it overwhelmed me so much that I had a meltdown and made everyone go home.

I'm in my 50s and never understood that I am most likely autistic until very recently. I did research because of something someone said. I'm happy my grandson has supports and I'm pretty sure his life will be improved because of it.

I was in my fifth decade before Hans Asperger's work was even revealed to small sectors of academia in the UK, in the 1990s by Lorna Wing. It was no fun growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, that's for sure... ignorance was almost total in NZ for much longer than the 1990s.

You imply that diagnosis = support, no diagnosis = no support.

What support would an retirement age AS person living alone in the USA receive specific to their neurotype?

..

Or the UK?
https://www.theguardian.com/social-care ... ow-to-talk

That's a good article from the Guardian . I had a post dx appointment . I was given a post diagnostic booklet at the end of the appointment . A few days later I received a typed summary of that appointment .

There are groups in near by towns , but I can't get to them . Nothing has changed other than having my belief there was more than mental illness going on validated .

Tonight I have been reading from an ebook online called "The Nine Degrees of Autism" which includes a diagram of the model showing AS life in a developmental depiction of nine stages of life, and its theme is the recognition of "the whole person", not an incomplete creature defined merely by a medical diagnosis, but by stages of lived experience.

Quite a lot of it is available free, including the page showing the alternative model of life stages it proposes as a more accurate developmental description. I liked it a lot.

It's a welcome antidote to the dehumanisation of the medical model that focuses only on deficiency, which is dehumanising.

Wrong Planet

Can you please provide a link to that ebook.

Yes. I smiled at reading that, though it also makes me feel quite saddened. You've certainly been a support to me through some challenges. (Replying to APOM)

FM: I'll find you the link to the Nine Stages in a minute.

I can't seem to do a direct link to the ebook for you but if you google this, you will find it:

The Nine Degrees of Autism: A Developmental Model

Not sure which site I was reading it on, though it was probably Amazon

Thanks .

Unfortunately I couldn't find any chapters of the book to check out .

I think it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask. People are different and have different needs. I was lucky enough to be from a family where my parents could afford to send me to speech therapy and such the like as a child. I am lucky now to have a job where I can send myself to mental health professionals. It's true that getting a DX would free up a bunch of government funding for me, but I've gotten by so far without it, and so really anything that changes my routine is kinda scary. Furthermore, I know that these government programs in my country are underfunded and under attack from certain politicians right now. So I feel as though if I can get by without it, ethically, I should.

Hello firemonkey. You can check some content of the book as a example in amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Degrees-Aut ... B0166ZORXI

You have an icon above the cover, which says Look Inside, just click and read the example

For some of us it was too severe to 'suck it up' but not seen as severe enough ,at the time , to get help and support .

Well... yeah... I mean, what supports become available to you after you assign yourself a label that you didn't have before you did that?