Cyberchondria within the Autism Community

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They are indeed among us. I personally feel enabling people like this just allows for their true condition to go untreated and this past year I've seen personally people who've gone off the deep end as people who pass themselves as Autistic infiltrate meeting groups passing themselves off as autistic and saying how their Xanga and Facebook quizes know more than medical professionals.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/ ... IA2009.pdf
http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/i ... dria-worse
http://oxfordmindfulness.org/wp-content ... riasis.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/techn ... .html?_r=0

I found it funny that webmd even wrote an article on them when they've enabled these people.

One Autism Meeting Group I was in that was a meeting in person had this one guy who suffered from this he would hijack the entire meeting proclaiming the online quiz and he doesn't need a medical professional. Go figure eventually someone had enough and he was taken away to one of the few (sadly) mental institutions. We later found out he got a dianogsis but it wasn't autism he was just passing himself off as something because the community was open enough for him but at the same time his mania got worse and didn't get the treatment he much needed.

You need to go to Autism groups that are better moderated. I have gone to groups with un and self diagnosed people and never had these issues. These groups were moderated by both Autism professionals and just autistics.

It's a trend. It's just nerdy people using autism as an excuse to show off how smart they are. I also think that some use it as a license for bad behavior as well. The bad thing about this is, is that it gives those who are really on the spectrum a bad name, and if there are benefits involved, then we're talking fraud. It's a lot like it becoming a new trend to now go out in public and push yourself around in a wheel chair and everyone starts doing it because, somehow it the "cool" to do now. Now imagine how every one who is a paraplegic must feel about that. I would be very offended at that.

If the American Psychiatric Association listens to Wrong Planet posters in the DSM 6 ASD's will not be considered a Pervasive Development Disorder but a Fictitious Disorder.

In my opinion, most of the SD folk qualify more for NPD or general psychopathy. The problem with most ASD communities is that many are overflowed with SD folk who pretty much control them and enable further people with a factitious disorder, maybe even as bad as Münchhausen syndrome to claim they have autism to get attention or sympathy. Many people on WP I doubt are actually autistic and are snowflakes or narcissists instead.

I disagree. Fictitious disorders are real, and there are fakers, fraudsters that do it for the money and attention. But I highly doubt this is nearly as widespread as is widely percieved. If you are going to fake autism to get disability benifits get you are stupid. Much better to fake a visable disabilty because it is harder to get benifits for an invisible disability that people do not understand and think is full of trendy fakers. Living with an invisable disability most of my life and getting visible ones recently I have been astounded at the difference in the way I have been treated and viewed. When I applied for disability benifits for ASD said they said you made too much money in the 1980's which proves you are not too disabled to work.,I followed the advice go to a disability lawyer and 3 of them would not even bother to take my case because I made too much money 3 decades ago and those are the rules or was it because I did not look ret*d? I reapplied after my mild stroke and got approved right away which was fortunate because the cancer that followed was not so mild.

If you are going to fake it or delude yourself to be cool and trendy like the genius aspie charactors on TV it is going to backfire on you in a world where autistic is both a popular insult and viewed as a fad. Unless you have an actual fictitious disorder you are not likely going to be a Autistic wannabee for long.

As far as my opinion from what I have seen most people here and the autism groups I attended seem to have done a lot more then reading the Wikipedia article and are probably Autistic or on the Broad Autism Phenotype which is a fancy expression for having enough autistic traits to make thier life problematic. From what I have seen
most of the people with lack of knowledge and stereotype viewes of autism has come from those wondering about somebody they know.

Perceptions real are not is what matters it will be uber harmful if when presented with autistic traits the first thing clinicians and "real autistics" think of and assume is ficticoius disorder or special snowflake. And if the perceptions are way overblown that is even worse.

So if I'm understanding correctly, this is yet another thread of the type that pops up again and again here, basically accusing people of not really having ASD or even if they have a diagnosis then it's still fake? Terrific. This is a poison running through WP that nobody here needs.

ASPartofMe, it's called factitious as fictitious implies that something is imaginary while factitious implies that someone is faking to gain attention or sympathy.

Is there much evidence that a substantial number of people are faking symptoms of autism? If someone is seeking sympathy, attention, trying to get disability benefits, etc., there are far more effective alternatives I would think.