REG: Self-Diagnosis is it a valid thing? (questioning psaych

Post Reply New Topic

Hi again everyone:

once again I know I'm going to attract a lot of major flamage so time to put on my asbestos dress pants once again, but please hear me out before you get out the flame throwers.

So I guess I am somewhat lucky and got the diagnosis (all be it a shot in the dark on the part of the doctor) of what was then called Asperger's disorder when I was 14 or 15 memory's a bit fuzzy right now. Fast-forward a couple of years and a new doctor says the first was a quack, fast forward six months and I'm put in the nut ward for suicidal ideations and the psych ward doctor said I don't have it. I go back home to find the label's been changed to autism. fast forward a few years and new therapist no mention of autism or aspergers. I exit the school system and new therapist aspergers returns. get hospitalized numerous times and on off on off on off with the diagnosis along with other labels. If I broke my arm no matter how many doctors I saw, they'd all come back with "broken arm" based on an X-ray. Fast forward to now (post DSM-5) and I meet the criteria for autism by my understanding of words on the page, reviewing my history, taking the neysayers with a grain of salt and doing an online screening tool just for fun so i have another data point to work off of.

With all of that in mind, what do you think of these people who self-diagnose themselves with ASD or other mental conditions based on one or more online assessment tools that took them 10-60 minutes to complete? I'd say for me the screening tool confirmed what all the doctors who said I had it said along with personal experience. To play devil's advocate here on the part of those who self-diagnose, getting an autism diagnosis in adulthood is pretty dang hard and expensive from what I've been told by a number of co-workers and even my fiancee who would like to confirm what they think might be why they are so different.

I believe that the field of psychiatry because of their inconsistent labeling practices for myself, family members, friends and some co-workers needs to be cleaned up and is committing fraud. Going back to the broken arm example, if a medical doctor billed my insurance company for the hospital / ER visit and called it a broken arm they're all good, if I sought a second opinion from my primary doctor and they told me no broken arm but rather some completely unrelated medical disorder that doctor would be called into question and if enough of them did similar they'd be even more heavily regulated than they are.

What gives anyone (including psychiatrists) the right to label someone mentally ill with no objective evidence that I am currently aware of. Show me a blood test, or MRI, or other valid diagnostic instrument before you make me a physical zombie and emotionally blank with your poison you call medication "doctor so-and-so".

I know we don't fully understand the brain completely and don't have answers for what causes mental illness, but at least consistently use the labels when you do diagnose someone. 2+2 WILL ALWAYS EQUAL 4 no matter who you ask why is psychiatry exempt from this logic?

a cardiologist doesn't lock you up or take away your rights as described in my "nonverbal ways" thread, an OB/GYN doesn't lock you up or force you to undergo treatment if you don't want to, psychiatrists are the only doctor that locks people up like that. Who goes to their doctor of any sort and says "doctor please lock me up!" no one.

Now I'm not saying the meds don't help people in certain cases and psychiatry doesn't help in some limited capacity, or that it's all lies, but we clearly need more evidence and understanding of the brain.

I challenge psychiatry who thinks wiping out a person's emotions and making them a physical zombie with meds is ok to define what they mean by "better" because being emotionless and/or a zombie physically and not really experiencing life is NOT better. This reminds be of two songs, one called "Define Better" and the other called "prove it" both by Chill E.B. linked below if you're curious.

Last edited by cfleischmann on 29 Aug 2017, 7:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was rather lucky to get my diagnoses, I had some kind of weird episodes my mom worried could have been some kind of seizure or neurological issue so I got a bunch of blood tests and stuff at the Childrens Hospital, multiple times growing up and they never really found anything wrong with just some slightly unusual results that may indicate some kind of minor genetic mutation that doesn't do anything but initially they were concerned I might have or carry the genes for muscular dystrophy but that ended up not being the case so that is how I ended up going there.

Anyways though it so happened they provide services to patients up to 25 years of age. I was 24 at the time I came to suspect having aspergers, a mental health counseler I was seeing also agreed it was likely. So yeah, I was able to go there for a neurological examination to determine if I could have autism/aspergers, with little cost to me.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 29 Aug 2017, 7:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Nothing wrong with "self-diagnosis."

Autism is not the "disease of the week." It's not glamorous.

When people think they have autism, they are at least mostly right.

thanks all for the responses. valid and I say if they think they've got it right they have a very high probably of getting it right when a doctor lays down the diagnosis. I don't think I have a "disease" per se. I think I'm just wired differently than everyone else and there's nothing wrong with that. I'll never take a "cure" even if it was free of cost I appreciate my differences and do not want to be a cookie cutter of the next person like off an assembly line.

Just additional thoughts.

Self-diagnosis using the Wikipedia article or one online test is not a good idea. Autistic traits occur in many other conditions leading to the vulnerability of misdiagnoses. Also, there are the confirmation biases of wanting a diagnosis to explain things especially an explanation that says you were born this way instead of an explanation that says your character is flawed.

Knowledgeable clinicians are often unavailable for certain population demographics and professional diagnosis is sometimes prohibitively expensive. Help and accommodations are often not available for adults so some think the expense is not worth it. Some fear employers or advisories finding out about the diagnosis and using against them.

IMHO Self diagnosis is a good workaround when done thoroughly.

I know one person who has - Me

all valid and what I'm thinking on the backend of a lot of hearing people reference themselves as autistic. The words I was looking for to describe my opinion of self-diagnosis are exactly:




the reason I give the flamage disclaimer and notification of (proverbial) asbestos clothing is because I know certain opinions and statements I make can attract a lot of negative attention and/or drama that goes along with such and I'm basically saying "you do you and I'll do me, but don't attack me for simply voicing my opinion. Opinions are like eyeballs, everyone's got at least one even if it's fake."

And.....this should be considered....obtaining an adult diagnosis in the United States can be exceedingly expensive.

And there really isn't much use for such a diagnosis in many cases.

This study looked at the degree of knowledge AS people have about ASD:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5368186/

I wish more people could get a solid diagnosis early on instead of having to go through all kinds of stuff trying to figure it out for themselves.

I do too^^^^

It seems like there are so many people out there who struggle for years before finding out what caused their troubles and issues throughout their lives.

I was pretty lucky. I got an autism diagnosis before many people knew what autism was.

______________________

Precisely

When I was 21 I was having trouble with Structural Engineering and wanted testing accommodations for school. That was why I got a diagnosis

The diagnosis was not necessarily correct

The psychologist only interacts with the client a couple hours and does an IQ test

No field observation

Noone systematically sifted through the symptoms and ruled out schizophrenia or non verbal learning disability

Or anything else



UCSD did not grant me testing accommodations

The public transportation gave me a disabled bus pass

The Dept of rehab gave me services. But that meant they flapped the trap a lot at me condescendingly. Not worth much. Noone helped me find a job



She yelled at me

_________________

The DoR refused to pay for an educational program called Computer Technology Program

________________

Permanent jury duty exemption



4f from military service

But whatever

Those are neither here nor there



And not specific to autism

Mostly the advantage was that I could tell someone I got a diagnosis

But that just socially

When I was in grade 1, I was in a fairly heavy duty learning assistance program where they apparently told my parents that "I couldn't see the trees for the forest".

I ended up doing just fine in school (other than social isolation and bullying, which wasn't particularly fun) and needed no further learning assistance after that.

But I've got to wonder why, if they identified that about me in grade 1, it didn't occur to anyone that I might have Asperger's and so I didn't actually get a diagnosis until age 36...

lets get out the buses again !
(to throw some under)

lots of privilege ???

Its not particularly cheap inthe UK either it has to be said if you go private, which is what I did.

Patience they say is a vertue, seldom seen in a woman, and NEVER is a man (add ASD ) I know far too many people who were given the run around for 2-3 years. As wonderful as the NHS is, and it really is a jewel, there was no way once I was sure I was going through that, I am anxiuos enough as it is.