Do self-diagnosers ruin it for the rest of us?

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*sigh* I'm not saying non-impaired autistics aren't autistic. I'm saying they're non-diagnosable. There's a difference.

"Impairment" includes having to try so hard to be normal that you burn out. It includes having to spend a great deal of effort to do something that the typical human does easily. Not having that reserve of effort left over for something else IS an impairment.

Non-disabled autistics cannot be diagnosed. Mildly disabled autistics, on the other hand, can be, and should be.

I think we're just too insistent on calling ourselves "not disabled" because the stereotype of disability is of something extreme, something that means you can't work, can't marry, can't do what you want with your life, have to be forever dependent and incapable. It's not like that. Disability is, simply, not being able to do something that is expected of the people in the society you live in.

Non-disabled autistics are the people who have the autistic cognitive style but can do the things society expects of them in ways that don't require assistance or extra effort (though they may not be the mainstream methods). They're either broader autism phenotype or a lost childhood diagnosis; either way, there's so much in common with the diagnosable autistics (and a blurry border between diagnosable and not) that if you stuck them into a random group of autistic people, you probably couldn't tell the difference until you started evaluating skill levels and matching them up with what's expected of typicals.

This isn't an analogue of the child with CP who struggles to walk; it's more like the preemie who lags behind full-term infants and catches up by kindergarten. You can't call him developmentally delayed anymore, even though he was in the past. Same goes for autistics who gain the skills they need to match up to society.

Autistics with a lost diagnosis are legitimately autistic. I don't see any logic in the notion that autism, a disorder which blends quite seamlessly into the typical, must arbitrarily end at the point where one can meet society's demands. A diagnosis, though, makes no sense; the point of a diagnosis is to categorize someone's traits so as to offer specialized education and treatment, and if no support is needed and probably never will be needed, there is no point in a diagnosis. I think maybe "self-identification" is a better term in the (probably minority) of cases where self-diagnosis is made in the absence of impairment... but then, that's splitting semantic hairs, really.

The problem isn't that non-disabled, non-diagnosable autistics exist. Of course they do. It's that the people who deal with autism don't realize this, ignore the existence of autistic diversity, and make one of two assumptions: Either all autistics who do not meet the obvious, severe stereotype are faking; or else anyone who is autistic must be of the obvious, severe, stereotypical sort, and therefore can be assumed to be whatever their idea of "disabled" is.

It's really just an extension of the same old problem--assuming that people with the same diagnosis must all have the same traits; assuming that disability is always obvious, severe, and totally incapacitating; and assuming that disability is a negative, shameful thing to be "overcome" rather than the way things just happen to be.

Put all those together, and there are only two ways to treat somebody who identifies with a label that triggers the disability stereotype: Reject the stereotype and accuse him of hypochondria or fakery, or else accept the stereotype and saddle him with all the object-of-pity assumptions that come with it.

Nobody seems to realize that we can just dump the disability stereotype altogether.

fine tuning is hard with a small knob i guess.[/quote]


my only skill in life is spotting a good inuendo , its supposed to be a totally un aspie thing .

You mean actually getting somewhere in the way of advocacy rather than spending all our time on fighting each other or yelling at people who are so set in their ways that they'll never listen? I don't know, really.

I may have ideas if I had any clue what it was we were talking about.

"Do self-diagnosers ruin it for the rest of us?"

Nah, ... in some states and countries it can be next to impossible to get a real diagnosis done.

I actually had to diagnose myself before I got my official diagnosis, because I didn't have enough money to pay for the real thing. So it wasn't until after I had confirmed in every way that I do in fact have Asperger's Syndrome, that I went and got a diagnosis made at the highest expertise in the field that we have in my country.
They had no problem finding out that I do indeed have AS.

But even so I had to fight for another few years before I finally succeeded in having my diagnosis made official ... that is, before the state accepted the diagnosis made by the head psychiatrist who made it (and who is the leading expert in the field of Asperger's Syndrome not only in my country, not only in Scandinavia, but in Europe)!

So I was self-diagnosed for some years before I officially was recognized for being a person with Asperger's Syndrome.

Yet, I am one of the lucky ones around here (my end of the world: Scandinavia). Most people wouldn't have neither the stamina, nor the luck(, nor the IQ ... we don't all have 148+ IQ, even if we tend to be highly intelligent). - And I haven't even
mentioned all the factors that aren't easily cotegorized.

.......

Yeah, I definitely understand why people feel the need to diagnose themselves.
Getting an official diagnosis can be very costly, and living with AS but not having the understanding that comes with having an official diagnosis from at least some of your surroundings - means a lot. The next best thing is Knowing in and with yourself!


Having official recognition may in fact even mean more to people with AS than it would to an NT.
We often fight with self-understanding and perception of traits within ourselves.
An example of this is how many of us seem to "adopt" mimics and mannerisms from our surroundings, and yet we don't feel those traits represent us. (those of you who haven't come across this "specialty" with people who hav AS might want to read a short autobiographic article by the world famous music critic Tim Page:

Parallel Play [<- klick!]

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How should self-diagnosing people hurt us?

Have any of you met a self-diagnosed person who did not have Asperger's Syndrome after all, but who fooled you to think they did?

Another thing: Which of our precious privileges should we be afraid to share? ...

I have also met very vicious people with bizarre seemingly contradictory beliefs. And some if the nastiest are ones who think disabled people are pure, sweet, uncomplaining, unbearably passive, almost holy or saintlike, people. Then if you contradict them you aren't like the real disabled people. And the ones they say are real are either crushed into passivity, or else unable to contradict this saintlike view of them. The reality is nobody is really like that but if you dare to say that around these people they will rip you a new one. I once encountered a mother of a supposedly saintly innocent daughter, who got so vicious to me that she was thrown off a mailing list that had never had to throw anyone off before. And at one point she seemed to want me to absolve her of everything she ever did wrong to her daughter, at another point she accused me of psychic attack, it was so weird and over the top. But I've noticed people with that view to be amazingly vicious when provoked and it takes very little to provoke them.