in the past year or so 6 of my friends have claimed to have

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I'm glad I didn't have to convince myself. I don't know anyone with Aspergers. It's actually quite lonely.

They might be emphasising the "mild"-ness of their condition to head off accusations about the validity of their group identification.

They might be further from normal than they realise and mistakenly identify as "mild".

Or they might be trying to hop on whatever bandwagon people would like to believe exists. Who knows? None of us.

Who said anything about AS being an "elitist club"? I don't believe that I've ever used either of those words in WP and I certainly don't remember using the phrase here, either.

Believe me, it's a 'club' I'd rather not be a member of, given a choice. However, my neurology made that choice for me before I was born and I've spent a lifetime trying to figure out how to escape from it.

The blog mentioned in your post, Verdandi, merely leads back to information posted on WP. Therefore, there is no quality assurance - it is merely posters saying that they have self-diagnosed and then saying that they have been formally diagnosed. There is no triangulation or independent confirmation of the figures provided.

I was being sarcastic, due to the number of people laying down ground rules for how self-diagnosed autistic people should behave. I found the statement that they should keep their suspicions to themselves rather ... I don't even have a word for it. People should just come here and not talk about possibly being autistic when they don't have an official diagnosis? That's directly counter to the forum's purpose.

I have no interest in "not being a part of the club" incidentally. I am who I am, and I'm not ever going to be not autistic, so why waste my time trying to be autistic? It's not as if it makes me unhappy or depressed.



What Ettina was pointing out was that the self-diagnosed posters scored about the same or higher on the same tests as the officially diagnosed posters did. Or in other words, those numbers support their self-diagnoses as probably true.

I have noticed an something similiar to the OP. The last three places I have worked the people who have tried to befriend me have been parents of Aspie and Autie kids. Believe me, very few people try to approach me and make friends with me, so this is notable. It maybe that they just see similarities to their kids ( or themselves) in me, and they like it and are drawn to it. I worried a little that it might be a pity thing, at first; them thinking "Oh, she acts like my child and has no friends-- if she were my child, I would want someone to befriend them". But after getting to know them a little I realized that it was unfair for me to think that. They actually seem to like me (!) so maybe it's because they feel they can relate to me or like the person that I am.

If you're going to be sarcastic, at least be accurate.

I haven't seen any posts about how the self-diagnosed should behave. I have seen posts telling them, in effect, that their self-label is misleading and they shouldn't label themselves something that is based on their feelings and not on a medical diagnosis.

This issue is one of the rare times that I believe the medical model approach is appropriate.

What Ettina did a statistical analysis of is people on WP who claimed to be self-diagnosed and then claimed to have their diagnoses confirmed. There is no independent confirmation of the latter. A bit like self-diagnosis, in fact.

You haven't? Then what about this?



Did internet gnomes put that "+1" under your name?

You haven't even successfully made the case that people are self-diagnosed based on their feelings. That particular element of this discussion seems to rely almost entirely on straw men and false dichotomies, because you seem to have difficulty making an argument that self-diagnosis is so blatantly harmful without misrepresenting people who self-diagnose. You have also in some peculiar way made these claims about you and your diagnosis, and then made you and your diagnosis about everyone's diagnosis.



And now you've added the possibility that people who were self-diagnosed and then officially diagnosed might be lying because you can't confirm it. In that case, this entire argument is a waste of time because your diagnosis cannot be independently confirmed either. No one's can. We're all here either taking what other people say on faith as true, or we're not going to be able to accept anyone's diagnosis as valid.

Not that this argument wasn't already a waste of time, but now you've gone and broadly undermined your own arguments. Congratulations, "there is no spoon."

I have no noticeable sensory issues.

I do no noticeable stimming. If I try very hard, I can find a few things that just _might_ be stims.

I am generally rated "very good" at eye contact, though maybe I don't do it quite "right". I remember learning to do it. Several times.

I have my diagnosis. I didn't "seek" it, I was just going to the Mental Health Center, under the supervision of a therapist, for my prescriptions for antidepressants that I've been using for a long, long time. I knew that I was a chronic clinical depressive, with a cycle but no "high", since before the modern antidepressants existed. Anyway, my daughter got the idea that I might have Asperger's, and put a flea in the ear of the staff at the Mental Health Center, and eventually they made an appointment for me with a PhD at the State Children's Hospital, and my daughter made sure I got there. (She could have a career as a bulldozer if she put a mind to it)l

Agree totally and completely.

ha! one of these guys was a pre med student for a bit and then dropped out due to laziness and booze and said it was because of the "aspergers" yes they are socially stunted but they are stunted in every way because they are irresponsible! he also claimed the last time i saw him to have cancer... ( he does not) always something.

oh yes and they did not say anything about a formal diagnosis and i felt it was rude to ask (the irony) but these guys are full of it!

Sounds like a case of Munchausen's.