The Undiagnosing superpower

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Based on a few posts or casual interactions IRL a number of WP members are able to tell if somebody is not autistic. Weird because not being able to read other people well is considered a key autistic trait. Yet these real autistics have people reading abilities well above the average NT. Also weird is a lot of these same people are not to fond of retro diagnosing. May I kindly suggest people with such abilities are wasting their time on WP. There are intelligence agencies willing to pay really well for this type of ability.

Indeedy!

Or...maybe their keen diagnosing and people-reading abilities indicate -- shock -- that they themselves got a wrong diagnosis?! They just seem too good at this stuff. They can tell things from near and far! Telepathy must also not be ruled out.

Why don't you name names instead of indirectly calling people out?

People have stereotyped ideas of autistic traits, some of it accurate and some of it isn't. People also know their own experience and can try to apply that to others but there will always people that disagree and have differences.

When they begin to go from personal real life suspectees, to those on WP, they never name names, instead vaguely referring to "certain people here/certain posts here," so what's good for the goose is.....

I would also add that although it could be said that any topic is fair game to discuss, this particular theme of people with autism suspecting, accusing, insisting or simply deciding that other people with autism can't really have autism, is a particularly insidious one.

These people tend to make outright decisions: "most of them are fake." "Most of them are misdiagnosed."

Have they interviewed all these people belonging to the Most Team? These blanket speculations are thrown around here all the time.

It's not ever really a discussion that can serve any real purpose that is any good to anyone. It doesn't go to any good place. It doesn't come to any positive conclusions.

Would not so many aspies self diagnosing also be on the same level of superpower?

I mean here they are after just reading a Wikipedia article or whatever, doing what it's supposed to take a psychology degree and special training to achive.

But most amazing of all, what about all the costant amateur diagnosing of historical figures, celebrities and even fictional characters? Wow superpower indeed!

I'm being purposely sarcastic of course.

My intent was to point out how the undiagnosing people are doing the same thing as the retro and celebrity diagnosers that many of them criticize. The title for the thread was a bit of sarcasm towered people who claim Aspie "superpowers"

Self diagnosers were not the intended target because most of the posts lately and there has been a plethora of them have been about over diagnosis. From what I have seen most self disgnosers here do not fall into the I read the Wikipedia article and decided I am an Aspie genius category. If I was on Tumbler I probably would have done a similar post about them.

I did not name names because personal attacks are against the rules. Besides getting into a personal pissing match with people many of them much younger then me would distract from the point I was trying to make.

It's not the same tho, one is dead and not observable usually with only 2nd and 3rd hand accounts about their alleged traits. The purpose of 'retro-diagnosing' I think is hurtful to those on the spectrum, I don't want to hear such and such person had this in history therefor it is not a disability. Whereas here people are very much alive and somewhat observable.

Personally I too dislike the retro-diagnosing of dead celebs. I can see why it's interesting to wonder, but I think it's messed up when someone decides with any kind of certainty that this or that person was on the spectrum.

However, isn't it JUST as obnoxiously "amateur diagnosing" for people here to decide with any kind of certainty that someone else here couldn't be, even though they are "alive and somewhat observable"?

Namely because -- is anyone actually a qualified clinician when they do it here to WP members?

No. Not only are you (the general "you," the specific you to whom it may concern) not qualified to discern that, but you're also going by posts on a message board.

You can "talk about members" among yourself and gather up your "observations" all you want, but you haven't even met anyone here!!

This is THE VERY THING that drove away KingdomOfRats -- remember?
Someone with "Undiagnosing Superpower" believed -- going by KOR's posts alone -- that she couldn't be as severely affected as she claimed.

She is/was, and the sense of injustice caused a lot of damage to her. Be careful who you guys think you're being so discerning about.

The irony of some of you thinking you really know anything about anyone on a message board is astounding, to be honest.

You're cannot be autistic....you can be sarcastic about telepathic Aspies!

It is well known to science that autistic people cannot, possibly, make another person laugh.

In that case, you and I both will have to just tear up our reports!

duplicate post.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 01 Sep 2016, 10:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Though it has my name attached for some reason I did not write it. This recent post is the kind of thing that the OP was making fun of.

They observe that some person they met has "only a couple traits of autism" and therefore CANT really be on the autism spectrum because I (the WP member who observed them) know better than the mental healthcare worker who diagnosed that person.

Yes indeed there are folks on WP who certainly have prodigious superpowers for "undiagnosing"!

The only people I have undiagnosed were people who have abused me. I have never undiagosed any as*holes online just because they posted troll posts to me or were bullying me on a forum or harassing me or because they didn't understand my own autism traits or because they had other issues.

Of all the autism groups I have been to, the majority of them seemed normal and acted normal but I have never undiagnosed them. I took my husband to one of the potlucks and I asked him about his impression he got from the members there and he said he could tell they had it even though to me it all looked normal. So their impression of what is normal might be off.

It seems like there are four things that go on.

Self diagnosis (which I'm not agaist for the record).
Diagnosing others.
Undiagnosing self.
Undiagnsoing others.

All are based purely on guesswork. Can it be said one or two of these things is allowable and the other three or four are not? Along with it all being a matter of guesswork, it's also all a matter of opinion. Both guesswork and opinion aren't very solid things.

I think when it comes to autistic people not being able to read others, that has more to do with things like reading body language, rather than coming to a conclusion based on written information.

I once heard someone say "perception is everything". I have heard people talk about how important the impression you make on others is. How you present yourself. I have also heard that you can't please all of the people all of the time.

I think everyone is subject to being doubted and no one is immune. Even Alex Plank had his being autistic challenged right here in general discussion. If someone has challenged your being autistic, then welcome to the club. Try not to let it upset you too much, because it happens to a lot of us. If Temple Grandin can be undiagnosed, so can you, so don't take it so hard.

Now I don't have the attention span to try guessing among regular posters, who sounds like they really have autism and those who don't. A lot of what people have to say about themselves gets skipped over by me, because it's often said in a wall of text.

However when I glance at some of these "Am I autistic?" posts, which are also always a huge wall of text, I often see what appears to be someone describing themselves as mostly NT with the exception of some problems socializing and a few minor quirks. To me there should be more to a serious neurological disability than just that, or it is no longer anything serious. When people read someone basically saying there is nothing seriously wrong with them, then why wouldn't they come to the conclusion that that person might not have a serious neurological disability?

Sorry for the long post.

May I butt in? *shrug*


Even though my test result from an Aspie quiz on this very sub-forum said that,

Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 153 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 75 of 200
You are very likely neurodiverse (Aspie)

I didn't/don't translate that I actually have Autism.

I assumed the reason why I got high score was simply the traits of my personality type(ISF(T)P) have some common denominators with Autism.

For instance, ISF(T)Ps detest social-norms, need a lot of alone time, don't like to small talk, very sensitive to look, sound, taste, smell etc, cannot be forced to do something they don't like to do, follow their passions to the point to forget all other things around them.