My new theory on self diagnosed autistics

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I think the is an important point he made in terms of noticing a trend in those who claim to be self diagnosed for a long period of time. When I refer to people who are 'self diagnosed' to get part of my prospective I am not referring to people who think they are Autistic but are not sure yet or the people actively trying to get answers to their questions and want to seek a 'diagnosis' simply can't afford it or do not have insurance or live in a Socialized Free Healthcare society which means years of waiting unless you pay to jump the line.

I am referring to the people who don't care about getting a professional diagnosis from a doctor because they know.

So this adds yet another group of people.

*People who feel aged out and don't think its worth it to get a diagnosis
*People are old enough feel they researched enough information and thus they will use the label because they can though its not official



Agreed, some people are like myself and fit the sub-type of, 'The Actor' or 'Pretender' and unknowingly and sometimes knowingly try to navigate the world using complex scripts and scenarios you have created for certain situations.

Though though we may look 'less autistic' and can train ourselves to look people in the eyes for a while sometimes things don't go as planned. Such as staring, and forgetting to change facial expressions to fit the emotion you're trying to convey

So OP, would you want to see formal diagnosis of ASDs made similar to copyright law, i.e. illegal for anyone to apply to themselves except with specific, formal clinician authorisation? And/or used in the same way that a driving licence validates who is qualified to drive? You could carry an autism licence, proving your status?

What do you see as the solution to what you define as such a big problem?

People may see a psychologist if they have problems functioning in their lives, then the psychologist notices that they seem to have autistic traits, then they are assessed and diagnosed, but often assessment includes also ruling out other disorders, and also psychologists and patients can decide together if diagnosis is needed for future functioning like supports, and this was how I was diagnosed, not from seeing signs myself, but from having some problems that I didn't understand what caused them or how to overcome, then my parents encouraged me to see psychologist to work through any issues I might have, but neither I or they understood what those were.

I just don't understand the purpose of the thread.

Has it been designed so that people feel obligated to prove themselves beyond reasonable doubt that they have autism?

Does the OP/Theorist wish to discuss his hypothesis so he can then take it to the next level? (wherever that may be)

Is it to cause contention?

OP, I am sure that you mean well by your theory and I don't really think that you have designed the thread to cause contention but I am struggling to find any kind of rhyme or reason behind it all.

The fallacy here is that a diagnosis doesn't mean you have an ASD.

I am diagnosed by many doctors, however, I think I could just have non-specific brain damage.

There's a real shake-up going on in psychology right now. For a long time they (the psychologists) have tried to categorize people based on signs and symptoms with no knowledge of the underlying cause. We're just starting to develop techniques to look into peoples brains and see the real differences. What we seem to be finding is that the old pigeon holes don't necessarily map to reality. It's probably closer to reality to say that our consciousness is made up of a complex collection of modules. Some modules can be over-expressed, or under-expressed, or missing, or not communicating properly with each other. The old pigeon-holes start to break down when you try to find underlying causes and discover that there's more than one path to a given diagnosis.

Even the "gold standard" of the DSM is highly suspect now.
http://www.garygreenbergonline.com/pages/currentbook.php

There are probably 100's of separate conditions that fall under the "Autism" umbrella. As they get teased apart, there's undoubtedly going to be similar arguments hear (and in the psychological community) of whether they get to stay "Autism" or whether some new person get's to stick their name on it.

Really? Parents pushing their children to be diagnosed? Are you effing insane? Most of the parents I meet are in utter denial. There are SO many kids still not getting diagnosed, I know quite a few who are older and not diagnosed and a LOT of really obvious ones that weren't "caught" until age 5 or so. A lot of parents DON'T want a label on their child so they do everything they can to avoid it (my nephew... his parents just moved him from school, to school, to school... then when he'd been booted out of every school in the district they MOVED and started over). My oldest daughter Showed signs really young but getting anyone to pay attention to my concerns was IMPOSSIBLE because she was verbal. When I finally went around the pediatrician and scheduled something on my own they were in shock that she had gotten to age 5 without a diagnosis because it was blazingly obvious. Getting a diagnosis for children is difficult and the places I've been it is NOT handed out like candy and they will send you packing if they think your child is NT or has something else going on other than ASD.

If a parent is "pushing" for a DX it's because something is hinky with their kid. No one takes a kid with no issues and pushes for a DX. Give me a break.

This is a really good point. We went through this too...not refusing to get our son DXd (at all - we started assessments at the Regional Center when he was 21 months old), but we clung right down to the last crumb to "other" possibilities simply because the DX of autism sounded so terrifying and we worried for his future. Parents spend a pregnancy wondering whose eyes the child will have, whether he'll be verbal like Mom, musical like Dad, cute fun play dates and Hallmark Christmases. No parent I have ever met in my life patted Mom's tummy and said, "And darling...I hope our child will have a permanent condition which will cause meltdowns everywhere we go, make the child feel pain from noises and sounds, and amount to hours per week of expensive and difficult therapies, years of special ed while all our friends are posting on Facebook about their "amazingly bright!" child's latest achievement, possibly include co-morbidities such as anxiety, depression and learning disabilities which may lower his/her self esteem despite out best efforts to make her love herself and see her worth, and will have our child in special ed in the little room waaaaaaaaaaaaaay at the back of the school out of sight of the 'normal kids'....(happy sigh)".

When my son was initially DXd PDD-NOS we clung to that like a life raft: "Oh, that means that with help, he'll catch up." Most parents I know went through similar psychological self-torture. No parent "pushes" to have one's child DXd with a permanent disability (or what is considered a disability, especially when you're new to it all and don't have much information yet). No parent wants to have to face that his/her child, for whom the parents had such big hopes and dreams, has a brain which will never function in a way that will make it "easy" for him/her in society. Actually, for many parents, initially, it's devastating, literally devastating. So devastating, in fact, that depression and other issues among the parents are common and divorce rates among parents of special needs people are higher than the general population.

And as stated, even if facing actual issues, parents don't want "the label" which will follow the child through his/her entire school career at the very least, will "keep" the child in special ed even as the parent is hoping and pushing for more inclusion and so on.

Parents fight, argue, bicker over who "caused" the autism, "blame" themselves (sometimes rightly - in my case, certainly; I am OTS but did not realize it, or I knew something was very very significantly different but didn't realize the cause), spend nights crying because their child is being bullied for being "different" and feel that being in special ed only compounds that and pray nightly for some sort of miracle to occur so the child doesn't have to go through that torture from the standard ed kids any more, desperately point out to each other all the way their child seems "so normal," scour the internet for "miracle stories," become curebies in their quest for their child not to be autistic. (Not all parents by any means, just want to clarify that....but many...there are entire forums dedicated to "curing" a child's autism...as I think we all know.)

So, "pushing for" confirmation of that? I am really not buying that. At all.

My story, too. On the advice of a psychiatrist who was anti-label, we resisted pressure from the school to get an assessment. Once I began to accept what they were saying, and we allowed them to coerce us into the assessment that led to our son's ASD diagnosis, it was impossible to consider why and what it meant without recognizing the same symptoms in myself.

When I first came here I was wanting to know how common misdiagnoses are because we wanted to believe this was one.

We were dragged into it and didn't want to know. I think this kind of denial is not at all unusual.

Well it doesn't really matter too much to me IRL if the OP comes to agree or not, but I figure it's still a thread on self diagnoses so might as well share my experience that's contrary to what the OP suggests goes on in the minds of the self diagnosed.

I know what my experience was and so I know how it is to grow up knowing something you can't quite figure out makes you different from everyone else not just in the sense of having different interests or your own personality. I used to wonder if I was dropped off by aliens, once when my mom wasn't home I was frantically searching in her room for any papers or documentation that I had maybe been adopted or thinking there would be records of something wrong with me that was being kept from me. I would construct all kinds of strange theories for why I felt different...as for how people treated me I mostly just wished they'd leave me alone or interact civily not give me extra attention for being unusual.

So yeah finally when I was 21 my sister mentioned aspergers and that she thought maybe I had it...finally I had an explanation. No more thoughts in the back of my mind of 'where the hell did I come from, what am I.' That is why I was self diagnosed before becoming officially diagnosed...not because I wanted an identidy to fit in with, I already considered myself a metalhead due to my obsession with metal music.

Not because I wanted attention or to be a 'special snowflake'... though maybe some acknowledgement of the real difficulties I had been aware of having since childhood. I could be dead on the streets of a drug overdose or purposeful suicide if I had continued my self blame and increasing self loathing of everything that had gone wrong in my life. I was convinced I was just a no good degenerate and I didn't care about what happened to me really. And even after the knowledge I had aspergers and my official diagnoses I still struggled with those feelings but it has been gradually improving. All because I decided I had aspergers, I wouldn't have bothered seeing a professional diagnoser if I thought maybe I might have aspergers.

That is why I don't want to discourage self diagnoses, if it might give others the enlightenment that they aren't such a no good degenerate after all. Not to say everyone who self diagnoses feels that way...but I doubt I am the only one.

No it was not.

And where do you get that the self diagnosed feel no one can tell them differently about having autism? That certainly wasn't my attitude if it really was something else I wanted to know which also factored into my going to be evaluated for diagnoses.

As for Post Traumatic Stress disorder, perhaps you shouldn't try to speak for people with that either...it's more like aimlessly not latching onto anything even if you would like to participate.

Fight Club actually had support group tourism...they pretended to have the disability/illness to go to group therapy sessions but did not keep up the act outside of said groups.

Awww...thank you Sweeleaf. I for one am very glad that you are not dead on the streets.

Was it easy for your parents to accept and understand?

You sound like you have a supportive sister there.

My feelings exactly. If the alternative to self-diagnosis is this extreme level of self-blame, then I would far rather have people 'wrongfully' guessing they're autistic and finding the courage to keep living, instead of becoming just another statistic.

Well my mom didn't want to hear it at first and even sort of got on my sister cause she thought the suggestion I had some condition would upset me...when in fact I was glad it was brought up. She did come to accept it just fine, though sometimes she seems to think I should be an open book about it but I feel that would cause people to see my identity as autism and nothing else but I don't hide it.

My dad doesn't not accept it but he doesn't really see the significance...I mean he grew up in the woods of Northern Minnesota, he accepts me and knows i struggle but the terms autism and aspergers don't mean a whole lot to him.

And yeah don't see much of my sister since she is always busy but she does try and be supportive...not so much when we were teens we didn't get along terribly but she did kind of try and get under my skin sometimes and could be inconsiderate.