My issue with "self diagnosis".

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Are you suggesting there's actual outrage in this thread? What am I missing?

You don't have to have the official paper from a doctor to know you're on the spectrum. I started going to asperger support groups while in the diagnosis process (ie. before getting officially diagnosed) and trust me, after my first support group meeting I was sure I was with "my kind of people". The official diagnosis is just a tool to get the support you need from the system, the important thing for being abled to see yourself as an aspie is being in the company of other aspies.

No V, I am stating anything of the sort. I'm gonna chalk it up to not being able to explain myself, and just let you know that your post was posted while I was previewing. My comments were only in regards to browndogs.

I didn't mean me specifically, I meant if there's any outrage.

Anyway, thank you for clarifying what you meant.

Actually it is the OP who seems to be outraged about people who are self-diagnosed. Personally I don't have any issue with people who wanted and could afford an official diagnosis. However I have lived all my life without a diagnosis and I don't really see at this point what difference it would make, it helps me to simply come here once in a while and communicate with people who have similar issues. Also I don't have the money to get a diagnosis (at least not at the moment), plus from what I have heard, in the US, after a diagnosis health insurance rates get higher.

I am not saying I will never get an official diagnosis, but right now it is not possible.

And I have a simple solution for you, if you feel that self-diagnosed people (like me, i.e. I am 99% certain that I have AS) are hijacking the site as you say, simply ignore us all.

OP, here.


Some of you are being incredibly over-defensive. I never once suggested that a person with official diagnosis should have any more right to post here that an undiagnosed person. I also never implied that undiagnosed people aren't autistic. In fact, I reiterated that point several times but a lot of you still chose to ignore it because you were so busy defending ... well, I don't even know what we're arguing about anymore because you've strayed so far from my original point, which wasn't the validity of "self-diagnosed" cases, but the terminology used in such cases.

Your idea for terminology was rejected when everyone scampered to dictionaries and found that you don't have to be a doctor to make a diagnosis.

Think about what you're actually suggesting: that your opinion, however carefully considered, carries as much weight as that of a professional. (Yes - I said the P word. Que the onslaught of rolly eyes emoticons). Screw the university qualifications. To hell with years of experience. In fact, whilst we're at it, why don't we just get rid of psychologists and psychiatrists altogether? They're not real doctors anyway. Actually, screw all the real doctors as well - I've read loads of books on autism and I probably know more about it than all of them put together.



ETA: And yes, you DO have to be a doctor/therapist/somebody with some kind of qualification in order to make a diagnosis. What kind of fantasy world are you living in where this isn't so? If you declare yourself to have a diagnosis of AS on some form, and they ask for confirmation, are you really going to turn around and say "errrr, the dictionary doesn't say I need a diagnosis from a doctor!" Would that ever work in real life?
I never said the system is perfect. But it is how it is.

The system where you need official diagnosis for medication, benefits and such, isn't the same system you use for communication and support. Wrongplanet is one kind, your government and doctors are the other. You can see that?

Self-diagnosis can be better or worse than professional diagnosis. That is an inescapable conclusion of this thread. Have you read the thread?

It should probably be pointed out that the majority of the posts you're referring to weren't directed at you. We're reiterating a conversation that we've had multiple times in the past, and will likely have multiple times in the future. If you bring up self-diagnosis and you suggest that people who are self-diagnosed should only describe themselves in a short list of circumscribed ways, then this conversation is going to happen and the thread will drift into this other topic (the validity of self-diagnosis). Especially since you did in fact call the validity of self-diagnosis into question and asserted that diagnosis can only be done by a professional, which is plainly false.

Now you know.

As for defensiveness, I have been finding that it's pretty useless to invoke in an argument. What does it really mean? What are you trying to say when you're telling someone that they're being defensive? I am not even sure that anyone knows what defensiveness is since it seems to be invoked during any disagreement, regardless of the emotions displayed or expressed during the argument. But really, what do you expect when you have a handful of posters doing everything from telling people that their self-diagnoses must be a matter of faith because it wasn't done by a professional to someone who says that self-diagnosed Aspies don't even belong on this forum because they talk about things he doesn't care about? Is it wrong for people to say, "Hold up, this is what self-diagnosis actually was for me?" Is it wrong for people to get frustrated after making numerous arguments to see those same posters come back and hold exactly the same line, not conceding an inch or acknowledging anything that was being said?



That is not what he is saying. He is saying that you do not need to be a professional to identify a problem and give it a name - in other words, to diagnose it. My mother diagnosed my fibromyalgia before I had it officially diagnosed. I diagnosed my own ADHD and autism before both were officially diagnosed. I diagnosed myself with a headache a couple of days ago because I've had headaches like that all my life. I diagnosed myself with a migraine a week or so ago because I've had migraines my entire life.

What you just posted is called a "slippery slope." It's actually a logical fallacy:

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/slipslop.html

That people can correctly diagnose themselves in no way invalidates professionals' education or careers. It simply means that people can correctly diagnose themselves. No one is guaranteed to be correct with any particular diagnosis - last summer I thought I had the flu when I was actually having a headache and a fibro flare - which feels very much like the early stages of a flu, sans fever. But the possibility of being wrong does not mean "Don't ever do this," or "if you do this, bad things will happen." It simply means that one should at least be skeptical of their own assumptions.

Anyway, fraac is correct, what you said about what diagnosis means was debunked several pages back. The thread then moved on to other related topics, as I said above.



Actually, it's not.

If you want to receive disability benefits, receive accommodations in school or work, if you want to get access to developmental disability services, if you want to access benefits in general, all of which require bureaucracy and documentation, you need an official diagnosis. You are correct about this. What you seem to be confused about is the assumption that anyone who diagnoses themselves seems to believe that this is identical to an official diagnosis. I can't tell whether you actually believe anyone has said this (spoilers: they haven't) or whether you're just straw manning the argument.

To have a conversation on the internet, to look for support, to compare notes, to offer support, to exchange information, to try to understand whether one's belief that one might be autistic is accurate, you don't need an official diagnosis. You just need to be able to talk to people, and no one has to present their official diagnosis credentials to have an informal conversation.

This does make a lot of sense, thank you for clarifying.

I seem to have inadvertently opened a can of worms and I don't think either side will ever "win" this "is self-diagnosis valid?" argument, and to argue further would be pointless.
No hard feelings, I hope.

I want to keep fighting.

No hard feelings from me.

The thread will wind down in the next couple of days, though, and then get resurrected in two years for another round.

You tell me. Self-diagnosis often leads to self-treatment, or else why self-diagnose in the first place?

Seriously? You can not think of a single OTHER reason people may want to self diagnose? I can give you a hint... read people replies. They offer lists of other reasons.

Oh no I am open to the idea my self diagnosis could be wrong, that must mean its impossible for me to be on the spectrum .....I do not think never being open to any other ideas is a diagnostic criteria for having AS.