"You can't be autistic, you can speak/write/have a job"

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I'm sure there are people who are wrongly diagnosed. I'm sure there are people who have, for whatever reason, wrongly latched onto the idea that they are on the spectrum.

It doesn't matter to me. People often come to Wrong Planet to ask "Is this Asperger's?" "Am I autistic?" A common response is that it's impossible to diagnose someone over the internet. In the same way, it's impossible to undiagnose someone. I can't judge whether someone's diagnosis is genuine or not based on their posts on Wrong Planet. I can't evaluate each person on the site for signs of autism, nor can I get a full history or conduct the appropriate tests. I don't have enough evidence to decide one way or another.

Wrong Planet is a haven for autistic people. Some of us older members have spent much of our lives in confusion, wondering why we're constantly screwing up, why we can't get it together and why we're so damned tired, or some variation on that theme. People come here searching for answers, for like-minded souls, for community, for understanding, and for acceptance.

To encounter disbelief instead could be very disappointing and discouraging, especially if a person has already encountered it from family, friends and so-called experts.

Since it's very unlikely that I could pick a wrong diagnosis with absolute certainty, all I could ever do is suspect. For me, it's not worth shutting someone down based on a suspicion. For that reason, I think it's better to try to take people as they come.

Anyone who claims to be autistic take as a grain of salt. But still keep an open mind about their problems.

I think most people who diagnose themselves with autism are not doing anything like faking autism from malicious intent. Some are correct about self-diagnosis, some are not. The same for professional diagnosis, although I think the rate of misdiagnosis is much lower than in self-diagnosis. Usually, the real questionable stories are the ones in the media or on social media about FC and other communication methods that always reveal some super genius trapped inside a severely autistic, seemingly ret*d mind who learned everything by magic through years of not receiving any education at all and communicates like NT with NT desires and no sign of autism. Those are the stories I really doubt, but they attract a lot of attention in autistic community, and many people support them from wishful thinking. Also, I am skeptical of female autism, like when someone doesn't fit official criteria for autism but fits the list of female traits from rudy simone, and claim they are autistic based on that.

I've never been clear on whether you think I fall into the hypochondriac or poser category, or if the doctor who diagnosed me was mistaken.

As I recall, you and another poster were skeptical of my story because I was late diagnosed, employed, and married, even though the DSM-V does not say any of these things prevent a diagnosis. But your story didn't match my story, so you were skeptical. We may have differing levels of impairment that makes employment much more difficult for you, or maybe I've learned to do things because I'm older, or maybe I'm just lucky and met some people that gave me a chance. When I was in my twenties, the only work I could get was minimum wage jobs washing dishes and scrubbing toilets.

It would be impossible for me to have been diagnosed with Asperger's in childhood (now called "autism" in the US). The diagnosis simply was not known in the English speaking world when I was a child. If one didn't have speech delays or other severe developmental delays, an autistic diagnosis was not going to happen. You're judging older autistics/Aspergerians by an unfair, impossible standard. By the way, I was referred to a psychologist for evaluation, but he chalked my immaturity and behavioral problems up to my above average IQ. He was a professor colleague of my Mom's, though, so I don't know if he really had the clinical background to make any kind of diagnosis. My parents let the matter drop at that point, and decided I was just misbehaving and dreamy. Keep in mind our parents' generation saw things differently from yours--kids that behaved oddly were being difficult, naughty, or lazy, or were just plain stupid (or "that boy ain't right," as they say in the South). Our parents rarely went to therapists and didn't know much about psychology. Many couldn't afford it or it wasn't covered by insurance. When I got older, my official diagnosis was "PTSD" from the abuse I got as a child, and most clinicians didn't look further.

I think the more important question here is, why do you or anyone on the board care so much whether us lately-diagnosed HFAs are genuine? Why is it such a big deal? Will our using the label "autistic" cause problems for you? We're not out there taking your services or stealing your government support money (well, I'm not). I know many people need it a lot more than I do, and I value my independence. Many of us have not told anyone outside a select few. I'm just trying to find something to make the emotional pain go away.

Why do some people feel the need to "police" the WP boards and accuse or imply that other people are not legitimate? I think it's a bad idea to make judgements on people when you don't know their stories.

I'm sure you want people to give you the chance to prove yourself as worthy. Please give us the same courtesy.

I think it will be interesting to see what the (hypothetical, future) DSM-VI says about autism, 10 years from now. Autism has gone through three different definitions and criteria over the course of our lifetimes, and I think it's likely to continue to change, as it becomes better understood.

It's clear from this thread that ASD currently covers such a wide range of characteristics that even people who have been diagnosed with the condition have trouble relating to the experiences of others who fall on the other end of the spectrum. Part of me would prefer to have it broken down into two or even three separate diagnoses again, to resolve this whole issue.

What I do know is that there are those of us who have struggled miserably our whole lives, with no answers or help whatsoever - until finally Asperger's became more widely understood, and suddenly there was something to explain what we never were able find the words to explain on our own. (How do you know you suffer from alexithymia, propagnosia, sensory overload, or executive dysfunction, if these concepts have never been explained to you, and school counselors don't know to look for them?) The reason some of us were never diagnosed with anything before Aspergers is because we do not fit the criteria for the various personality disorders that might have been slapped on us. So we're just seen as troubled misfits, but with no actual diagnosis or effective therapies, until Aspergers came along.

I also suspect that our rapidly changing society might be a factor in why a child was able to function at least passably well in a 1970's rural school setting (as I did, though I failed to socialize) - but is utterly overwhelmed by adult expectations, in a loud, chaotic, overcrowded 21st century urban environment. Autistics do not cope well with change, and the world itself has changed over the past few decades, faster than we are able to keep up with it.

Another suspicion I have is that eye contact and vocal inflection are linked to dyspraxia - which I suffer from when I'm in extreme pain (I'm physically unable to focus my eyes in the right direction, or make my voice sound right) - but otherwise I can control where my eyes focus, though I still find it extremely uncomfortable to look at people, or emotionally 'bond' with them, nor do I understand facial expressions or body language.

So I'm definitely an example of someone who was deemed to have had acceptable eye contact and verbal skills as a child, and got through school by being quiet and intelligent, simply thought to be shy, though a bit of a hypochondriac, since my chronic insomnia and mysterious GI problems were not recognized as autism. But since I didn't express my feelings, no one knew that I was suicidal by age seven, drowning in a world of confusion and unrealistic expectations.

Perhaps the DSM-VI will come up with a better label for people like me. A diagnosis that will help people to understand my issues, without getting hung up by the fact that now, as an adult, I can make eye contact about 50% of the time (typically when the other person is talking, but never when I'm trying to talk) - thus disqualifying me as a 'real' autistic. Perhaps the truth is that the outdated stereotypes concerning autism have already become so firmly engrained in people's minds, that the damage cannot be undone at this point, and a completely new label is needed, that the general public can accept.

I think people may judge who is autistic based on how similar the others are to themselves, I forgot if I already posted this in this thread. I probably do it, which is why I often judge "too emo" as not autistic. It doesn't mean I am correct. A person can be "too emo" from my perspective and still be autistic, fitting the diagnostic criteria and the childhood history and being officially diagnosed. The same for any given characteristic. Someone else might think that married means not autistic, but I have met several people who are married and appear autistic.

I would say that a stereotypically autistic, nonverbal child who is screaming and head-banging in public is feeling extremely emotional. Autistics can and do experience deep emotional pain - and express it with maximum drama.

Excellent point.

It's really not easy being autistic. It takes a lot out of you sometimes.

And some of us marry people who are not exactly NT either, even if they are not ASD. My wife is ADHD, bipolar, PTSD, and transgendered. Also Buddhist, Socialist, and hard of hearing. I how many of us pair up with people who are different in some way because they appreciate us the way we are and aren't conformists themselves.

I think it is not necessary for people on wp to show how autistic they are to be taken seriously as "real" autistics.
I think it is ridiculous to go in this direction.
For HFA, one can doubt autism if they think a person has too mild traits or too many accomplishments or not enough history of problems.
For LFA, one can doubt if a person isn't just mentally ret*d instead of autistic, as MR and autism can be hard to distinguish.

What I mean by too emo is not this kind of meltdown behavior.
It is more like talking about emotions a lot in posts.

True, you're free to think whatever you like.

For example, I could think that someone who fills their signature with nonsense words is trying to 'show off' their neurodiversity because they think it's cool, and trendy. Whereas those of us who strive to use proper English might come across as more NT, because we don't think that 'quirky is cool', or use our autism as an excuse to act weird.

But there comes a point where throwing around such ignorant speculations is needlessly antagonistic and completely unproductive, benefitting no one at all.

Did you read my earlier post about how it is not necessarily correct that I think "too emo" means not autistic?
I may have the thoughts and make the judgements, but that doesn't mean my judgements are correct about the person.
My point was that I or someone else can think that any given trait is not autistic, but that doesn't mean the person with that trait is not autistic or misdiagnosed.

Exactly, I think we agree on that point. You can think something, but it doesn't make it true.

I think in future autism will be increasingly defined by the traits common in high-functioning autism.
The reason is that scientific study of autism is mostly about HFA, not LFA.
LFA is not considered pure autism since there is also intellectual disability.
As autism and other disorders are further studied, single-gene disorders that have autism-like traits but also many differences from idiopathic autism will be increasingly understood apart from autism spectrum.
Research money may go increasingly into defining behavioral/cognitive traits and their neural correlates instead of studying coherent disorders, as heterogeneity of autism spectrum is super obvious to researchers already.

Sometimes I wonder if one day we'll look back on the current definition of ASD the way we look at the 'open classroom' educational experiments of the 1970's... At the time, they thought that throwing everyone together in one big group, without having 'Advanced Placement' vs. 'Special Ed' groups was the best thing for everyone involved. And that turned out not to work so well. Could be that ASD will share the same fate - but for the moment, we're one big happy family.