This is getting annoying, really annoying.

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there are a lot of diagnosed users on here,can think of many,diagnosed users arent going to make it obvious if they are diagnosed as theyve had it proved,self diagnosed users are treated worser off here so they have to constantly say they are self diagnosed,there are the users who post as if they are diagnosed and try to speak for the entire spectrum,but there are also users here who do not state they have an ASD,they describe their difficulties and traits instead-as no one can say they do not have those even if they do not have the label.

for many adult undiagnosed spectrumers,often the only way to diagnosis is through self diagnosis,many will go on to get assessed,those who dont-probably dont need it.

this s a good siscussion.


lets analyse it a little deeper.

1. there is no objective diagnostic test for AS.

so an official diagnosis is someones subjective opinion, and these people are usually psychologists.

does this invalidate someone from self diagnosing?

no it doesnt invalidate your opinion, it is after all your opinion. however it could be wrong and this is where i would have some concerns.

because there is no objective test for AS and because there are 3 main characteristic criteria for diagnosis . ( social comm, social interaction, theory of mind)
it is likely to attract people who suspect they have AS......but dont.

there ar similarities between AS, schizotypal, schizophrenia and then there are co-morbid conditions associated with AS
depression, self stim behaviour, social isolation, meltdowsn and aggressive behaviour etc.

it is , in my unqualified opinion , more harmfull for someone who doesnt have AS to think that they do have AS.

than it is for someone with AS to not know they have AS.

point being.


you could think you have AS but have something else. you could rationalise, validate and explain yourself through an incorrect self diagnosis .

you could deny yourself the benefit of assistance geared toward your diagnosis, which isnt necessarily AS.


As well......a lot of people will have a mid life crisis, a nervous breakdown, have a marital break up, start drinking alcohol,
get bitten by the dog, have their house burn down, lose their job, gamble away all thei money, get hooked on heroin
and blame AS.....as it gives an easy out, it is somethign to blame, it fits most things.....it works, let sblame AS for all my troubles....it is a cop out.


there is a risk of too easily embracing a self diagnosis of AS to explain everything, adapt a martyr/victim mentality and not work out what are the real issues.


It is also possible to self diagnose accurately.

until an objective test is discovered this debate will never end.

i hope i have communicated in a manner that is not offensive to self diagnosed As here.
it is my observation and if i have offended i will always apologise.

I have no problem with the self diagnosed unless they are really young. If they are having problems and are really young their parents should intervene medically and find out why.

Self diagnosed/undiagnosed is an option, nothing wrong with checking it if that is what you are.
This sounds like elitism.

If you go to the homepage of the website, it gives the longer statement: "Wrong Planet is the web community designed for individuals (and parents of those) with Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, ADHD, PDDs, and other neurological differences."

I don't see why it would bother you. I did eventually get diagnosed, but I knew I had it long before that. I don't think this is something that isn't self-diagnosable. I'd go so far as to say it's pretty obvious when someone thinks they have aspergers, because when you're socially different and are treated that way you're whole life you *know* something isn't right. Then you find those self-quizzes and researching it, it's like a breakthrough. That's how it was for me.

actually I think the OP just wanted to yank our chains.

Meowpurr hasn't even been back to comment.


Merle

wow... That won't happen, becasue this isn't a contest or an all out "let's impress Meowpurr" web sight! You will just have to deal with it! I am going to keep calling myself an aspie because I am one.



*sarcasum* oh no.. that would never have crossed my mind...

No Comment.

I don't think there is anything wrong with it to diagnose yourself and if you feel its quite true. If you read about it and keep saying "yeah thats me, that is so me" then at least you can have an explanation. I wasn't sure if I really had it because of my history with delayed speech but I knew I was always under the spectrum even before officially getting dx'ed.

I somewhat agree, it just gets really tiresome to have to say "I know I'm not officially diagnosed" on every post. It's like saying "I know my opinion's not really worth anything, but..."

You can look at the profile and find out for yourself if someone's DX'ed. And make your own assumptions. I was honest in several posts and I'm tired of giving the disclaimer. Maybe I'll get DX'ed when I get insurance that will pay for it. If it will give my opinion and experience more validity.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, & I feel I am definitely entitled to mine! I haven't been officially diagnosed. But then again, every time I go to a shrink, they can see that there is something "off/different" with me, but can't explain what "it" is or why. I'm 46, these aren't new symptoms that I just recently discovered (or want to jump on a bandwagon because I like the name or whatever), but a lifelong issue that manifests itself whenever it chooses. People just don't know what to make of my behavior. Neither do I, but I have no choice but to live with the quirks that I have been given.

I just want to be able to put a name to the behaviors...so I can learn better to cope with myself. I don't care what anyone else thinks. i don't care if they know or don't know about Aspergers or Autism. What I do care about is learning to live in peace with myself! Because it's really difficult to like the reflection I see in the mirror, when so many people have made cruel assessments about me without getting to know the person behind the behaviors. I became quite the expert in self-loathing because of all the abuse/name calling I endured caused by my behaviors. This has been a driving factor in learning more about Aspergers. I have also checked out other psychological profiles as well. This is the first time in my life I have a name to go with my quirks. It makes sense & the more I discover, the more likely it seems. However, getting a diagnosis at 46 is not an easy task because a lot of shrinks still don't recognize it or they think it's something one outgrows as one matures. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, eats or sleeps like a duck, what else could it possibly be other than a duck?

It would be nice and courteous if everybody always qualified their declarations of having AS or not, but I agree it's not going to happen.

I've taken to simply clicking on the poster's name when they've mentioned having any NT-like ability, to see if they're diagnosed - if they are, it adds some weight to the notion that Aspies have that ability, though I agree it makes little difference given the subjective nature of the whole question. But then, I'm quite accustomed to my brain saying "sez you" whenever anybody makes any kind of claim, so I don't feel annoyed if it turns out they're wrong.

Anybody else think the "am I or aren't I" question is strikingly akin to religion, in that you can't prove it and ultimately it's a matter of faith?

Somewhat. I am not certain I trust the opinion of psychiatrists. Many, in the United States at least, are pharma-pushers. When I saw the psych that prescribed me SSRIs, the entire interview lasted about 10 minutes before he handed me a script. I fully believe that if there were a pharmaceutical specifically marketed for AS, and I walked into his office parroting what the "talk to your doctor about Pharma-stim" commercial told me to say, he would have DX'ed me as AS in 10 miutes or less. Doctors are fallible, too. So the faith question applies here - how much faith do you have in the psychiatric profession vs. your own opinion.

On the other hand, it is helpful to have a second set of eyes. Someone whom the subject trusts to have an informed and objective opinion.

I think, although diagnosis is ultimately subjective, the criteria are immutable, although expressed differently in different siutations, and often compensated for in later life. So I guess it's possible to have an actual diagnosis, from someone who understands the condition. I would imagine DX of Aspergers is more of an interpersonal art, or trained observation, like the way security can spot someone who isn't supposed to be in a certain area, or the way "body language experts" are trained by the CIA to recognize when someone is lying.

What was the eye-roll for? Was it my post right above this, the original post, or the entire thread?

Last edited by patternist on 02 Oct 2008, 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

People should not have to pay money to have valid opinions. And making it so that only the opinions of officially diagnosed people are valid, inevitably gives validity to a few who are privileged more by where and when they were born, who they were born to, and other factors like that, while excluding validity from people whose only difference from the diagnosed is quite frequently that they were not born to a certain time, place, social class, whatever, that makes diagnosis easier. Not to mention that those who are undiagnosed often have really good reasons for being unable or unwilling to see a doctor (how many autistic people are doctor-phobic? I'd imagine, a lot).

And that strikes me as far more unfair to far more people, than it would be if people just didn't have to qualify their opinions. It harms far more people to create a caste system in the autistic community than it does to accept that some people can get diagnosed and some people can't and that this doesn't mean the two sets of people are different from each other.

And I'm saying this as a diagnosed person. I don't feel in the least bit threatened by the fact that some people who are just as autistic as I am don't have a diagnosis. And I think the practice of either questioning people because they're self-diagnosed, or questioning the diagnosis of those of us who are diagnosed, in order to refute our opinions, is not only a copout, but utterly toxic to any community it takes place in. It drives an invisible wedge between people who could otherwise connect, it turns legitimate debates into ad hominem arguments, it creates distrust where none is warranted, it creates that pointless caste system I mentioned, it just wreaks so much destruction that any problems it purports to solve pale in comparison.

And yes -- asking people to qualify their opinions gets degrading after awhile. "I'm not diagnosed, but...". "I'm so high-functioning, but...". "I'm only an aspie, but...". It reads like an unfortunate result of disguised lower-functioning-than-thou snobbery to me. People shouldn't have to put timid little disclaimers before everything they write, and as other people have mentioned, they can just check the profile. Talk about "getting annoying, really annoying"!

I've already written at length in other posts about the problems that self-diagnosed people face, and I won't again, but they are just as numerous as any of the rest of us, and in some areas more numerous because it's harder for them to get help when they need it. And those who think getting a diagnosis is "easy" clearly are speaking from a place of largely-unacknowledged privilege in comparison to those who can't easily get one. Plus I really don't think the medical community ought to determine who is and isn't a member of the autistic community (which has a ton of non-autistic members anyway).