Why Do People Hate Self-Diagnosers?

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Exactly. Some of the "autism purists" [seeing everything as black-and-white] insist that for a non-autist everything comes "naturally" but for an autist adaptation must be "done intellectually" or something of the sort. The reality is almost everyone tries to coach themselves and has issues with wondering what people are thinking/whether what they are doing is appropriate.

As such, the AS-no-AS dichotomy seems so silly given the massive amount of variability of every trait that we consider "autistic" in our society.

There is some interesting food for thought on this thread. For me it seems to be raising two key questions:

1. To what extent can we have confidence in our own self-evaluations?

I think this depends on what is being evaluated. For example, I am fairly certain that I have social difficulties because I have had a lot of feedback over the years from direct comments or the way people have behaved towards me that this is the case. I may not always know quite where I am going wrong, but I seem to be missing something. On the other hand, I am not so sure whether or not I am a "black and white thinker" because I don't think it's something you're necessarily aware of when you're doing it and I have had mixed feedback, so it's harder to tell.

2. Does increased diagnosis of people with "milder" impairments, or the acknowledgement of "successful" autistics somehow make life harder for those who are "struggling"?

This issue is not unique to autism. There has been some backlash in certain mental health circles against celebrity awareness campaigners with mental health conditions due to worry that they are placing unrealistic expectations on others with more "severe" forms of the condition (possibly leading to a loss of welfare benefits or workplace accommodations). I wonder how much foundation such worries have. It is possible they rest on a form of "black and white thinking" that is unable to consider both levels of functioning as co-existing possibilities, and I am unsure to what extent such thinking might exist within the general population.

These are just my own initial musings, I would be interested to hear others' thoughts...

Another wrinkle to that, too, is that even "successful" autistics or people with what a clinician would designate as "milder" impairments, are still actually impaired, as impairment is one of the factors in deciding to affirm an official diagnosis or deciding that the person is sub-clinical and not affected enough to be deemed officially ASD.

Even those with marriages, jobs, children etc who on paper seem to have managed to have a "normal" life, may internally have struggled also, and found the getting of any of those things in life much more of a struggle than an NT finds them to be, thus, there is still suffering, still struggle to cope with their traits and symptoms.

"Milder" is one of those terms that also causes debate here, I've noticed, as it inherently suggests "things ain't so bad!" yet at the same time even those mild impairments are actually a world of struggle for the person, and still affect their life in the criteria-listed ways (such as social impairment, sensory suffering, etc).

Of course it's "mild" compared to the more severely affected persons with classic Kanner's who may have truly dramatic struggles, so it's a relative term that has its usefulness, but still the word suggests almost a sense of "no problem" which is not the case.

Last edited by BirdInFlight on 24 Jun 2015, 5:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

The use of inverted commas was my attempt to communicate this fact while keeping to a reasonable post length

Um, no worries! I use inverted commas too, just to indicate that the word is a good shorthand for something that may have more complicated meanings.

It''s OK, just felt that clarification was needed.

It can be difficult to condense complicated thoughts into forum length posts and I get frustrated with myself when I believe that key elements have been "lost".

That's cool!

I know that inverted commas are an odd thing because sometimes they can be used in sarcasm or even in an attacking way -- for example if someone is claiming to be a talented singer and another person is mocking them for bragging and says "So how "talented" are you exactly?" It can seem snide when used a certain way.

The rest of the time though, inverted commas help acknowledge we're using terms that others but not ourselves have defined, or that we know are not the best descriptors but are all we've got to work with, etc.

This is a very good point. The term 'mild' is subjective, and thus should be used with care, not only generally but by clinicians: what might be mild for one person can actually be excruciating for another, and may also vary depending on their personal circumstances and overall health.

I think what I was trying to get at in this particular context was the very varied levels of support that may be required by individuals with the same diagnosis. So if one person with autism is able to support themselves, maybe be very successful in their chosen career, establish a circle of friends, a relationship, keep their house and financial affairs in order etc. without any external support (acknowledging this may not have been easy for them), does society therefore believe that every other autistic person should be able to achieve those same things unaided? Or are people generally more open to the idea that individuals may be affected very differently by the same diagnosis and therefore society should be willing to offer support as needed on a case by case basis?

Indeed, this is an important point you make, absolutely.

There is that danger that the mild definition causes mistaken expectations across the spectrum. I think there are still some pockets of misinformation about the range of ability in the spectrum, certainly among Joe Public. At one time even clinicians seemed to operate under an impression that there was only one "severe" level of autism; I get the impression sometimes that some of the general public may still be under that assumption, particularly when I hear of cynicism regarding Asperger's ("It's a made-up thing/ an excuse/you seem just fine" etc."

LittleBlackCat & BirdInFlight: Unfortunately a major consideration that comes into play, particularly when a diagnosis is classed as 'mild', is that of the cost of providing support. At least this is the case in the UK at the moment, where funding for mental health and disabilities in general is facing yet more cuts under the Conservative government. This underlines your excellent points about mistaken expectations and misinformation. Clinicians are under pressure from ill-informed managers and politicians not to 'over diagnose', and to lump individuals with superficially similar assessments into broad categories where support is provided according to a common average that conveniently (for NHS funding at least) ignores the many nuances and complexities of the autism spectrum.

It's often been said on WP that there is 'the autism spectrum' and the 'diagnostic autism spectrum'.

The conversatives hate the NHS and will do anything to destroy it bit by bit because it is costing them money. They want it private so they can make money. The power they have now they've in again means the NHS is probably gonna be f****d by the time the next party is in (who that'll been I don't know). Hope they stick to their claims of giving them extra funding, but again it won't make up for what they took away.

I agree, this government's vicious cuts have done and are doing deep damage.

And fixing it would cost money and they only think about the short term Nothing can get done with such top-down, short-term thinking. We need more bottom-up schemes that are sustainable for the future - what they're doing is not much, and any action they take is based on no experience but rather what they're taught should happen. And what scares me the most is UKIP's popularity of people who "want change"... it's just BNP in disguise.

Right-wing parties, who are becoming increasingly powerful across Europe at the moment, have always found any form of 'disability', particularly mental illness, to be deeply embarrassing and threatening, almost a personal insult. An extreme case of this can be found in Nazi Germany, where anyone who showed signs of mental 'abnormality' was disposed of, or at least locked away out of sight and allowed to quietly die. That this brand of social Darwinism, the 'survival of the fittest', is still alive and well is proved by the comments made by Lord Freud last year, when he suggested that those with disabilities aren't good enough for the minimum wage - and he still has his job in the Health Department.
Personally I think the next 5 years is going to see some violent protests in the UK. And a good thing, too. There have already been a few, and we're less than 2 months into the parliament.