Is WP attracting too many of the wrong people

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Oh, very good, dismiss the struggles of the undiagnosed as "emo". That always helps.

I'm one of the newer folks around here. I have been reading these forums for quite some time now, and only since I got my diagonises, I considered joining. That has only to do with me and my twisted set of rules how to behave and what to do. There is a fair amount of neurotypical folks around here, and more often than not, it is because of curiosity, and I find that to be very important. Even if you have no official diagnosis, it can be a place to get support, get an oppinion and to compare your own experiences with that made by others. I got my diagnosis after I suspected myself of having it, and I got it just for myself. While I do think that diagnosing yourself is your every right, if you have never spoken to a doctor, the chances that it might be something else are at least a little higher, and you might be barking up the wrong tree. In the long run, this won't do you or the people around you any good.

I for one welcome the "self diagnosed" people. As another poster pointed out, getting a diagnosis is an expensive proposition. In the Police States of America, "It will also wreck your health insurance" as Temple Grandin puts it. There are plenty of online tests that can be used to reach the conclusion of being on the autism spectrum. In Florida, there are very few services for those on the autism spectrum, and unless one is a child or is in school, there are few advantages of seeking an official diagnosis. In fact, I DISCOURAGE official diagnosis for anyone over the age of 22 simply because the disadvantages of an official diagnosis outweigh the advantages. The only reason why I was rediagnosed as an adult is simply because my autism is obvious to health professionals I deal with.

I knew all of my life that I was autistic. My mom told me so when I was a kid. I never knew what autistic meant until I started hearing about it more often in society. However, I never disclosed my autism to anyone until after I decided that it would be a good idea to educate others about autism. I was diagnosed at an early age and then again when I was older. Wrong Planet is a good resource and meeting place for all of us whether we have an official diagnoses. It is a shame that there are some that will not accept a diagnosis simply due to the fact that it hasn't been blessed by someone who has a PHD or MD after their name.

I think that a lot of people here are getting medical ethics here confused, so I think I'll throw my own weird light on it just to show how tangled this issue is.

I'm actually in a bit of a complex situation myself because I am actually dual-diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and autism, by the same doctor. However, the doctor doesn't consider my strictly speaking autistic symptoms to be severe enough to warrent giving them priority, so on paper I am actually being treated as a TS patient.

I told him that, in my non-medical opinion, I don't actually have TS at all but maybe a really weird kind of mild autism that mimics some of the symptoms of TS. I also told him that the drug that he is giving me for the TS helps with symptoms that are more related to autism and doesn't really do very much for the supposed TS stuff. I gave him a very viable argument for my case, and surprisingly he agreed with me the whole way. In fact, he explained to me that he had already observed the same things and taken due note of them, and any other professional who could access my medical history would also see that he had taken note of this. It is through these accumulated observations that researchers eventually develop new ideas. Following officially recognized and accepted diagnostic criteria, though, I'm being treated mostly for TS-related problems, even though my doctor himself realizes that the true picture is more complex.

What I gather is that, although I might have a very strong argument for saying that I have a certain disorder, I couldn't actually say on a legal document or in a resume that I have it. The reason for this is that, in a formal context, saying on a document, "I am taking a drug to help with my autism," has the connotation that I have a paper trail to back that claim up. In a court or law, the only things that are actually considered to be true are things that can be proven to the satisfaction of the court itself. Not the judge, not the people on the jury, not the prosecution, but the abstract creature that is built out of the precedents, traditions, records and laws that make up our judicial system.

Just to be clear, in our judicial system, we assume that the court is incapable of seeing anything that it is not allowed to see or evaluate according to the written laws by which we are expected to abide. If the law says that, to suffer from autism, I must have a trained and licensed medical professional pronounce me to be autistic, this is the only way that anyone in the court room is allowed to assume that the court believes I'm autistic. The judge and everyone on the jury might believe me, but they can't under some circumstances say that the court believes me, even if they themselves do.

Essentially, what this means is that you are allowed to say that you are autistic or just about anything, and nobody can accuse you of being wrong or untruthful as long as you are clear in that you are "going off the record." If you were to tell your employer, "just between you and me, I think that I have some level of autism and ask for a little understanding," you're fine. However, if you made the claim, "I'm autistic," you could end up in court over it because your employer makes the assumption, when you say something like that, that you have a paper trail to back up what you say.

Therefore, if you are "self-diagnosed" and you are really very confident in this assessment, odds are as good as any you are right. Having a disorder or the signs of a disorder is not a guarantee that you will be diagnosed with it. However, always keep in mind that it is all-important to always, ALWAYS voice the caveat that you have not been diagnosed by a trained and licensed medical professional unless you are in a strictly informal context.

Probably.

I self-diagnosed in the late 1990s, was "formally" dx'ed last year (with AS, not something else). Just didn't have a reason, as a reasonably functional adult, to go through the process until I saw a psychologist for another reason.

So, why, exactly, was I "the wrong type of person" to be here until last year? (BTW, I am qualified to dx others). Why should I be the recipient of hostility?

~Kate

I don't know if I'm Asperger or not. Probably not, however, I do fit many of the conditions described in the self tests. Having a official DX at this stage of my life wouldn't change anything. Nonetheless, I do have a son who has been diagnosed as AS. I feel I can contribute and help people here as I can relate to what many of the posters here are feeling or have experienced.