Is self-diagnosis okay/valid/a good thing?

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I can't help but think that all this self diagnoses and other who is really autistic debates is doing serious damage to a lot of people. If a person is autistic and thinks they are not autistic they still will have black and white/literal thinking. If they are failing and despite average to high IQ they will logically conclude their issue mental illness or character flaw.

Instead of wasting time denying people why not agree to disagree and the spend the time and energy to fight an issue that even the most die hard professional only people agree with, that access to professionals that have a clue is atrocious.

An issue that does not get enough attention is that adult professional diagnosis still means you are unlikely to receive quality services and getting benefits is far from guaranteed. Disability workers are not there to help you. The attitude is that you are a malingerer out to cheat hard working honest taxpayers. You must not only prove otherwise but we are going to throw as many obstacles in your way as possible.

Give me a society with access to quality diagnosis, service and benefits and I would be and emphatic no voter. Until then I vote yes, emphatingly.

** Off topic There are as bunch of threads lambasting Simon Baron Cohen and the mainstream theory that autistics lack empathy. Threads like these are not helpful this cause.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 30 Nov 2014, 5:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Self-diagnosis is okay/valid/a wonderful thing. I was diagnosed when I was 25. Thankfully, I had the out of pocket money to pay for it. However, not everyone can afford a diagnosis. Not everyone was diagnosed when they were a child because not enough was known about the AS. There are multitudes of reasons why someone is not able or willing to be diagnosed by a professional. However, as long as they are not just using their self-DX in order to act like an ass or act in a dangerous way, then I think self-dx'ers are as valid as those professionally diagnosed. I waited for two years before I went and spoke to a professional- however, they just confirmed what I myself, thought. So really, I wasted hundreds of dollars for someone to tell me what I already knew. And yeah, now I have a professional diagnosis, but I am not getting any help and my life has not at all changed since I got my DX. So really, what was the point? I knew that I had AS as a self-diagnoser, before getting a professional DX. What was the point of getting a professional DX? Apart from being "valid" in the eyes of the nay-sayers? Big whoop!

Hypothetical scenario:

Professor Hawking posts a paper in a popular magazine declaring 2+2=7.

Some choose to believe his declaration.
Time passes, and many others come to believe in the power of 2+2=7.

Years later, a poll is created in the journal, asking who believes in the power and validity of 2+2=7.
Initially, the vote seems very even.
However, many believers in the power of 2+2=7 hear of this poll, and decide to vote.
The poll becomes 90/10 in favour of the power of 2+2=7.


There are 3 possible outcomes of this poll:

1) The fundamental laws of arithmetic are altered to allow for Professor Hawking's declaration of 2+2=7. All research and discoveries - historic and present - are altered in light of Professor Hawking's discovery.

2) Arithmetic isn't altered as there isn't enough research to confirm the validity of 2+2=7, but those who choose to believe in the power and validity of 2+2=7 continue to do so, and those who believe 2+2=4 continue to do so.

3) Professor Hawking's credibility and the magazine content are questioned.

At age 43, and life on the outer reaches of society, but still scraping by, would there be a point for any formal diagnosis? It would be satisfying for me to "know" whether I fall inside or outside the (arbitrary) borders of diagnosed autism, but it would make no difference otherwise. I know that I share traits and experiences with others who are autistic, but I do not know if I have those traits to a clinical level, and I have never been able to discuss autism with anyone in real life, since no one around knows anything of autism, so I would never mention it.

What is the difference between suspecting and self-diagnosing, then, to make things clearer? Do people actually claim, in public, to be autistic?

And I voted yes, with the vaguer meaning intended, and not for going out in the media saying you have something.

This basically. Except I mean, you could say that you're suspicious... but even that doesn't mean much if you never plan to get an evaluation.

I didn't vote, because it is more complex than the poll allows for. Suspecting one is on the autism spectrum is not really debateable, as it implies a subjective and unpublicized process.
[quote]
I am curious. Why would an individual who has the confidence to self-diagnose, seek a professional diagnosis? Unless, they are seeking services? After all, don’t they already have extreme certainty in their own autism assessment?
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Many on the spectrum are literal, pattern type thinkers who have a psychological need for a professional validation.[/quote]
Agreed. Also, if a person has offspring it is then possible that more than just the individual has an interest in the results of diagnosis.

Who is pretending to be autistic to obtain benefits? How does openly identifying oneself as being on the spectrum without an official diagnosis even lead towards benefits? I'm not seeing anyone talk about forging fake documents.

Heck, where I live there are little to no benefits for adults on the spectrum. There is plenty of ignorance about ASD in my area, though.

Do I need to carry around an official diagnosis in my pocket just so people don't think I'm some fraud trying to game the system? Just kidding.

I also think it's more complex than this poll allows.

As I stated in a previous thread, I think part of the reason why this is so hotly debated is that people have different views of what autism is. This quote really demonstrates what I suspected. You see, I find comparing autism to a religion or a political affiliation, to be...um... just plain silly. Autism isn't something you can convert to or convert from, and it's not a choice. Religion can be converted to and from, and political affiliations are 100% choice. I also think it's very little like sexual orientation, because that is quite simple to determine; if you are attracted to the opposite sex, then you are homosexual. If you find social interaction difficult, then you might have autism...or you might have something else. Autism is not as simple as sexual orientation. Clearly, if someone thinks autism is like these things, then we will never agree on self-diagnosis, but our real debate here is actually over what autism IS- there's an underlying problem here in understanding. Basically, I think a lot of people debating this on WP (in various threads) are debating a surface issue and ignoring a deeper issue.

(Also, I thought weightwatchers was essentially a product that you buy... you can buy "ASD products" without a diagnosis if you want too).

I don't claim to be an expert on what autism is. I don't think we really know what it is exactly, in fact, I can see validity to several different points of view on autism. But I don't think autism is something you can choose to have or not have day by day (as you can political affiliation). I hope nobody is horribly offended by that.

My examples weren't used to suggest the mutability of them or ASDs. Rather, that because they are expressed by self-identification, almost all of society accepts those expressions facially. If society is willing to accept such mundane expressions (along the lines of discussing the weather) without the sky falling down, why are so many of us debating the merits of an expectation to achieve only professional diagnoses while minimizing self diagnoses? In the absence of the tangible benefits that I described earlier or elsewhere, isn't such a debate about how many angels can dance on a pinhead? In other words, this is a meaningless dialogue insofar as those who choose self diagnoses will continue to do so unabated regardless of any opinion to the contrary.

On a certain Crohn's forum, there is a popular "Undiagnosed Club" topic consisting, pretty obviously, of people who haven't been diagnosed with Crohn's. Some are in the process of seeking out a diagnosis. Others have exhausted every test going and still have no answers. They are as valued members of the forum as anybody else; in fact one of them is a moderator. And another guy is an admin: he does have a diagnosis, though, it just isn't Crohn's disease. (It's slightly akin to having ADHD instead of autism, or whatever.)

But the one thing they don't do is self-diagnose as having Crohn's disease. If they started doing that, I suspect the tone would rapidly change.

I think the reason people see it as something different is because they think autism is not a self-identification, but something that only another person can identify you with. I totally disagree with that.

I think people who lack insight into themselves, who had to be told they are autistic and never would have realized it out otherwise, are going to have the hardest time of all understanding how someone can self-identify with it. And some possibly equate being autistic with having that lack of insight.



Yep. Yep. Yep.

What I'm getting from what you wrote is:
If someone says "I am gay," most people would accept that to be true at face value, so then why don't people also accept it at face value when someone says "I am autistic"?
If that is indeed what you meant, then that goes along with what I was saying, because to me, there's a clear answer to that question. For you, I guess there isn't. So that's still an issue of our differing perspectives of autism.
Honestly, I found it a bit difficult to understand your answer (that's not an attack btw, English is not my first language- I'm sure it's my fault) so I know it is possible I'm misunderstanding. If so, sorry, feel free to correct.


This I agree with. I think this is true of most internet debates, actually.

Well, then I will ask; why aren't self diagnoses as valid as professional diagnoses in your opinion?

Please note that the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published a study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25326256 six weeks ago about the validity of the NEO PI-R self-reported screening test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_N ... _Inventory and determined that it "predicted correlations with clinician ratings in the ASD group" causing the authors to conclude that "the present results support the use of self-reported measures when assessing adults with ASD." While this study examined only one screening test, similar screening tests might be satisfactorily accurate, too. If such screening tests are accurate when compared to professional diagnoses, why would a professional diagnosis be more valid, and why wouldn't a self diagnosis based on a similar screening test be less valid?

In other words, one screening test has been determined to be as accurate and valid as a professional diagnosis. Additional screening tests are likely to be determined as such, too. For those of us who see no harm with screening tests in helping us to determine our self diagnoses, there is now evidence that such tests might become as valid as a professional diagnosis itself. I agree wholeheartedly that all screening tests aren't equal. Each will need to be examined for its validity, like the NEO PI-R. But, it is, in my opinion, welcome news.

So, I really do wonder; why aren't self diagnoses as valid as professional diagnoses in your opinion when the opinion of at least a few researchers says that at least one is?

This paragraph is not at all condescending or presumptious.

I thought it was only old-school psychiatrists who still dismissed their unfortunate patients as "lacking insight". Good to see that spirit is still alive and kicking on WP.

I'm not presuming anything. I have seen many people here say that they did not recognize they were autistic until someone told them or suggested it to them. People have said they did not have that kind of awareness of themselves. I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't put a value judgment on it, but apparently you do.

Being autistic is associated with reduced social cognition, so it would be common for autistic people to not to suspect that they are autistic themselves.