"Autism Self-Diagnosis Is Not Special Snowflake Syndrome"

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Aspergers and driving UK

The operative phrase is.... You must tell DVLA if you have Asperger syndrome and it affects your driving. If it doesn't effect your driving you don't need to inform them.

I've not had any problems with driving. I asked the psychologist and she says none of the adults she's diagnosed who drive have had any problems with the DVLA.

It has a lot to do with the difference between allopathic vs. holistic medicine. Allopathy looks at each problem separately rather than interrelated. Holistic medicine considers the whole person, body, mind, emotions and spirit, and the environment around them, and looks at multiple issues as being interrelated rather than separate.

Allopathic medicine is evidence-based, so it relies heavily on test results, and they will want to test primarily for conditions that have evidence-based treatments (things like drugs or surgery that have direct physical results.) They prefer to test for things they can treat, and treat things for things that will show obvious evidence of whether the treatment is working or not.

Emotional, social, and psychological issues usually don't have concrete, physical, objective evidence-based tests, but they do have some evidence-based treatments available (these days, mainly medication, thankfully not lobotomy or shock treatments). So in this case they will use the treatment as the test, and the person's response to the treatment is viewed as the test result.

Allopathic medicine is oriented around opposites, meaning they want to produce conditions that will oppose or counteract whatever is seen as problematic. In other words, if a person seems depressed, they just want to create a condition as soon as possible that is the opposite of being depressed (happier, more energetic, etc.) Medication is seen as the most direct, objective, evidence-based path to getting the result they want. Typically the only time they will be willing to investigate further is when the most convenient treatments don't produce the expected result.

Autism doesn't have any specific, concrete physical test OR treatment, so it just doesn't fit into their model of how diagnosis and treatment is supposed to work. They don't see the purpose in testing adults for it, because they think there is probably no real concrete evidence that you have it or not anyway. They also think, no matter what you are diagnosed with, in the end they are just going to treat symptoms anyway, like anxiety or depression or other mood issues that can be managed with medication.

Western society is deeply influenced by the evidence-based philosophy of allopathic medicine. It's very pervasive, so the average person who has never been to medical school is still likely to have been strongly influenced by this way of thinking. And people who have a materialistic mindset in general are suspicious of things that do not have concrete physical evidence. As long as there is no physical test for autism, it will continue to be a controversial diagnosis.

Thanks dianthus - that really helps me to understand the situation better!

Well-said - that's exactly why I've been thinking of getting one.



Tried that - didn't work.



Makes sense - or, to put it another way, "when everyone is super, no one will be."
Seriously, that does make it difficult for those of us who actually do have AS but don't have access to an official diagnosis, for reasons already discussed.

So I've spent a nontrivial amount of time on tumblr and what you describe here doesn't actually remotely describe what tumblr is like, what self-diagnosed autistic people are like, or what so-called "social justice warriors" are like.

Like I wrote earlier in the thread, complaining about tumblr is like

That was funny Verdandi. This sad attempt to scapegoat/blame "the self-diagnosed" for people not understanding autism, always ignores the huge fact that the misunderstanding of autism has always existed: self-diagnosis didn't cause this long history of misunderstanding. Lack of accurate awareness about the reality of spectrum characteristics causes it.

We know that the neuronormative will always judge things by neuronormative standards; blaming the self-diagnosed for neuronormative habits is just reactionary and misguided to my way of thinking.

Second only to neuronormative prejudice, the next biggest factor in the misunderstanding of ASD people (diagnosed or not) is the relentless propaganda and hate speech disseminated to the general public by hate outfits like Autism Speaks, not the self-diagnosed, though the blaming the latter may feel very self-justifying for some I suppose.

I have found everybody will judge any and all situations based on their experiences. It is natural for people to assume that their experience is representative of the general population at large.

As we self-diagnose and then get proper diagnoses (For those of us that follow through), we actually learn just how different we are and how much our experience is different. We don't have that illusion of 'sameness' or 'belonging' that they can experience.

Not so sure about Autism Speaks or how they are a hate group. But as I have learned about this (And realize that I am only a few weeks into finding out about things) what Autism is. For the general population at large, Autism is still represented by the idea that anybody Autistic is sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth, cut off from the world completely.

Like some here have already posted, the special snowflake syndrome makes no sense to me. We were taught that all snowflakes are unique, so to be a special one, isn't possible. You'd be different, just like all the others.

Self diagnosis, I think has a lot to do with where you live, or what your income is. There are people in the United States who can't even go to the dentist to get an infected tooth pulled, so they certainly can't afford the luxury of going and getting a diagnosis for autism.

I think if someone is claiming to have autism, when they don't, because they want attention, I have to stop and wonder what else is going on there. While it might not be autism, I don't know why someone would do that, unless they were having other issues. Maybe it's confusion, or needing attention? I really don't know. As I've said before.. They aren't doctors, but neither are we.

I think the best you can do, if you know someone like this, is suggest, in a nice way, that they see a professional and find out what is really wrong. I have suggested this to someone before, because the things she was claiming to have, didn't add up, but I could tell she was struggling and hurting, for reasons she didn't understand. It's a big, confusing world out there.

Seems to me that "Special Snowflake" is an actually good name. Since all snowflakes are (by theory, because they actually did capture two exact identical snowflakes once) unique, hence all are 'special', then the need to be "MORE" special could point to something else entirely as you said.

Oddly enough though, as I play with the concept in my head, and apply a bit of reverse syllogism here: A) if all snowflakes are special (B) And all snowflakes are therefore the same (C) therefore, All snowflakes are NOT special since they are all the same.

What a tortured place my brain is, eh?

But, getting to the part about pointing to something different. That's the reason I want to be diagnosed. I need to know if this is what I am dealing with or, maybe something else that might be able to be treated in a different way. If I am ASD, then, I want to know what I can do about it.



I can't understand Munchhausen Syndrome either. That just seems like needing attention to a very, very strange level. There are things people will always do in the population at large that just baffle me. I can't even approach it logically. And, I think you gave your friend good advice. The need to really understand what is going on is most valuable. Can't do anything about anything if you don't know what you're dealing with.

Edit: To be clear, I am just using Munchhausen as an example of something even more extreme I don't understand.

I can't understand Munchhausen Syndrome, either.. or anything else that I don't have. I do understand autism, ptsd, anxiety, and depression, because I have those. And I get frustrated because many around me can't understand those. This is why I try so hard to at least offer compassion to those that I can't understand. I wish that more people would, because it does bother me to see all the harassment and new terms that people keep coming up with to mock others, rather than leave them alone, or offer helpful advice.

I do understand that some people can be overbearing and we can't carry that weight for them, especially online. And that we have to part ways. I just don't understand why it's so fun for people to mock others.

Now, IMO, self-diagnosis is OK, and I've rarely seen obvious signs that it was wrong, at least in communities of autistics. There were a couple of people with a mistaken diagnosis, IME, usually schizoid or schizotypal (I tend to confuse those two, anyway, one of those), but they're easy to spot due to their warped perception of physical reality and how it works.

Now, with that out of the way, someone who is autistic is, by traits, almost certain not to conclude falsely if one is autistic or not, as it is a simple procedure of looking at the traits autistics share and checking against one's experience. Nothing mystical about it.

Also, professionals make mistakes. To be a professional means that you get payed for what you do, not that you are any good at it.

Also, there are certain legal risks tied to getting a professional diagnosis, for which I don't recommend anyone going trough the process if they don't have to to achieve a particular goal within a bureaucratic system. People on the street don't really care about any piece of paper you might have.

As for myself, I'm semi-officially self-diagnosed, which is a gray area I find acceptable. I only really care about knowledge that is useful to me when it comes to navigating trough life, not what some bureaucrat has noted down on some paper somewhere.

I'll end with some vaguely relevant Monty Python:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QereR0CViMY

At lot of you are getting what people mean by the metaphor "Special Snowflake" all wrong. Calling somebody a "special snowflake" is an accusation. It means the person bieng ACCUSED is thought of as an elitist, demanding individual that has a strong sense of entitlement, and a very overinflated sense of his or her abilities.

In earlier generations the person would have been called "haughty", a person that thinks he or she is "God's gift to earth" or has "his finger up his ass". But even those earlier metaphors did not carry the meaning of underserved sense of entitlement that "Special Snowflake" does.

This is my reply in the comments section to the article linked to by the OP:

Another reason people self diagnose is fear of negative consequences if thier employers find out.

Many older adults grew up in an era when the only autism known was the most severe kind, therefore they received several harmful misdiagnosis and have a lack of trust of psychologists.

The diagnosis of autism is a subjective one based on observed behavior. Which means proffessionals as well as amateurs can and do get it wrong. I would trust the clinition trained in how Autism presents in adults and females to get it right more often then the knowledgeable amateur. But I would trust the amateurs who have done thier reasearch easily over most clinitions who are not trained in how autism presents in adults and females.

So I believe if the resources or access to an Adult Autism specialist is not available
or the person just wants an explanation, a well researched self diagnosis is a good workaround.

The merits of formal diagnosis vs self diagnosis is a ligitimate topic for discussion. What is bad is the shaming as a group people who self diagnose. Sara asks why this is done. Having been through many “self diagnosis wars” over at the wrong planet forum the basic feeling is that there are hordes of wannabes claiming the Autistic identity or more particularly the Aspie identity. Depending on the poster the reason claimed for the supposed wannabe hordes is to look cool and trendy, excuse bad behavoir, obtain benefits, it is an is easy explanination for why they are having real problems or are just an A-hole. The idea is that is that the wannabes hurt “real autistics” because most people will think autism is fake, way over diagnosed or think they are we are special snowflakes.

Of course there are Autistic wannabes as well people who self disgnose based upon the Wikipidia article or one online test. The negative perceptions I listed above are believed by many non autistics and are used to bully autistics. That is why I doubt there are hordes of wannabes out there because if you do that you are going to find out quickly autistic is an acceptable slur.

Unfortunately autistics are often bullied and are vulnerable to internalizing the negative things said to them by bullies. But as the cliche goes you can run but you can’t hide. Eventually we as Autistics as a group need to stand up for ourselves. As bad as we may be at reading people, bullies be they in the schoolyard or on the Internet can figure out that we are are scared and agree with their negative assessments of us.

When Autistic people shame self diagnosers as a group they are doing what has been done to us.

If the self proclaimed autism guru Temple G can tele-diagnose people like S. Jobs, Bill Gates, and even Newton, what is wrong with self evaluation.

I think one of the many driving forces for me is that I have been told my entire life that I am wrong about so many things. Many of them are the type of things we can't control (as I've learned here) such as Being too blunt, Being rude, etc. Etc. So, at 55, being told you are wrong so often makes me doubt myself at almost every turn.

That's kinda sad, eh?