Self diagnosis

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I told others that I "have been screened with autism." Very truthful and worked every time in convincing others.

That only works if the people you are talking to actually understand what you are talking about. Or if they are paying attention, or care to bother to understand, or don't have any biases which keep them from hearing what you are saying and believing you.

I also had all these test results from the various screening tests available online. I even had others take the tests to show how different the scores would be. But people still doubted me, because they knew me too well. They had come to accept me as quirky or eccentric, and had also come to believe that I do many things on purpose. And the fact that some family have autistic traits didn't help. They see many things I do as "normal," because to them it is.

Mr. Scientific validity used one conversation as evidence?. IMHO it was a good column but it was a column about how autism is portrayed on TV. One could reasonably conclude it is trendy in the media. That is not the same as it bieng trendy to be autistic. If media trends always reflected reality Jeb Bush would have wrapped up the Republican nomination months ago.

Off topic: I am old enough to remember when bieng a deadhead was trendy. I actually met a lot them that thought they were gods gift to music fans and were always showing off how smart they were. After all Al Gore And Steve Jobs and Ben and Jerry are deadheads

If you don't mind me asking this, since you seemed to be rather comfortable with your self-diagnosis, what prompted you to seek a formal one?

Aaah, my first assessment was botched in several ways which I won't describe here. I started slowly to realize this during the assessment and responded with my best self advocacy by describing my characteristics and co-morbids in clinical terms. The diagnostician disagreed ultimately, and found "no evidence" of autism.

I spent the next several months poring over my research, the diagnostic criteria and clinical exemplars of what the criteria meant. I regained my confidence after those months, and, by attending the 2015 IMFAR International Meeting for Autism Research conference in my state, I learned that I was almost certainly correct and that my diagnostician had been incorrect.

Within days, I scheduled a new assessment at my university's ASD clinic. Four months later, I was diagnosed in two hours (not the expected three hours) because I had published my own cited and detailed lists of my characteristics and co-morbids ... saving my diagnosticians time by preparing so much of their work in advance. They thanked me, offered to refund some of my clinical fee and quoted from my published materials liberally in their written assessment. One area of my diagnosis was actually a little more severe than I had expected; my Social Responsiveness Scale results ranked as extreme. Hm?!?

So, I believe that I sought a second assessment with a university clinic just to show that I was correct, after all. Maybe that is why I remain so sympathetic to the idea of self-identification research. If done well, it can be good enough to be offered a partial fee-refund and have one's own description quoted in the written assessment! Hehe.

I am against "self-diagnosing" as in one being sure to fit a condition solely by the outcome of internet tests alone. These tests are useful for starters, but people should seek professional assessment for a definite opinion.

Tests themselves aren't the problem. What happens is that people are biased and try to choose the answers in those tests that will best fit some illness that will define them. Then they use the diagnosis as an excuse to keep on doing a mess of their lives.

People should seek diagnosis to help them know themselves and cope with their lives, not to justify their deviant personality or mistakes they make.

True. But a good self-identification study would necessarily include: 1) an understanding of the current diagnostic criteria (with exemplars), 2) a survey of some of the best clinical books available, 3) a larger survey of relevant published research papers, 4) a detailed written description of an individual's recognized characteristics, co-morbids and prior diagnoses (if any), and 5) the recorded results of one or more self-reported screening inventories (certain such inventories are much better than others).


Well, this opinion throws us back to the realm of considering what damage poseurs and wanna-be fans do to the world of autism. I argue that it is mostly harmless. Poseurs and trendies lose interest quickly and famously. So what if they spend a few weeks claiming to be autistic. They will inevitably move on to other newfound fads. In my opinion, maintaining the aura of autism would be as exhausting to an NT as it is for autists to mask as NT. In other words, it isn't likely to be maintained for long. No harm done. Indeed, those who do the work I described above are probably very sincere about their self-aware opinions.

Does this actually happen, though? Are you talking about people here on WP? Other internet forums? High school kids? I agree that it's wrong to simply take an online test, and then use it as an excuse to keep making stupid life choices... I've just never personally met anyone who exhibited that attitude.

Now that I think about it. Neither have I. Sure, maybe someone who makes an obvious joke here or there, but never someone who makes the claim seriously -- except myself. In the early 1980s after a significant meltdown/shutdown, I told a friend that I thought I was autistic. I meant it. But, I never looked into it, and largely forgot about it until about four years ago when I asked another friend to describe the difference between Asperger syndrome and classic autism (which I knew about). What he told me kinda stuck with me for a year before I started studying it all a lot more diligently.

Trying to purposely get misdiagnosed with something you don't actually have is actually the dumbest thing one can do. Once you have a diagnoses, it can actually follow you through life so when you go see a doctor or to to a hospital and they go look at your medical records, your DX of "autism" will show up and that can affect your visits and how doctors treat you. Also what happens when you want to join the military or the army, "sorry you don't qualify because of your medical history." Sure you don't have to tell anyone about your dx you managed to get but that label will still haunt you.

Look at the stories out there by people who have been misdiagnosed, that misdiagnoses would affect them through life, especially when they would get labeled as having depression when their depression was in fact caused by divorce and they had a hard time coping with it and then they were over it and no longer depression but the label of clinical depression would follow them when it came to seeing doctors. Also a member on here told a story about someone being misDXd with Bipolar and that label also affected her so whenever she would go see a therapist, that label would be used on them and a doctor would be blaming things on their "bipolar." Like they did this because they are "Bipolar."

People get lifelong depression diagnoses ?! ! It's crazy... It's as absurd as if people were told "you've got the flu for the rest of your life".

Wow...that's a such a false equivalency, I don't even know where to start.

How about the fact that the flu is a viral condition.

Then let's try to compare the real issues that are not caused by an outside agent.

Both depression and autism are conditions brought about by the body not doing something it should be doing. Though Autism seems to be due to the wiring of the brain, and depression by chemical imbalances.

A chemical imbalance can last a lifetime and require meds to regulate that balance for the entirety of life.

I received (just) five separate diagnoses for depression between 1978 and 1982 -- about one a year. I believe that this happened because most clinicians didn't expect to see autism except in "Schizophrenia, childhood type" of the DSM-II and, later, in "Infantile Autism" of the DSM-III. I was 15-20 years of age at the time, and my clinic discussions went something like this: "Do you have many friends?" No. "Are you friends with any classmates?" Just one. "Do you talk with neighbors or coworkers?" One or two. "What do you do for fun?" Read.

To the limited mind of the DSM-II- and DSM-III-trained clinician, my answers were clearly evidence of depression. I even had several shutdowns right in front of my clinicians -- mute for the whole hour, and they couldn't see beyond depression. It was the "in" diagnosis at the time, and, if my experience was typical, a LOT of misdiagnosed autists went away loaded up on antidepressants believing that they were "depressed." In my case, I knew I wasn't depressed; sit me next to a friend or my few friendly coworkers, and you wouldn't see depression.

These experiences convinced me that the psychological industry lags behind reality. Even when new knowledge of a disorder blooms, it takes years to integrate into able diagnoses.

Two thoughts on this:
1.) This reinforces how autism could possibly be an 'in' diagnosis that if not carefully screened and evaluated, could proliferate. I'm glad that the people I'm dealing with are not falling into that and testing the things that are actually happening.

2.) I am facing this right now as I begin a new set of therapy. My issues are sensory overloads, anxieties and such. Twice I have been asked about antidepressants. They keep asking me if I am suicidal or depressed. They have to though. But, when asked yesterday about antidepressants, I did mention that they did not take care of the anxieties or other issues. I just wasn't depressed when on them.

Depression is very often caused by an outside agent and temporary. Not autism. Lifelong autism diagnosis is normal, because autism is typically idiopathic and lifelong, contrary to depression. So it's abnormal that both get the same lifelong diagnoses.

Depression is not caused by an outside influence. The outside influences just lay bare the issue(s).

Now you are trying to argue that it can't be a lifelong issue and that it can't be idiopathic?

By what evidence do you come to that conclusion?