Self diagnosis using DSM?

Post Reply New Topic

So I've been reading the DSM IV Revised Edition(click here for more info) And I've so far read up on all of the Pervasive Development Disorders listed in it(Austism, Rett's, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, Asperger's, and NOS - Not Otherwise Specified) After carefully going over the diagnostic criteria for each of them, I found that I was fairly close to meeting the criteria for childhood disintegrative disorder, but not quite. I do meet the criteria for Asperger's however. Now, my question is... would my self diagnosis based on the criteria listed in the DSM be valid?(obviously not from a professional or legal standpoint... but more form a social standpoint). I've not been officially diagnosed, but my dad is only a few credits from getting his masters in psychology and he seems to think I have it as well. Additionaly, there have been some other credible sources that have mentioned me possibly having it(although that was when I was much younger)

No, your self-diagnosis would probably not be considered valid on a social level even if it was from the DSM. Because, when it came down to it, it would still be just a self-diagnosis. If people just went around reading that book and diagnosing themselves left and right, we'd have a world full of people with misdiagnoses and diagnoses galore. My recommendation would be to seek out someone who is qualified to diagnosed such a condition, and mention that you noted the traits are ones you have. Otherwise, until then, you aren't "officially" diagnosed.

Have you actually READ anything about CDD?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_ ... e_disorder

I'm going to doubt you have CDD. Read more than the DSM. Isn't there a saying (or maybe a statistic) that says the average person can find at least 2 things they fit under?

It doesn't matter if you're diagnosed, you either have it or you don't.

However from my viewpoint, I would say that not only legally/medically, but also from a social standpoint you can't say you have it without a diagnosis. So, you probably should get a diagnosis if you want to say you have it, but that definitely doesn't mean you can't say you think you probably have it to others.

Earlier I took an abnormal psychology class. The professor pointed out that in the medical field, many medical students think they have all sorts of conditions as they learn about them. However, they don't really. The professor pointed out that likewise, those who take abnormal psychology classes tend to do the same thing. Everyone has symptoms for some disorders. What separates "just symptoms" from an actual disorder is when it causes problems that are clinical. For example, in order to have OCD, it has to interfere with more than an hour of your day and has to be seen as intrusive. Simply checking the lock 10 times before you go to bed isn't enough (if that's all you do and it takes less than an hour).

We learned in the abnormal psychology class, for something to be a disorder it has to:

1. Be abnormal compared to other people
2. Interfere with your life or others in a way that's clinical
3. Be Chronic

So if I'm understanding what I learned in that abnormal psychology class, the individual symptoms would have to meet those standards. However, don't take my word for it. If you really want to know, professional diagnosis would be good, or if you don't care you could just instead say you "think you may have it". I would assume they have professional tests/criteria, which are more detailed than what you read about, in making the diagnosis.

You read the expanded text?

Is it ok to self-diagnose yourself as normal?

What about homosexuals that have "self-diagnosed" when homosexual was in the DSM? Then it was changed to "Sexual Orientation Disturbance". Or is it something else now. Did a homosexual ever get a doctors certificate before being allowed in a gay bar?

I have suffered from being different all my life. Now I am supposed to find an expert to tell me. I think we know who we are.

If we're going to play the that diagnosis isn't good enough game, anything short of going to a neurologist and getting an fMRI/EEG doesn't count. The DSM is for behavioral disorders. It is a diagnostic tool for shrinks. If you present symptoms of a behavioral disorder, and through behavioral therapy learn to cope so that it it disrupts you less than an hour, you no longer have that disorder? Even when you can point to physiological causes? I have to stop controlling my stimming in public to still be autistic? Whenever I expend will to go play the normie for a day I stop being autistic, and then when I lay in bed going crazy every night working all that built up stress out through my rituals I'm autistic again, sun comes up, normie mask goes on and I AM NT?
There are certain shared experiences many of us have that speak to us of how we are the same and not like those others. We express things to the NT world hundreds of times only to get blank stares, and then say it in front of a group of people all somewhere under the PDD umbrella and they all just get it, they all start sharing anecdotes that illustrate the same thing. I'm tired of parents telling me I'm not real autistic like their little boy or girl because I'm a good actor. I'm wearied by therapists and psychologists telling me I'm cured. I've had enough of psychiatrists solving everything with an antidepressant. Neurologists tell me my brain functions differently and explain it in a manner that meshes with my life as I have lived it.

I have aspergers. And am self diagnosed. It doesn't make my aspergers make believe just because professionals (who also misdiagnose people and get it wrong fairly often) haven't "checked me" to see if I have indeed lived the life i've lived and concluded what i feel is the accurate conclusions as to why things work the way they do with me.

There will be people who will find something wrong with them no matter what label they choose, that does NOT discredit those of us who KNOW who we are and where we fit on the neurological spectrum.

I have aspergers, and if i deem it necessary i will tell someone i have aspergers, *gasp* without an official diagnosis from a person in a white coat and whether you (general you) "socially" accept it or not is of absolutely no consequence because i haven't decided this for social acceptance, period.

So if I'm understanding your point of view, someone either has a disorder or they don't regardless of whether they have a diagnosis, and you don't like it when people discredit you when you say it interferes with your life?

If someone comes to me and says they have bipolar disorder, while in reality they haven't been diagnosed, I would just prefer they say "I strongly think I have bipolar" or something similar, rather than say "I have bipolar disorder" which makes it sound like they've been diagnosed. It doesn't mean they don't and regardless of being diagnosed they either have it or they don't. I just see wording it that way as being more honest if they haven't been diagnosed. If someone's asking another for all of these special accommodations because they claim they have a disorder, then it's not going to make that person feel good if later in time they find out the person hasn't really been diagnosed.

From my perspective, I just see too many people going around accusing others of having various psychological disorders. When I was in high school, some people would ask me if I had antisocial personality disorder because I never socialized. I pointed out to them that antisocial personality disorder does not mean that you're not social, it instead means you do things that hurt society. It means that you're a social predator, take excitement from doing it, and are usually quite manipulative in doing so, to the point it's clinical in causing problems for others. People didn't seem to care and would accuse me anyway. Then some have accused me of being schizoid personality disorder because I don't socialize. I then explain to them that means you have no desire to socialize or even sexual relations, and that doesn't fit me. Then they keep on insisting and say that I have to be open minded. Then I know one guy who keeps on insisting that he has various disorders.

So from what I'm getting, everyone has symptoms, but does that necessarily prove they have the disorder anymore than medical students who think they have everything? Is it bad enough to the point that you should see a doctor? Don't the professionals have more specialized tests that are better than differentiating from other conditions, than what a layman can get from reading the basic symptoms/issues listed in the DSM? Aren't the professionals trained on how to spot a disorder? Although they can make mistakes in diagnosing, isn't there "although we can't prove, this is the better explanation"? Before scientists believed in plate tectonics, there was continental drift theory. Do we have any evidence that a better scientific theory to explain the evidence won't come along in the future? Although we can't use deductive logic to prove plate tectonics since no one was around back then, we can say that it's the best explanation we have at this point and what scientists say are probably closer to the truth than the viewpoint of a layman.

Just so there's no misunderstanding, I didn't say these undiagnosed people don't actually have something until its diagnosed, which would be silly, but rather I would prefer people to be honest and say something like "I strongly think I have such and such disorder" if they haven't been diagnosed.

How I look at this "disorders" discussion, although you can't prove you have it, if there are tested interventions for people who have a pattern of behavioral issues, then it could be useful for you. If you think you have such and such disorder, maybe if there are successful interventions, it might work on you also. So it might be useful to study up on it. That's not the same thing as saying that you have a disorder to others in a way that makes it sound like you've been diagnosed.

Why would I trust a wiki article more then the DSM? Also, all that wiki article is... is a very incomplete version of what it says in the DSM. Plus, I never said I fit under it... I said

Which is to say... I realize that while my symptoms are similar, I do not have it.

I have a dream. I dream that one day, concepts will be judged by the merits of their character and not the merits of those who put them forward. You are creating a false dichotomy by which you assume that because a professional might be trained in something somebody who does not declare themselves to be a professional is not capable of being as trained or better trained at something. If you think the only way to receive training in diagnostics appropriate for making use of a diagnostic criteria in a clinical setting to assess yourself, is by personally being a proffessional clinical diagnostician, you are mistaken.

The bigger problem with self diagnosis using the DSM is false NEGATIVES, the ways in which it is just wrong about the current understanding of mental health. Professionals in the field are more resistant to change and new ideas, especially ones that illustrate what monsters they have been to patients they were supposed to provide care to. Medicine is a field consisting of human beings like any other. It shares the same flaws as all the rest. Its failures are just more visceral.