Question about diagnosis

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Cut myself via self harm , went to hospital (damn huge hole in my arm, needed 6 stitches ), psychologists spent hours asking me questions, now they're gonna get me through the process of getting diagnosed. What is this gonna involve?

It involves asking you a lot more questions! Sometimes they just don't get it. I was diagnosed with eight different major mental disorders by eight different professionals. Other aspies often say they had a lot of wrong diagnoses too. I guess professionals might be a little bit crazy too. I no longer blindly trust them, so whatever they tell me, I always go and research it on my own to decide if they were right or wrong.

Being screened in april, already had the "crisis" team around to make sure I wasn't killing myself Not seen any specialists yet, hopefully they'll be less crazy than these and from your experience How cutting myself lead to them thinking I was autistic I have no idea but I'm gonna roll with it and see what else they find Also got locked away for that cut on my arm, I couldn't answer the "safe plan" questions because I wasn't actually suicidal like they thought but luckily one of them decided "oh this is autism" and now I'm home

That sounds weird, because cutting yourself and autism are not related (as far as I know). You know there are harmless ways to make yourself feel pain that don't require stitches and being locked up, right?

That's what I thought, lol One of the people said that I "don't understand emotional pain so make physical pain which I do understand" or something, not sure

I have bit myself before - left bruises but they went fast. I'll try other ways, I never meant to cut open by arm

Assuming the staff dealing with the cutting were not incompetent or deluded, it may be that in the course of their interactions with you they noticed other behavior that seemed consistent with autism to them. You could ask them, if you are going to see them again.

That's what I'd have thought, is autism that obvious? And no, I'm probably never gonna see them again. These were people in related to suicidal stuff, so they've had to send me off somewhere completed unrelated to get that checked out.

Tell us what happens when you see the doctor(s).

Will do, it's on 29th april

Autism is indeed kind of obvious once you are talking to someone; if you know what to look for. It isn't close to being as "invisible" as people claim...

and yes, i myself have had a total of almost 20 diagnoses (and up to 12 concurrent) by a handful of specialists, untill i solved the puzzle myself and asked for an official aspergers diagnosis (which i got).
to be fair, this started 20 years ago, when aspergers wasn't all that well known yet, and the official diagnosis is only 5-ish years old.

My understanding is that izzeme is right: it can be, particularly to people who are familiar with the many ways the traits can be expressed.

I hope your assessment goes well and you don't feel the need for any more self harm in the meantime.

While self injurious behavior is not a core feature of autism, there is a connection for some people. It's complicated, like the many "comorbid" conditions found at higher rates in autistic populations, there is apparently some association, but the exact nature of that association remains unclear.

If you google "autism cutting" or "autism self harm" you will find many pages with information about this, including some old threads on WP. An example of this:
http://www.autism.org.uk/living-with-au ... viour.aspx

I've also seen it as being a form of stimming, which unfortunately I think is the case for me at the moment. I bite myself, I hit my head, I scratch myself so hard and repeatedly I bleed, and I will take anything sharp and use it in order to calm myself. Unlike self harm, I don't think mine is suicidally motivated, which is what they seemed to believe at first, given the damn size of this thing (I have a picture but it's gruesome as hell and I'm sure nobody here would want to see that). I tend to do it when something is too much. Usually noise. You should, well shouldn't actually, see my hands after train rides. I don't even notice I'm doing it. Stupid noisy people. I just don't feel anything but the noise when something's loud. I can't feel myself doing it. I dunno, they'll figure out why I do it, hopefully.

Ok, so it got moved forwards to today. She thinks there's a very high chance of HFA and also thinks it looks much more like anxiety in autism rather than depression, which the crisis team thought, since I'm eating and sleeping just fine. So now there are some forms my parents and school has to fill out, but they seem more in line with a young child rather than someone 18 in just over a month The school is gonna have no idea how to fill out any of these, it's about "imaginary play with other children" and that sort of thing. Damn it I'm 17. If they somehow manage to fill in that form then I'll be tested for autism, as far as I understand. In the meantime I'm going to be assessed for anxiety and get help for it, not really sure.

They're not not related. I mean, wearing a helmet to prevent self-injury via banging one's head against the wall is associated with autism in many people's minds. As someone who has engaged in all three behaviors at times, the only real difference between self injury by blunt force, laceration, or burning is how much time and privacy I had, what I could get away with.