katzefrau wrote:
CyborgUprising wrote:
I am aware this is bound to offend most people on the site, but I am quite disappointed that Numan is not officially on the spectrum. He has the money, why doesn't he get a diagnosis? Until he gets one, I will no longer view him as being "one of us." I could understand if he didn't have money, but the man's a musician who is actually semi-famous.
I can only comprehend this as Aspergers elitism / snobbishness, and it comes up again and again on the forum with frequency, people starting threads alleging the self-diagnosed are fakes and such. Someone who is on the autistic spectrum is so with or without a diagnosis - the diagnosis does not create the condition, which existed before the label did, and also surely some who are diagnosed are not diagnosed correctly. Remember many people on this board grew up long before anything was known about Asperger's / HFA and often those who bristle at the self-identified are too young to know that difficulty.
Do you trust doctors more than your own understanding of yourself? I certainly don't. And I think reluctance to accept those undiagnosed (who are in some cases pretty textbook, and obviously correct) is some strange possessiveness about the label, as if allowing it out of your hands somehow corrupts it.
So, I am not offended, but I think this sort of complaint frequently comes from a bad place, of identifying so strongly with the diagnosis that one does not want to share it. After several years of sitting with a hypothetical or "soft" diagnosis (therapists, who are not ASD experts, agreeing that I have it, but feeling unqualified to give an official diagnosis) I no longer see the point of spending several thousand dollars to get a real one. The important thing is not to be legitimate to people on an internet board who are determined to classify people as "authentically having Asperger's" or not (which I could much more easily do by changing my designation to "diagnosed" without even being diagnosed) but to find the correct tools to understand oneself and be more authentic and happier. Part of being happy is to ignore the judgment of others, which often says more about them than about whoever it is that they are judging.
I am not a snob or elitist in any way, shape or form (but I guess your opinion is all that counts, right??). It certainly says alot about your own character to call anyone who dares to differ with your beliefs as being an "elitist" or snob. I do not call you any such name for differing with my views.
I am simply tired of people who self-diagnose or flat-out lie about having an ASD turn around and stab us all in the back. I've seen it countless times with celebrities and "regular joes." They go about spreading false notions about those on the spectrum, ally themselves with certain organizations that do not have our best interests in mind and chalk up any criticism to the critics as being arrogant, uneducated, vile, often claiming they are undermining progress. I'm fine with someone admitting they are self-diagnosed and may "possibly have an ASD," but to say definitively one has an ASD without any proof is akin to saying one has MS without a diagnosis, just a "hunch." I wouldn't go about saying I have RA if I didn't get a diagnosis to back it up.
In reference to your question, I trust a doctor to "prove" I have an ASD, which they easily did. Had I not gotten a diagnosis, I wouldn't consider myself anything but an eccentric person.
29 Sep 2012, 12:33 pm
