Gary Numan's self diagnosis criticized in Sunday Times

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You just articulated what is so scary about going for a diagnosis. In my country there is an autistic girl, who, when I last read about her, had been physically restrained with belts for three years in a mental hospital. She was first admitted because of the usual anxiety troubles a lot of young aspies have. Because they didn't pick up on her autism, she was treated as if she was manipulative, and her self-harming behaviors escalated to an extreme level. She is one of those very intelligent, verbally strong autistics, and because they overestimated her capabilities, not only did they not help her, they actively made her worse.

I really feel for those WP members who are stuck with alphabet soup for a diagnosis. Either they don't get any help, or the help they get makes them worse, and every time they try to talk to mental health professional about the fact that the treatment doesn't seem to be helping, their opportunity to get a correct diagnosis diminishes.

I remember having a conversation with someone I know socially who is a psychiatrist. I asked what their job was like, and they said something along the lines of 'It's satisfying when people are motivated to change, and less fun when people are not interested in changing'. Really? Not interested or unable to?

First off: I'm a Gary Numan fan from back in the day.

I really don't like the idea of people self-diagnosing and publicly announcing it, that was wrong from the part of Numan. Nevertheless, that journalist is a hundred times as wrong.

I agree with her that prominent people self-diagnosing and mouthing around is a bit of disservice. That doesn't mean she's in her rights to insult the man, though.

It wasn't about a physical growth and a behavioural anomaly, you're choosing to misrepresent it like that as a fallacious argument that allows you to ignore the actual intent of the analogy. You want to ignore the actual intent of the analogy because it shines a light on the inadequacies of your own arguments. And that, of course, was why I made the analogy in the first place.

I've always been a bit skeptical of self-diagnoses, personally. I honestly don't mean to sound more-autistic-than-thou because I've been officially diagnosed; I just don't think people need to go off half-cocked because they seem a bit awkward around other people or they happen to have favorite hobbies.

Why is everyone so upset about self-identifying, self-diagnosed aspies?

Are you afraid they might ruin the great reputation we have?

Everybody keeps on bringing up over and over again lazy self diagnosis to invalidate self diagnosis. There are legitimate reasons to question self diagnosis such as personal biases or just bieng too close to ones own situation. I have been a regular on WP and have read blogs by self diagnosed people since 2013. Lazy self diagnosis happens but is far from the norm.

I do not see hordes of people running around claiming they are autistic because they are a bit ackward. There have been a few notable celebrities but that it is it a few. I have read that it is epidemic on Tumbler. Tumbler is not the real world. In the real world Autism is becoming an insult. In the real world even if you have a proffessional diagnosis people are going to doubt you and if you go around saying I am autistic because I am a bit ackward you are going to be held in near universal contempt.

Great comment!

I don't know who this man is.

While Hans Asperger had described what came to be known as Asperger's Syndrome in the 1940s, the term wasn't coined until 1981 and the first English book on the matter wasn't published until 1991. It's possible, being in the UK, that this man's doctor was familiar with the work of Hans Asperger, even in the 1970s...Germany used to be the seat of the scientific community and it was not unusual for German to be chosen as a second language by those who went into the medical and scientific fields. It's also possible the doctor was German himself. That aside, when I was a child in the early 1980s in the U.S. it was not suggested to my parents that I had Asperger's Syndrome, it was suggested to them that I had autism. Asperger's Syndrome was not mentioned until the mid/late 1990s.

Concerning "official diagnosis", the nature of an official diagnosis can vary significantly from place to place, particularly in earlier decades. ADOS was not used until 2001. It's very likely that in the 1970s, the suggestion of a psychiatrist or neurologist that a child may have autism, constituted an official diagnosis. I believe the first time diagnostic criteria for autism was articulated in bullet point fashion was in the DSM III, which was published in the mid 1970s. Before then, there was ICD-6 (International Classification of Diseases), which was the first classification manual to contain a category for "mental health" disorders, but did not contain autism.

I believe diagnoses of autism before that time were made based on the clinician's understanding of that articulated in Leo Kanner's 1943 paper and subsequent papers and case studies by colleagues and associates.

At first glance, yes. But, if we think of autism as someone's "fad," then those who self-identify as autistic ought to get quite bored with the gimmick after a while and move on to other, more personally interesting pursuits, shouldn't they?

But, the fact that some individuals who aren't diagnosed continue to read and research diagnostic criteria, behaviors characteristics and comorbids, and confirm for themselves their autistic experiences while consistently disclosing their identity to those around them (or the world media if they have access to it) seems to tell us that they are either deluding themselves in a big way, or they are correct about their self-assessment.

No, people with mere fads generally ignore them after some time. That a few celebrities like Gary Numan pursue their identity when the apparent obsession might harm their careers instead of help them suggests to me that they are onto something valid.

Your comment works quite well as a clever, humorous statement but what people are worried about has nothing to do with reputation. Psychological self-diagnosis (of any condition) is an irresponsible disservice to the affected people, to science and the truth.

That's even more so if one is a relevant media personality who pops up out of nowhere on the brink of releasing new work. Added atop of everything else, that also becomes quite suspicious.

It seems, then, that only psychological diagnoses would be off limits to self-identified individuals. After all, I doubt any individual would so much as blink when told by a friend that the friend realized recently that he or she was "probably" overweight, "possibly" diabetic or "maybe" losing the ability to hear without having received a diagnosis from a physician.

While I agree that self-identifying with any diagnosis should be done carefully and diligently over time, and with using accurate terminology for the sake of those to whom they might disclose such identification, there is very little that the diagnostic community could do to prohibit, prevent or prosecute individuals from identifying if they chose to do so unless there is evidence of fraud in the pursuit of governmental, educational or professional benefits based on an indentification.

But, I see little harm in those who self-identify with any diagnosis. If it gives them some sense of calm in their lives, the identification would be helpful, not harmful. Most who treat identifying as joining some kind of fad would likely soon lose interest, so whatever harm comes of identifying for a while is pretty much self-regulating.

My own diagnosis of autism isn't harmed of injured by those who choose to research, study and identify their possible autism. I wonder why other autists care so much about other individuals who seek some understanding of their lives, especially when it costs us nothing to let them do so.

And especially when a person can't afford the formal diagnosis. And would derive no benefit from it.

And doesn't misrepresent his/her self as "officially diagnosed."

"Identifying" with autism doesn't make a person autistic, or a person who is trying to represent his/her self as being autistic.

Could have hormonal problems or cysts.


Could have vitamin deficiencies.



Could have an ear infection.

When you have a hammer everything is a nail, and when the only tool in your diagnostic box is a "test" for ASD then that's what you're going to think you have when it could be something else with similar symptoms that a professional would consider you for also.

I registered today because this is a pretty important topic, underneath the shallow question of whether Gary Numan is himself actually autistic (spoiler: it seems obvious to me he isn't). I should also say that although autism runs on one side of my family tree, strongly (official diagnoses in place, not self-diagnoses), I am myself not autistic, and that's probably a big part of why I am able to make this observation of Numan, i.e. I read social cues neurotypically, and I am aware of autistic differences because I am close enough to being autistic, and to people with autism, to have a non-typical understanding of ASD.

It's great that Numan makes autism a more visible topic, and because he's a musical hero to a lot of neurotypical people, and in forwarding himself as autistic, and talking about some autism-related topics, he increases awareness and decreases stigmatizing kneejerk tendencies generally.

It's unfortunately very likely he is neurodivergent without being on the autism spectrum. It's not that hard to make this case.

[do a Youtube search for "Gary Numan on surviving 40 years of ups and downs in the music industry" to find the video I tried to link here]**

[do a Youtube search for "Gary Numan talks 'Savage', Asperger's and the song that saved his marriage" to find the video I tried to link here]**

If you watch the first video, an in-person interview, two things stand out. Numan does not have a difficult time being on the same page with the interviewer, meaning when the interviewer opens a topic, Numan tends to be right there with him and to understand the way the interviewer is thinking "between the lines" and this shows in his answers. Contrast this to, say, an interview with Mark Zuckerberg (who seems obviously on the spectrum), who is almost never on the same page with anybody he's talking with, because his brain just doesn't automatically do that, i.e. connect with others in that way, without effort.

MORE IMPORTANTLY: Numan's own affect is not monotonal (he is actually fairly facially expressive in a neurotypical way that is improvisational, not studied), his expressions are not disconnected from himself or the circumstances or interaction in real time, and though he is probably a visual thinker (his gestures illustrate that he is sort of painting pictures with his hand gestures) he is very connected in his own bodylanguage and physical expression to his inner expression. He is demonstrative, in expression and bodylanguage (even if a little stiff), rather than awkward in an aspie way.

There are other neurodivergent brain types that have overlap with autism in some personal attributes (social anxiety, discomfort with eye contact, etc.). Being more schizophrenic - similar to autism as well in that it is heritable, and people with a lot of schizophrenic characteristics will find a lot of "crazy people" in their family tree - obviously has a lot of overlap with autism in terms of being noticeably, definitively socially awkward. "Crazy" is easily translatable to "socially awkward," logically, right? That in fact is what underlies a lot of pain in the lives of ASD persons because being awkward leads to marginalization from neurotypicals that is pretty much the same as the marginalization saved for "crazy" people, "normally."

Gary Numan isn't fundamentally socially awkward in the same way that people on the autism spectrum are. It seems very unlikely he actually would be diagnosed as autistic by someone who specializes in autism treatment.

It's good that his claiming to be autistic helps autistic people, in a way, and it's good that his claiming it raises curiosity and awareness of autism, but ideally it would do so to the degree that more laypersons (and autistic persons, in some cases) would be able to recognize that he probably isn't autistic. The more people understand what autism is, the better. Thinking Numan is autistic is probably the sign of awareness being limited, not the opposite.

**As a new user I'm not able to post links, so I had to post pointers to the videos I mentioned as above - it is worth taking the time to look at them, because if you do that in an analytical way, it will probably settle the issue of whether Gary Numan actually has autism for you.

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

I gave a reason why I think he is autistic in the OP. His videos from his heyday certainly shows a flat effect and his singing is monotone. He has been in show business for almost 50 years it would not surprise me that while not natural to him he has learned how to come off as somewhat normal in interviews, learned or has been taught how to look like he is on the same page as interviewers. Maybe by now he knows the questions he will be asked before they are asked. Maybe he is a neurodivergent allistic(not autistic). It should be noted that we do not have a clue how he was as a child.

The issue is as of now there is a general idea of what autism is but not a specific one. Diagnosis involves observed behaviors. Non specific definitions combined with observed behaviors means deciding who is autistic is very subjective. How many autistic traits does one need to have and how noticeable do they need to be in order to be actually autistic, verses an allistic person with autistic traits? He is not like your family members so probably not autistic, I relate to a lot of things about him, probably autistic etc.