Why in depth self diagnosis is complicated in AS

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. Can you read the DSM V and easily decide which symptoms you do or dont have? How can you possibly know how effective your emotional reciprocity is?? I would love to have the ability to detect exactly when im not showing enough reciprocity. If I could do that I would be NT however.

Question is: How can one really dive into their own diagnosis? Surely we need the assistance of someone objective to pick it apart for us?

Last edited by binaryodes on 04 Dec 2013, 7:22 am, edited 2 times in total.

Hmmm not sure I agree with you 100 per cent there. As has often been remarked, with AS comes a fair degree of paranoia, and this 'heightened awareness' can often ring loud alarm bells that something is not right with the way we interact with the world.

Too many clues that point in one direction .... too many things that don't make sense otherwise.

I can put my own decision to seek diagnosis down to this AS paranoia, for example, and I bet many others could too.

I disagree entirely


Sure - but by the time you're old enough you might also be self aware enough to factor in the masking and the adaptation. For me, "old enough" didn't occur till mid thirties - that was when I became self aware enough to be able to be able to relate "masking" to "underlying condition"

I think my life would've been a lot easier if i'd been aware of aspergers in my 30s, or if my parents had been aware of it in my childhood.

Ahh. What you're referring to is a vague intuition that, "something is wrong". In my own life its clear that something is wrong. I have no friends and the few acquaintances I have will shun me and ostracise me for no apparent reason. I find social relations profoundly confusing and find myself having to ask others what person x is feeling etc. However when I read the DSM or ICD 10 I find myself unable to answer questions about social and emotional reciprocity satisfactorily. My perception of my reciprocity is dictated by my social intelligence. If social intelligence is impaired it becomes impossible to gain significant insights into things like reciprocity or posture/gaze.

By self diagnosis I mean reading the DSM/ICD 10 and deciding which symptoms you do or dont have and then making a formal diagnosis based on that. For something like depression that process is much easier. Our social limitations prevent us from self diagnosing however.

If i had been presented with the model of aspergers aged 10, and had the ability to process the basic info, i would've done so.

Is it "social limitations" that prevented me from a self dx until now, or the lack of basic info and mh support?

I've been dxed with depression for 30 years - it's a stupid dx; it doesn't address the "why" question.

All im saying is that for the social aspects of diagnosis I dont think that most aspies have enough social self awareness to be able to tell how successful their interactions are. When I was 13 I thought I was great socially. Hell when I was 17 I thought I was a social butterfly.

However when I was 17-18 I was deeply attracted to a girl and instead of following the social conventions (whatever they are) I tried to "win her affections" by attempting to organise a grandiose theatrical/musical event. I asked her to plan said event with me. This event (it was an incredibly complex and multi faceted concert/theatrical production) was contrived entirely to "woo her". I failed my a levels as a result of this and ended up plunging into 7 years of trials and tribulations. I spent hours upon hours planning and organising it (totally totally alone I might add since noone wanted to get involved). The irony is she actually was "into me" ahaha but when she asked me out I refused her (nooooo idea why since 6-7 years later im still "In love" with her... pathetic/absurd I know)

See at that age I believed that I was a social climber/networker. Had you asked me about reciprocity eye contact etc I would not have identified any issues. Aspies (or at least me) tend to realise social mistakes AFTER theyve been made. For me it may be a year after... the delay is getting shorter however

Well, not quite. In the early stages the question of whether or not one has AS can take on the levels of a Special Interest, involving some quite detailed research, and of course everyone has access to those AQ/EQ questionnaires these days.

I think AS is one of the easiest neurological conditions to self-diagnose. The older you are, the more likely you are to recognize yourself the second you look at the diagnostic criteria.

You don't have to be a Clinical Psychologist to realize that you are radically different than other people - that your reactions, expectations, logical processes, et al, are utterly and completely alien and opposite to those of the average person.

It's not possible by the time you're a teenager to miss the obvious and painful fact that the vast majority of your peers are functional on a minute-to-minute basis in ways that you are incapable of achieving. The social interactions that come naturally and unconsciously to them, are at best wooden and awkward and often outright impossible for you.

When the social interactions that most people seem to crave and go out of their way to organize make you uncomfortable and all the hubbub leaves you stressed and exhausted, you know you're not like them.

When you can't find anyone who is as fascinated by your hobbies and special interests as you are and even people who seem interested at first make excuses to end the conversation, because you find yourself droning on and on until even they are sick of hearing about it, you know that's not "normal" because it doesn't happen to anyone else.

After you've been fired a few dozen times because even though you're good at your job, you don't respond well to sudden changes in your schedule, responsibilities or routines - and you never seem to be able to see eye-to-eye with your bosses because either you don't fully understand what they expect from you, or they demand things from you that you can't accomplish within their parameters, you know there's something about yourself that just isn't compatible with the average.

I saw severely autistic children on television in 1982 and knew instantly that whatever was afflicting them, I had some form of it. It was another 25 years before someone put the symptoms of Asperger Syndrome and High Functioning Autism in front of me and all the pieces fell immediately into place. I never doubted it for a second - and when I mentioned it to a therapist after she'd had a chance to observe me for several months, her response was "You know, I don't know if I'd have thought to watch for it if you hadn't mentioned it, but you're absolutely right."

If the Psychologist who evaluated me for AS had tried to tell me I didn't fit the diagnosis, I'd have assumed he was incompetent and sought a second opinion. There was never any doubt in my mind. The first time I read the diagnostic criteria it gave me creepy chills because I felt like someone had made that list by following me around for years and working up a secret profile dossier on me personally.

I think that this is a somewhat contentious statement

I respectfully disagree. When you get old enough and you see your peers getting married, having children, then granchildren and you are still single you tend to be very introspective. You wonder "why am I different"? Nobody has knows yourself better than you do. Also, you don't have any hidden motivations; you just want to understand yourself better. A lot of doctors make a diagnosis based upon what can give them the best financial rewards (drug kick-backs from drug companies for example) not on what they feel is in the best interest of the patient. I am just saying; I would be very leery of having someone else tell me what is wrong with me; that stigma can stick with you a lifetime.

Oh, do come along, now.

Im getting the impression that people arent actually reading the original post. Im not saying that you cant identify that you have aspergers. I have done this personally. What im saying is that the SPECIFICS are difficult to gauge.

As far as im concerned my gestures and posture are great. However I may look like a madly failing lunatic to NT's. Its self perception which is often off with aspies.

Unless you are a qualified clinical psychologist, you cannot make a formal diagnosis. Self-diagnosis is intrinsically informal.

I diagnosed myself as "probably". I would never have bothered going to a psychologist if I hadn't already come to the conclusion that I was probably on the autism spectrum. I was confdent enough to describe myself as a "self-diagnosed Aspie", but always with the understanding that I did not have a formal diagnosis, and that a formal assessment might come to a different conclusion. After all, formal assessment as an adult costs money and often yields few benefits other than self-understanding. So informal self-diagnosis is often more economical. And I believe that Tony Attwood has said that if you have done the reading and thought hard about yourself, then there was an 80% chance your self-diagnosis was correct anyway (that 80% is probably not the result of a hard core scientific survey, so don't take it literally - it just means that people who self-diagnose ASD are very often right).

When I wanted to see a psychologist about sensory issues and anxiety/stress, I went to a specialist in ASD and started with a diagnostic assessment. He confirmed formally what I had already informally concluded. By the way, he didn't just go through the DSM/ICD diagnostsic criteria (actually he used the Gillberg criteria) - he started with the AQ Test, completed by both me and my wife independently. You can administer the AQ Test to yourself online, and read the reports that explain its meaning. There's more to both diagnosis and self-diagnosis than reading the DSM/ICD - those works do not pretend to be a complete description of ASD, and miss issues like executive function difficulties, aversions to sensory experiences (DSM5 talks about "interest" in sensory experiences, but doesn't really address strong aversions), the wide range of stimming activities, etc.

So I think self-diagnosis is useful, provided it is based on more than just reading the DSM/ICD criteria. If the self-diagnosed person is not actually ASD then they are highly likely to be at least BAP ("broad autism phenotype") and to share quite a few characteristics with the people on the spectrum. If they really need or want a formal diagnosis (speaking as an adult) then they can go for it, but there are a number of tools and many books and websites around for tentative Aspies to read and learn more about themselves. In any case, the journey of self-understanding and self-acceptance is worth it, regardless of the formal diagnosis.

So (correct me if I'm wrong here) what you're saying is that self-diagnosis is a fool's game because although you might be able to recognise generalities of the condition, you wouldn't be able to identify specifics of your own case? Well, that's true, but that's why you eventually seek a qualified diagnostician who *is* able to make such observational judgements.

I think that you are objecting to the fact that not every layman is an expert, which is a bit of a silly expectation to have in the first place imho.

I agree. I believe this entire thread is contentious, however I personally do not take offense, as I know that even though I was officially diagnosed by a physician, I am capable of reflecting on past behavior and recognizing when and where things went "wrong".

(I believe that the reasoning used to qualitatively determine one's eligibility for the syndrome, based exclusively upon social interactions, is a poor substitute for an extensive background story taken by family members and friends. For if you can self-diagnose, then surely a psychiatrist or a neurologist can take whatever information you have gleaned, and confirm this diagnosis, yes?)

I am capable of self- reflection precisely because I have spent most of my life analyzing all of my social interactions- over and over again- trying to find out where they went wrong- because I know I screwed up somehow, since the person's behavior did not fit with what they were saying. (i.e. sarcasm- they said they were "fine" but looked angry and walked away, causing me to think about the interaction obsessively, looking for what it is that I might have done or said.)

I will go out on a limb and suggest that the author of this thread is confused about the aspects of self-diagnosis because he questions his own self-diagnosis.

I would further suggest introspection and self-reflection about one's sense of identity and whether wanting to belong to a group of some sort could have been the core desire behind "having asperger's".