Self-diagnosed and incorrect

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Have you ever met anyone who had self-diagnosed Asperger's syndrome, got tested for it and didn't receive a diagnosis?

there was a user on here called maestro;a male who was a self diagnosed aspie,he said he was better able to relate to the stereotypical female experience of aspergers and when he got assessed he was told he didnt have it so he was shocked and left the forum,a pity really as he found WP useful but it was like he felt a fraud for being here.

I have a current friend over the internet whom after meeting me was 120% convinced that she was the female equivalent of me. I told her that she should really speak to a professional instead of basing her theories on me and it turned out she just has depression and low self esteem.

Everyone everywhere has at some point had a "professional" disagree with them on anything from a traffic court judge, to tech support, to auto mechanics, to doctors.

Too bad he took it so hard.
And as the "final truth."

Wouldn't all people with depression have low self-esteem? Seems a bit sketchy if the doctor made that observation and separated it from depression.

Doctors can misdiagnose too so there are some things you can never be sure about. I've had a doctor deny I had seizures, so I don't get help for them. But everyone now knows I have some form of epilepsy. I've had another doctor who refused to find out why I'm having mood regulation issues.

It can happen. When I spoke about it before an official diagnosis, I would write that I suspect I have it, and that I am not self diagnosed. I do understand how annoying it can be in the eyes of others for someone to completely self diagnose, because you don't see yourself in the eye of others, and can't judge yourself properly. I did get diagnosed though, which is the important part to add.

Used to get people coming on mental health forums self diagnosing personality disorders in their early teens it would get so boring. Even self diagnosing depression now and bipolar. Only have to go to many different forums, or Tumblr, and see how many are self diagnosed with 'problems'.


Everybody thinks they have a problem these days . some people even want a problem. As above, there was once a person who came on said forums saying they wish they had BPD

I am just like that. I don't wanna say I have it if no expert has ever evaluated me. It is very hard to have a impartial view of ourselves. I am going for an evaluation in two months.

That was my reaction to said person too

I've read posts here by people originally told they didn't have ASD and later told they did.

I don't find self diagnosis annoying, but focus on the label, though understandable as people want answers, sometimes upsets me as it's the person that counts.

I eventually didn't really care about people who don't know me getting annoyed at my self-diagnosis, but I was only self-diagnosed for three or four months before I was officially diagnosed.

I think that several people here overvalue the opinions of professionals and undervalue people's own observations about themselves. So it somehow becomes important to declare that self-diagnosis is bad even though there's pretty much no evidence that this is the case.

I don't see labels as important in their own right, but they are a useful shorthand. While everyone is individual, the label can reflect a similar collective experience that falls under the designated umbrella. It shouldn't be seen as some members only card on WP, because more varied (thoughtful) responses lead to a better overview imho.

I do take self-diagnosis with a grain of salt, but it's because I'm in no position to gauge someone's self awareness. I try to take posts at face value, and respond accordingly.

While true, I find that "experts" really don't get enough time with you or see your life unfold to really make a correct call on what you are. So if they say you aren't aspie, how "right" are they likely to be if they only spend a short time evaluating you?

There really needs to be a more distinct "pass/fail" test they can run. Observation is fairly unreliable unless you can afford years of therapy.

Unstructured interviews are not very reliable. Standardized diagnostic assessments are much better, but it still depends on the quality of the test. There are many psychometric properties of a test that can be examined to determine its quality.

I know two people who thought they were on the spectrum, but then went in for assessment and were told that they just have ASD traits. One of them is the person I talked about in another thread who "wanted" to have ASD. I agreed with these evaluations.

However, there's also this one psychiatrist who diagnoses ASD in adults in our city and I think he is the only one doing so who is funded by our government health insurance. However, I don't trust the accuracy of his diagnoses, because they're basically just an hour to an hour and a half interviews. This, to me, is highly biased because a person can come up with many prepared things to say and do to make them look more like they have the disorder, and also distort their histories because memories are highly susceptible to change and selective bias. A few people I know may have been falsely diagnosed.

That being said, I don't trust my diagnosis 100%, either. Although it did take into account my documented history and feedback from teachers, I still feel it wasn't thorough enough. Which is why I would like to get a full psychoeducational evaluation. But it's expensive and I will need to find time for it in my busy schedule. The fact that I have this label now helps me get supports and function relatively well, but I feel like I want a more detailed layout of my specific learning and processing challenges.

NT mom of a possible ASD son here. He is in the evaluation process currently, so he's not yet officially diagnosed, so it is possible the doctor may say it is not ASD but something else. However, in being here I have learned some useful things to use with my son to help him with his issues and they seem to be working. If it turns out he's not ASD, I probably will back out, but until then, I'm going with it, because the possibility is so strong to me that he is ASD, and like I said, so far it's been helpful for me to be here.

I guess, I would technically be "self diagnosed", but it has been a couple years since I learned I have autistic traits, and have really only come to accept it in the past few months. I still feel uncomfortable about my "unofficial" status. I have talked to several people who know me quite well about my suspicions (a few have backgrounds in working with people on the spectrum. Most of them agree. One made it sound like it was totally obvious to her A couple people (one I've known for more than half my life) suspected it long before I did.

One person seemed to agree that I may have AS for at first, and then seemed to change her mind and think I'm more likely to have social anxiety and possibly depression because one test she had me do showed that I had a ton of anxiety.

I plan on pursuing an evaluation this year. Not so much to know "for sure" if I'm on the spectrum, but for validation. I hate having to preface any conversation about the issues I have with "I THINK I'M on the spectrum", or "I'm pretty sure.....". I feel I won't be taken seriously, and because of that, I don't really like talking about it. On the other hand, if I am Dx-ed, I will feel much more open and comfortable talking to people about it.

Actually I saw my therapist this morning and she agrees that I have depressed mood but that I don't have self esteem issues. According to her my thinking style indicates my self esteem is very good actually, I just get down about my situation and social isolation brought on by my social problems which she still thinks are spectrum related as opposed to just social anxiety. So it probably is possible to have low mood and have healthy self esteem. I guess it depends on your type of depression (clinical or situational).