Diagnosis worshipping

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I've noticed that on WP and the autism community in general people act like it's impossible to be misdiagnosed with autism. This is very annoying and hypocritical because I often hear autistic people talking about being misdiagnosed with ADHD, borderline personality disorder and bipolar. If people can get misdiagnosed with those conditions why couldn't they be misdiagnosed with autism?

One reason could be that people diagnosed with ASD get very tired of people who obviously are NOT autistic in any way taking over this forum. Is it just me or has WP become a haven for the attention seeking and the bored who want to claim to be different as a lark for a while just because they are lonely or on their Summer vacation?

It's not just you. I notice a lot of people on here saying that they've always felt different, they're kind of quirky and sensitive so they must be autistic. Even though they have no proper diagnosis and seem to have no social problems. Whenever people question whether their diagnosis is correct people always try to convince them that they are actually autistic.

The title of the thread, starts with a dismissive premise, a foregone conclusion as a generalization.
Perhaps a small proportion of people would fit, but to make such a generalization covering all participants ("in general people act like") is totally unsupportable.

Another factor could be that people who struggled to eventually accept their own diagnosis might be projecting their period of denial onto others. Therefore, they might falsely assume that others who were misdiagnosed are just in the same denial period.

Like I've said to people before, the only way to know for sure is to be clinically diagnosed. Now, I don't think it's that easy for someone to be misdiagnosed with an ASD, I know I was tested pretty extensively. Then again, that was ~15 years ago, and things may have changed since then.

I never said it was easy to be misdiagnosed with an ASD. I'm just saying that it's a possibility.

I don't doubt that.

I think you unintentionally answered your own question. Many here had their own Autism denied, their successful coping strategies used as "proof" that they were not autistic, and because of that believed themselves that they were lazy excuse making fakers for years or decades. So it is understandable for them to give an Autism diagnosis the benefit of the doubt and not want to do to others what was done to them.

On the other hand we have the growing segment of members who go on the assumption that there is massive over diagnosis and dumbing down of what is "real autism" and the go on the assumption person asking "am I autistic" is an NT seeking to become trendy or looking for an excuse. I have seen newbie posters showing examples of not only social problems but executive function and sensory given an opinion that they are not autistic. While strict adherence to the rules is demanded it is not considered a problem to assume because there is a massive rise in diagnoses is the result of massive over overdiagnosis.

Off course on both sides you have black and white thinking.

I have a couple of suggestions one I have made before.
The "am I autistic" threads should have its own section.

The "we are not doctors we can't diagnose you" statement should make a partial comeback. I understand there was a backlash against it because it had become overbearing but by so we pretty much went too far in stopping use of the line completely. Now we need to add we are not professionals we can't undiagnose you.

Can you provide a link to this data? I am not saying I doubt you, but I would like to see the source of what you are referring to. If possible.

I think what is going on, besides some NTs who might think it trendy in some way to say they are Aspies, or an occational sociopath who is disguising themselves in order to seek victims, is that neurodiversity is something that can only now be explored by science. We did not have the methods until very recently, and we did not have the social institution of compulsory public education that makes those of us who are outside the normative more noticeable.

Because of what science is showing us about the reality of behavior and what controls it, and because of these institutions that bring the situation more to the foreground, more and more people are finding an explaination for their difficulities through the lens of AS. So they come here to explore the thing. What's wrong with that?

I concur because I give a little more room for self awareness in a person's determination of Asperger's Syndrome of other Autism Spectrum Disorder than what a disinterested third person (like a diagnostician) might have to say. As with sexual orientation, others can observe stereotypical characteristics, ask questions, compare and contrast, and, ultimately conclude what they believe is factual and accurate. But, the ASD spectrum, as with the sexual-orientation spectrum, includes many people who can and do mask their correct status (sometimes without even knowing it for years), and resort to some fairly hostile defense of their self awareness. No other third person can really make the same determination that a person can for themselves, despite the noticeable margin of error that both exhibit.

Nicely put.

Well, it is not really data that that I have found. It may take a while to figure out where I have read the stuff too. Basically I found sociopaths talking about it on actual sociopathic websites. There were alot of questions rolling through my head a while back about the abuse I have gotten from other people in my past. These people have talked to one another online about how sometimes they were misdiagnosed as having AS because of empathy issues, and a general disconnection from other people, and stuff. They also enjoyed talking about how much fun it is to pick on, and manipulate people. Especially the autistic. People with AS are a target for abuse from these people. I am suprised it doesn't make more laws to protect people from abuse, and raise alot of red flags.