Happy to to get a formal diagnosis if anyone wants to cash app me $2,500!
My legitimately incredible health insurance doesn’t give a shit if I’m autistic despite my doctor and therapist both wanting me screened! Not to mention the ~18 month wait to see the one person that does adult screenings in my state.
So I’m someone who’s very involved with the autistic community in my country (at least used to, taking a break now, not sure when to come back). I’m just gonna pitch in and say that self-diagnosis is more of a symptom of a larger problem: which is lack of access to proper, official diagnoses. It’s not perfect, in fact it can be harmful. For example, I know someone online who thought they were autistic and through a doctor who specializes in autism, they turned out to have BPD. Now, imagine if a self-diagnosed autistic who actually has BPD doesn’t and/or can’t go through a proper ASD assessment (and to an extent isn’t aware of their BPD either, because as I said, lack of proper assessment), and they enter the autism community, manifesting their behavior in less than ideal ways, which does more harm and good. This is one possible, and perhaps damaging result of the emergence of self-diagnosis. But at the same time, the system doesn’t provide the assessment, and so self-diagnosis is the only pathway to understand what may be wrong with us. The thing we must collectively fight for is to make official diagnosis more accessible and affordible, the methods vary depending on the country, of course.
Full disclosure: I was officially diagnosed as a toddler. But I know many adults who resorted to self-diagnosis or get diagnosed remotely (by people who may or may not be qualified to do such assessment) because assessment for adults is difficult here. The local psychologists have not proven that they use the proper diagnostic tools to assess autistics in adults; a big hurdle is the lack of local translations.
Reading all the comments I think what’s going on is that some places it’s tough as nails to even get recognized as autistic much less get assistance for it and other places professionals understand autism and can help and some places you will be abused for being autistic
I still don’t understand why so many people are against self-diagnosis. Someone is suffering and trying to find help, a lot of people, especially minorities and women, can’t find it professionally. What’s wrong with those people looking for help themselves? Having a word for what is different with you helps finding this help.
I’m not talking about people claiming to be autistic and demanding attention and accomodations, that’s a whole different story but trying to keep people from finding help themselves seems to be very wrong to me.
Because a diagnosis can tell you what you are, it’s not a supposition anymore, and you don’t have to convince yourself as it becomes an objective truth. I used to think I was autistic, and while I wasn’t that far, autism wasn’t the right diagnosis and that new information allowed me to act on the right things. I live a much better life now than when I was relying on my self-diagnosis
Yes, but you are answering on the experience that diagnostics are available to you, and what sounds like an assumption that this is universal.
The biggest point of contention is people who want to be assessed properly, but can’t get a professional to sniff their brains. They still are who they are and need help and support.
Of course, if it isn’t available to people, my point falls apart completely and I was in an ideal situation that isn’t as accessible to most people. (I live close to a mental health center specialized in autism)
Still it helped me tremendously and I want to encourage people to seek a diagnosis.
For people who don’t/don’t yet know, support groups like this one or ND friends are invaluable
“I still don’t understand why so many people are against liars”
When you create an environment in which nothing has to be empirically proven then you attract liars. Liars will actively make things worse for people who are actually neurodivergent.
It’s not like you can prove that someone is autistic. It’s not like there’s a blood test, an x-ray, an MRI etc. that can be administered and the results be reproduced.
It’s diagnosed based on observed behavior and doesn’t really take into account what life feels like for the individual. So getting diagnosed can be very difficult for people who can mask well and on the whole don’t represent like a young boy. Those people can just go on and suffer further then in your opinion?
I’m going to repeat myself, I’m not talking about people who demand accommodations and attention. I’m talking about people who look for ways to make their life livable. Those people are not liars, they are suffering and searching for help.
No I’m not saying they should suffer, I’m saying they should actually seek help.
Declaring you’re neurodivergent and associating with other people who claim the same is delusion.
Yes there are bad doctors. When you see a bad doctor you go to a different doctor. Otherwise all you’re successfully doing is ensuring people treat you differently. Which, in my opinion, is actually the point.
Well, I live in central Europe. In the second largest city in my country. There are two places that diagnose adult females. Waiting list says it takes 3-6 years to even start the process. I’m 42 and I’m not going to waste more years on fighting my brain until they finally have the time to diagnose me. And the most important thing is even when they do diagnose me there won’t be any help that I don’t have to find myself. It will simply be a note in my medical file.
I already know I’m neurodiverse. I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD last year and the neurologist who diagnosed me strongly suspected autism as well. She’s just not licensed to diagnose me officially.
So I went to look for resources, for books to help me understand why I might be the way that I am. For communities who might understand my struggles.
People in my life don’t treat me differently because I don’t demand accommodations. I might say that I need a short break to clear my mind, that I need some space or that I don’t really feel like talking but that’s it. I don’t demand they do anything differently, I simply learned more about myself and know how to react differently to things. And that’s what self diagnosis is about for me. Finding ways to make your life easier for yourself and not demanding others to accommodate you.
There are certainly people out there who claim to be neurodivergent or to have this or that mental health issue and demand to be treated differently. That is a problem and I acknowledge that. Especially with the rise of TikTok videos etc. it’s getting worse. There is a difference between those people and people who are just looking for ways to understand themselves better, finding ways to help themselves and taking the responsibility for doing that on themselves.
Criticizing the first group of people is one thing but telling the latter one their experiences are not valid is very hurtful and doesn’t help anyone.
I would wager that not everyone that claims to have diagnosed themselves has the capacity for understanding that you seem to.
You seem like you actually tried the system, then used it as a sort of guideline for defining yourself. I’m a little confused why you would continue to use their terminology, but I also accept that it’s not really my business what you call yourself.
I don’t know you, so I don’t use definitive terms. But I accept that there are merits to self-diagnosing, if you are truly seeking to understand yourself.
I’m sorry you’ve gone for so long without the help you need.
Thank you for your patience in responding to hurtful and dismissive ignorance. The “it works for me so you’re lying!” attitude towards the medical system here is maddening.
I gave up on psychologists and psychiatrists when I was very young. I decided they were worthless, and that I would define myself and find what works for me.
I don’t claim to have “autism” or “adhd” or anything else because labels do not matter.
That being said, I also recognize and have seem firsthand through my friends that therapy and treatments can help.
Well, I do kind of understand the position. I’m bothered by all those people saying “everyone is a little bit ADHD” as well.
I just think there needs to be an open dialogue about self diagnosis and that there is a difference between people just claiming something and people who did their research and “soul searching”, maybe even have professional opinions but no official diagnosis.
In “Unmasking Autism” Devon Price called my generation the lost generation. Women and minorities who grew up during a time when autism was being diagnosed but the criteria were based on behavior of a Caucasian young boy. We were overlooked and had to fight for ourselves. When I went to elementary school Asperger’s syndrome wasn’t even in the DSM yet.
Tbh, I’d much rather be neurotypical or at least have resources to actually help me. Unfortunately that’s not an option so I’m doing the best I can.
Tbh, I’d much rather be neurotypical or at least have resources to actually help me. Unfortunately that’s not an option so I’m doing the best I can.
I’m so sorry you’re wishing to be someone else. YI imagine you must experience significant difficulties to get there. Still, I’m happy you have the motivation to continue making changes in your life so you could be happy. If you find anything useful, please share so that us other autists can learn about it :)
Thank you! I don’t really wish to be someone else. I just spent the first 20 years of my life being told and thinking I was stupid, lazy and incapable of making friends. The next 20 years were spent masking extremely well and passing for “normal”, except for those total breakdowns every couple of years when I couldn’t really eat, sleep or communicate for a few weeks. I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, PTSD etc. but the meds and therapy didn’t really help that much. Finally I got a new therapist, a young one, fresh from uni and full of new information and ideas and after reading my file she made me take tests for ADHD and autism. Both were pretty conclusive but she’s not licensed to diagnose it. I got diagnosed with ADHD almost two years ago and got meds and better help but there’s still a lot of grief for all the years that could have been better and that’s what makes me wish to be different sometimes.
I got myself onto a waiting list in my native country to get an official diagnosis. Would have had to be paid out of pocket, plus the flight back home (adult autism diagnosis in my residential country? Never heard of such a thing, so my native country was the only place to even try). But when I first started entertaining the idea that I could be autistic it was quite the revelation for me and of course I wanted it proven and on paper!
When they finally called after three years with a date for a first assessment I politely declined. Psychiatric diagnosis is one of the most trial-and-error processes we have in medicine. I do believe some brain difference exist that account for the differences between people like me and others, but all that Psychiatry has done is they attached some acronyms to it. Beyond that? They don’t know why, how, or what to do with us other than reeducate us to appear more normal. There is no better support for me out there than what I’ve built for myself over the years. I live remote with little human interaction. I work remote. I have self-built ergo stuff for my fucky joints so I can continue working. I choose my own medication. I allow myself to be weird and will not finish any day without a good wiggle or making a few weird sounds. Hey I even found an equally weird partner, lucky me!
It’s of course entirely possible that I’m just making the whole thing up in my mind and could do fine in a presence type job, and that I could do fine without wiggles and noises. But at this point I don’t want to know, I’m fine.
If self-diagnosis helps you set up your life to be more easy for you, go for it!
“Most doctors recommend abusive therapy to kids and teens” I’ve experienced that first hand and is the reason why I feel that being diagnosed was the worst thing to happen to me and is the reason why I typically try to hide the fact I’m autistic only ever admit it when I feel absolutely safe
This sounds terrible. My daughter recently got an autism diagnosis which we’ve been able to use to help get her better accommodations in school. Would you mind clueing me in to some of this abusive therapy stuff so that I can recognize it if she ends up in a situation like that?
Well when I was first diagnosed my school would just occasionally lock me in a room separated from the rest of my class and it only somewhat ended when my parents found out what was happening and even then the extra help I got was just doing my school work in a different room and when I tell them it’s not helping my teacher would simply lock me up again all the extra help did was just preventing me from having a social life and all of this was happening even after changing schools and all my folks could do is find a psychiatrist that would undiagnose me Edit: in hindsight I recall seeing a reddit post I’m to lazy to dig back up on r/Vermont talking about how a pedophile was fired from a daycare and the comments were talking about how it turns out child abuse is commonplace in Vermont daycares and that very same predator got a job at a different daycare so I guess the moral of all this is if you’re a parent keep your kids far away from Vermont the schools have abousers and the daycares have predators
In Australia, our healthcare doesn’t fund diagnosis’ for people over 18. So even if you can find someone that will assess you as an adult, you have to pay out of pocket. I recently (last month) got a diagnosis because I found a psychologist who has a sliding fee scale. I was self-diagnosed for 6 years before that.
I’m in the “can’t find a doctor” camp. I had one doctor diagnose me with ADHD and BPD, but referred me to another doctor to be tested for autism, and had a ton of trouble just trying to get the appointment that now I’m just trying to find another doctor that offers mental health care and takes my insurance; but this was a bitch and a half to begin with with the doctor I have now, and the more I look the more I see just how fucked up this side of health care really is. Overworked, understaffed, full of people who do not give a single fuck about you, etc.
It’s harder every day to even want to continue living.
Well I am feeling more lost again with this post. Discovered 4 months ago Asperger Syndrom from someone that had it talking about it online and I found their words surprisingly near me. Went on a trip online curious and read about it, felt more lost because not everything written is present but a lot is there. Decided to look on Reddit. Did the Raads-r test seriously, got a 131. But papers online say it’s effective but finds some false positives. So I did the Clinical Partners Adult Autism Test and the results where strongly positive. Did the recommended Aspi-Quiz, and I got a 150 on 200 for broader autism. I’ll be moving very very soon and taking rendez-vous with a specialist would take too long, so I am in a grey zones. Posts like that make me feel like maybe I could get an answer, and maybe learn more about myself, even if it’s a “Well no you are not, you are just simply different” or a “Here, there is a word for what you feel you are living, go learn about it”. But reading comments remind me simply I’m just there floating in ignorance for now, and a bit feeling lost about how I work, or think I work
This is why there is such a trend in misinformation these days, a breakdown of distrust in institutions. I get why there is that distrust… institutional issues are easy to find in all fields, however that doesn’t stop them from being correct on the whole.
Look at Covid denialism, denying the results of the last election… the loss of peoples ability to believe experts in their fields. Unless people here are actual doctors no one here has the expertise to give a diagnosis. Everyone has become an expert these days and does their own research, reality doesn’t care about your intuitions on this though.
Saying this, you might be right you could be autistic based on your own feelings/observations. That still doesn’t make it a diagnosis.
I saved a pic of an article I was reading, this is a good example of being an expert and being someone that has interest in a subject but not having the training and knowledge to fully understand it, I read this a bunch of times and still don’t actually understand it as I’m sure most people here won’t either. https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/e1a1497f-13ef-47f8-bc2a-7b2c18ca33d6.webp
There is nothing wrong with being sceptical of experts as they can be wrong and wanting second opinions on things however that doesn’t make you an expert because you can google things.
Are you an expert in psychiatric diagnosis? Neither am I, but I have spent enough years with loved ones trying to navigate the so called mental health system or industry. Scratch a little on the surface of psychiatry and you find not science, but snake-oil, pseudo science and lots of abuse.
There is an enormous gap between a diagnosis made by a medical doctor based on medical exams, and a diagnosis made by a so called mental health professional based on talking to you for ca. 55 min. Or make it even 2 x 55min. The professional might, based on their culture or experience, diagnose you with Borderline disorder (a popular option for teenage girls), Bipolar disease (a favourite for the male midlife crisis), general anxiety and/or chronic fatigue and/or chronic pain (for women who have learned they have to function to have value, hear dearie take another pill!) or a range of other things currently in fashion or in fashion when the person learned their trade … nobody sits out there in their psychiatric practice and actually measures people’s brain functions, like with real science (although there seems to be evidence that in the case of ASD/ADHD one actually could).
I distrust health and especially mental health institutions because I haven’t gotten the support from them they claim they offer. Their medications have consistently made my loved ones and me worse. Their advice was either non-existent or trivial (I could have googled it). Their structures were all built to induce the symptoms they claim to cure (ever saw a bunch of overworked doctors and nurses smoke in the hospital entrance? Ever looked at what’s inside of a hospital vending machine? How a psychiatric patient spends their day?
(Unless you have money to spend on more agreeable mental health surroundings, like you could send your socially awkward child to a nice kind of institution.) /s
As I said there is lots to find wrong with all our institutions and I understand where it comes from, but does that mean we completely disregard everything now throw the baby out with the bath water? Should you now be able to prescribe medications for yourself now too? Because you have seen the institutional problems does that make you an expert in their field? I get being able to see problems that doesn’t take a degree or training it still doesn’t make you personally an expert (and don’t confused when I say you, I also mean me and everyone else that doesn’t work in that field) You could come to my work and see how poorly it’s run but that doesn’t mean you are gonna be able to jump on a locomotive and operate it.
Yes you personally have experienced the gaps in the medical field how about tons of other people who haven’t, every job on this planet has people that are shit at doing the job they are in, that doesn’t mean the job is no longer viable on the whole, if you have bad experiences with doctors you try elsewhere if it’s possible and realistic obviously
You still don’t get it. It’s not about experts in a scientific field. It’s about ‘experts’ who literally made up the entire field out of mostly nothing. Psychiatry is not a science.
There’s more hard science in driving a locomotive than diagnosing a person with a made up mental condition.
Okay well here’s where I have no idea what you are going on about then, if that’s how you see them then why did you go to them for mental health advice and why did you take medications they prescribed? Makes zero sense
I had to look up sealioning since I had no idea what it meant, no I’m not, and since you decided to frame your question that way maybe you just need a thicker skin, you engaged me in the convo, not everyone is going to automatically agree with you in life
So you personally had a bad run in and you did believe in them but no longer do… okay I guess you are right then may as well invalidate the entire profession cuz schmorpel got bad service… that is some flat earth type reasoning
I mean, technically you’re correct. Psychiatry isn’t a science, because Psychiatrists are just Psychologists that can prescribe medicine.
Psychology is a soft science, which means that yes it is constantly subject to change.
That being said, if you think they’re made up conditions then why are you still adhering to their terminology? Or are you trying to say that psychiatrists will wrongfully diagnose someone for the sake of selling drugs? Because those two things are very different and you’ve done nothing to show that you’re aware.
Made-up conditions or drug-selling motive? Why can’t it be both? If I described my inner experience in my own words you might not understand me. Read again: I don’t think autism is made up. I don’t think ADHD is made-up. But I don’t like the ‘disorder’ connotation of those terms. I’m not disordered, I function differently.
I think a lot of other conditions are made up, or rather they are just descriptions of symptoms with the word ‘disorder’ attached to it. Recently the whole idea of the brain chemical imbalance as cause of depression has been questioned, but Psychiatrists keep medicating people all the same. Probably most don’t want to sell drugs, they just try to help people the best they know and both pharma and academia tell them that’s the way. But really, we have no idea what causes autism, or ADHD, or depression. The treatments offered are experimental at best and have often shown to be harmful in the long term. Between a stranger who doesn’t know me and doesn’t know very much, and myself who knows me and doesn’t know very much - who should I trust?
I have always said that seeing Psychiatrists is a mistake, and that if you want real help you should seek a psychologist first. However, like with cases of people who have bi-polar disorder, (which absolutely is real, you wouldn’t even think to claim otherwise if you’d experienced someone on a manic high) they need the drugs because otherwise they will destroy themselves.
I gave up on trying to seek help from those types a long time ago, mainly because I decided that I couldn’t find answers from people who couldn’t even tell that I was lying.
However I also stopped using their words on myself. If you conflate “self diagnosis” with “soul searching” then yes self diagnosis is ok.
Not everyone does. Some people see it as an easy ticket to manipulate others. As far as who to trust is concerned, regarding doctors, the line for me has always been “do they try to get me to take drugs?”.
If yes, fuck off, if no: I’ll probably find another reason to stop seeing them.
The example you bring speaks much about your non-understanding of what “self diagnosis” means, imo. Seems you think about it as solely applying academic knowledge. From what i read so far, and from own experience, it is first rather an assessment of self perception as questions arise at some point, such as “why do i feel so alien”, or “why am I exhausted seemingly out of nowhere”. Only then, one may discover that there is a “spectrum” of traits of which one shares a more-or-less large number. So this is about self-knowledge and discovering that so many difficulties one has are apparently atypical. No one external can do that for you. And frankly, i wouldn’t trust a neurotypical person who just goes by the clinical book with “diagnosing” autism in someone who for decades trained “adult”.
Btw. I have a degree in Biology, therefore i do understand in principle what the cited abstract is about, and why it may be difficult to accurately map highly repetitive sequences. Of course i have little knowledge in the field of genome sequencing, so the codes therein tell me exactly nothing.
You have a degree in biology which is exactly what I’m talking about, so you actually do understand things in this field… you have expertise, training and knowledge in biology as opposed to someone who takes an interest in it and googles/TikTok’s all their information about it
I did say you may feel this way and that’s fine but that doesn’t automatically make you autistic you need a diagnosis otherwise what’s the point of doctors and science?
Simply apply this logic to a physical ailment… this is a made up scenario for you, recently I have been having continuously bad headaches… okay there is the self discovery/self diagnosis part done perhaps it’s just a headache, now you need to go to a doctor to actually get a diagnosis pretty sure you can’t self diagnose a brain tumour
Something I could diagnose is cars, I was a Mechanic for 17 years, what do you do if your car doesn’t start, yes you can check the internet and look for possible answers, sometimes they are correct too and you can even get the basic idea of why it caused the problem, the difference between me and finding info on the internet is I know why your starter isn’t working I know the difference between a starter contact and a plunger I also know how the starter works when you turn the key, I know how the magnetic field is working I know how it physically makes contact thus giving you a car that starts, and on top of that I also know what else out of the myriad of other things it could be to check if YouTube is wrong and it’s not the starter
It’s about knowing myself and how i experience myself in relation to others and seeing the difference. It’s not about putting a label on me because of a set of behaviourisms. I don’t even want that “disorder” label. Or be seen as defective somehow. Perhaps i should just find it funny that others want to deny me the expertise in knowing my self-experience. This community used to be quite nice and understanding until recently.
Except every single person on this planet feels differently than others do we aren’t a mass lump of sameness, being different doesn’t automatically mean you aren’t normal or have a condition, which is the entire purpose of adding labels to things especially in relation to needing it for any type of medical care or assistance of some kind.
If you personally don’t require a diagnosis or label then good for you, you don’t want or need the label of autistic so you don’t need a diagnosis so you are arguing for what exactly? The ability to self diagnose yourself with a label you don’t even want?
I re-read the replies I made and anyone else that replied and I don’t see anyone being not nice, people can disagree with your opinions that doesn’t make them unkind, if you get upset that others disagree with your viewpoint don’t worry about it just move on with your day
Me disagreeing with you didn’t deny you your own self experience, just like you disagreeing with me didn’t deny me anything either
I think I never claimed “I am autistic”. I’m just trying to explain (that’s not an opinion but it’s trying to clarify indisputable things), that i’m obviously my own authority in seeing that my human being here has an above-average share of neurodivergent traits. I make a distinction between ND and autism, btw. If that would be assessed “autistic”, I don’t know (but it would be interesting anyway). The more I’m around in places like this the more relatable stuff pops up, and having it all labeled a disability is devastating. There are traits that rather handicap me within my society (but wouldn’t elsewhere), and there are certainly abilities that have me stand out. Having strangers who know nothing about how i live and about my path in life want me to get labeled a “disorder” is ridiculous at best and offending actually.
The general vibe of this comment section smacks a lot of hexbearian-style brigading, sorry if you’re not part of such a thing.
Having a disorder isn’t offensive at all, you seeing it that way is your own problem, it’s a word, we use words to describe things, if something deviates from the norm then it’s a disorder, no one chooses to have a disorder and having a disorder doesn’t make you any less of a human. You are getting hung up on a word and you personally don’t like the word is all this is.
You saying this place smacks of brigading is also funny, once again just because other people don’t automatically agree with you doesn’t mean there is something going on… it could just mean people disagree with you. Not like the actual instance matters but I’m from the same one as you…
You disagree with me, I don’t think you are “brigading” or trolling I just think you have a different opinion
Late reply but for those who read this later: careful when wanting to know what is “the norm”. It’s social ideals, mostly. (And if it were statistics, where would we draw the line and why … homosexual … disorder?) – Yet luckily, “disorder” means illness, while a non-valueing statistical out of the ordinary would rather be called “divergent”.
Relevant quote from the article:
Whilst [neurodivergent] traits were celebrated in the modernist era, they increasingly began to show up as problems in the Britain during the 1980s – meaning that something had changed in British social normativity. Interestingly, according to critical psychiatrist Sam Timimi and colleagues, this largely happened in light of the rise of the neo-liberal market system, and in particular the services economy. In particular, this economic shift began to alter the notion of the ideal male: rather than being fixed in focus and obsessive, men increasingly now had to forever shift into new roles and to constantly sell one’s “self” in order to fit in. Members of the workforce, in other words, now had to become increasingly agile, flexed, narcissistic, and hyper-social in order to succeed and be valued – and this economic drive became reflected in social normativity at all levels of society.
I’m learning. Do you? This implies it takes time. Glad we can end this breathtaking conversation with a win-win.
I truely have no intention to beat anyone in the domineering game. I’m being snarky, tho.
There’s a pretty significant difference between “I don’t trust neurotypicals” and “I don’t trust a specific neurotypical person who diagnoses without extensive hands-on experience in the relevant target population, particularly when the population in question tends to intentionally learn to hide their defining characteristics as they get older.”
If leaving away the main context of what i typed is concerning you, then yeah …
Or do you want to say that ND people are disentitled from knowing themselves best?
Just to make sure you “concerned” people know what i am talking about (and i speak for this whole community, for they are diverse): I’m talking about people with special sensitivities and special abilities which are very much needed in this kind of “civilisation”. Such people used to fulfill special tasks within their tribes, back in the times when humans were still living in more natural societies. I’m talking of a low percentage of human populations (well, it’s >15% if we count all HSPs) that evolved having certain qualities which turned out to beneficial for those populations – not of people who have some kind of “disorder” that would require clinical attention or what would naturally get selected out in the course of evolution. What constitutes a disorder/disability is IMO the consequence of all the trauma which such people receive by not being properly recognised and given their special tasks within today’s society. No doubt many of them are suffering from it, but it’s also very understandable if they were to say that they wouldn’t want to be clinically handled by the methods said society usually has to offer.
fwiw, here is an essay that speaks about exactly this same thing but it does take some more words and referances to get a message against pathologising across. It’s a whole series of essays.
I agree 100% with it, would just have chosen a somewhat different language.
I understand that it might be an uncomfortable feeling that if difficult to put into words, but can you elaborate on that?
From my perspective, the differences in experiences make it very difficult for NTs and non-NTs to relate to each others’ mental experiences. In the past, it’s had some very violent and abusive results, and while things have very much improved from then, that gap between experiences still exists and won’t likely ever go away. So I guess my real question here is why should non-NTs trust NTs in this specific area?
I can understand being concerning if you’re just talking about a lack of trust in general, which I do think is the case, too.
I am in fact referring to the general space, not any particular topic. There is a lot of othering and tribalism that I’ve observed. It’s a dangerous precedent for a community to set, regardless of what the community is focused around.
I was diagnosed in my late 40s. And yes my wife and I looked it up, and having that diagnosis can only limit the treatment available to me. But the US mental health system is underfunded.
It’s also impacted thanks to the epidemic and lockdown of 2020. So, it’s going to be hard to be treated in the US unless you have money.
And then the public serving mental health system is connected to our penal system and has similar abuse issues. One in three inpatients are abused, either sexually or violently, or are put on tranquilizers by the nurse (collaborating with the house psychiatrist) so you won’t be any trouble. If you’re committed in a public institution expect to not get any better while you’re in. And they’ll cover up any harm done.
(For private facilities, do research in advance regarding their rate of incidents. If you can have legal council available to you do so.)
So we have to depend on each other for help. So its imporant that we assume everyone else is here in good faith until there’s evidence otherwise. Note a lot of us are not good with interpersonal discourse. A lot of us instinctively mask for fear of harm and persecution — a concern in the US, UK, Canada and elsewhere as the rising transnational white power movement gains momentum and expands its list of undesirables.
Also on self diagnosis: unfortunately too many people.read a Facebook post and then self diagnose thelrmselves with
Not trying to argue against this image, I’ll skip that as I don’t know much about it, but yeah. I actually know a few people who self diagnosed with autism, ocd and whatnot and they’re just in it for the attention it gets them
I looked for a diagnosis. Called lots of providers and, in summary, they only providers that could accept me were expensive and lengthy. I don’t have light or sound sensitivity (which isn’t required) so I don’t need accommodations. I don’t have trama and have worked through most of my issues so I don’t need therapy. There’s objectively no benefit to getting a diagnosis for me other than claiming I have ASD. And there’s some negatives, especially if traveling abroad. So yeah, with that, I don’t want a professional diagnosis. I did lots of research and checked more than enough boxes in the DSM-5 to validate myself. Others’ validation isn’t worth a couple thousand dollars and hours of consultation over a year. If I needed support, it might be worth it, but personally, I feel I’m in a good place.
I was searching for why I am different and found that it had a name and there are other who have similar experiences that I can relate to. That’s good enough for me.
I get gatekeeping and that people may be spreading false information or making the community look bad. Call them out then. Otherwise, an educated self-diagnosis isn’t harming anyone. Let people be at peace with their sense of self.
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