this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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Instead of "I'm autistic" say "I was diagnosed with autism".
These days there's no shortage of self-diagnosed, no professional opinion needed, thank you very much youngsters walking around and behaving like world owes them a thing, just because they neither do, nor want to fit into the society. This makes neurotypical people doubtful about declarations like that.
I fully understand wanting to avoid self-diagnoses for attention seeking or blame avoiding purposes, but I tend to lean towards believing people first.
One, because there is always going to be a discrepancy between the population of the accurately diagnosed and people who have a condition, because of poor access to mental health, because of the stigma attached with seeking help for and admitting to having a disorder, cultural differences in diagnoses and because there are poorly trained mental health professionals.
And two, because rejecting people outright when they share what may or may not be a serious problem they’re facing puts them on the defensive and tells people in the vicinity that you may not be a safe person or contribute to a safe place to express themselves.
The average person is going to be doubtful anyways, unless you fit into their understanding of your expressed condition. How many times have we heard “how could he kill himself, he seemed so happy?”
I didn't get my audhd dx until i was 28 but i feel like i always knew, and i think my life might've been sightly less miserable in general if id just allowed myself to accept a self-diagnosis. the attitude of "you just want to be special" seriously fucked me up lmfao.
It's just some gatekeeping bullshit.
In the worst case, they want to kick anyone they don't like to keep their identity pure and clean (newsflash: any group that extends to 1% of the population is going to include people you don't like).
In the best case, they think that any official institution is going to dedicate significant resources to support someone without an official diagnosis, the kind of tactics that the far right uses all the time to make one minority fight against another.
Completely agree with this. Also, as this meme suggests, most people who are autistic don't really need to say it out loud for people who know what autism is to know they have it. You don't need a diagnosis to exhibit behaviors that are obvious to everyone else around you. A diagnosis doesn't suddenly make you something you weren't already.
It takes a strong support system to accept and embrace that their child is autistic and a firm commitment for the entire rest of their childhood to doing whats best for the within that context. The amount of parents who simply outright reject that "something might be wrong" with their kid is extremely high, even now. That doesn't make the kid any less autistic because they haven't been diagnosed, and it doesn't make their symptoms any less obvious either.
Yes, hopefully people can get diagnosed, and hopefully your city has adequate resources to help them, and hopefully the parents aren't jerks, and hopefully the place you live isn't full of conspiracy theorists and crackpot religious leaders who think just praying for the kid is good enough. Hopefully. But if not, you just might have an undiagnosed autistic teenager who's life is spinning out of control and the last thing they need is some internet expert's dumb ass telling them there is nothing wrong because they didn't get the magical diagnosis. Speaking from experience.
Try it anyway.
Your argument is that self-diagnosis causes the average person to be doubtful of expressed diagnoses. Mine is that it’s not self-diagnosis, it’s expression outside of what the average person understands a condition to be that has them doubting.
And yes, I have been diagnosed and then been told that the diagnosis was wrong because I don’t “fit” what people think. So, yeah, I have tried, and that’s why I’m making the argument I am, because that’s what happened. If your experience has been better…great? Maybe you fit the mold better than I do.
It isn't.
My argument is that official diagnosis validates the claim and adds to its gravity.
I agree with you on that point.
There's also no shortage of people who have been on waiting lists for years for a diagnosis.
Mine took almost 4 years between referral and assessment. Two of my friends have been waiting two and four years respectively when both were told the list was "about 18 months long", with medical professionals asking the latter if they're sure they want to keep waiting, trying to get them to come off the list. And this is an area that has shorter wait times than average for the country.
When you're dealing with that kind of scarcity of diagnosis it's not reasonable to dismiss anyone who has self-identified out of hand. Of course there are and have always been pretenders and misguided teens who want to feel special, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that a lot of those are some kind of neurodivergent and that desire to feel special is born of trying to find a "right fit" in a world that feels wrong.
The mankind operates according to its own laws, and they aren't always intuitive, fair, or compassionate.
So let all people who cannot afford a diagnosis go fuck themselves, right?
The more power to them. This society is disgusting, and it's people who want society to evolve according to their values the ones who change it for the better, not the ones who go through life bowing their head to injustices.
That's very peculiar, and very angry approach, entirely uncalled for. And the answer is: no.
The society is the cruelest thing at its worst and the most beautiful at its best. It's also very fragile and it tends to protect itself against every chaotic element that tries to enter it.
If you dislike the society that much, you're free to resign from everything it has to offer and move where it cannot reach you. If you don't want, or can't then it's advisable to study its ways, so that you won't feel threatened by it.
I wasn't going to get involved, but you've touched on my special interest. My question: Where, exactly, would that be? There is no extrinsic margin any more. Hasn't been in North America for over a century, and the rest of the world for at least half a millennium. (And even America's margin came at the expense of people who were already living there.)
It depends very much on your precise location.
As a real-world example: My brother in law moved to a very small, dull place some hour of travel away from the nearest city. There are houses there, but they are few and far between. He and his wife interact with less than 5 persons per week. Their life consists of taking care of their household and remote jobs that involve very little human interaction. He recently taught himself a bit about woodworking and he becomes very good at that every day.
The gist of it is that people imagine some icy peak of some unreachable mountain as the place they should select for their refugee, solace from the society. This is entirely wrong way of thinking. All you need is to search for a place with as little people as possible. And these aren't as scarce as one could think.
I say "I'm autistic" at least 40% specifically to avoid people like you and weird gatekeeping crap, despite having been diagnosed for a long time.
You will never be "one of the good ones" and trying to force yourself to fit a mould, and shitting on other people who are less amenable/able to going through the entire structure, in a hostile and repressive and cruel society will not make them treat you better or provide accommodations more. <.<
I'm not getting into all the other issues with shitting on self diagnosis around class and accessibility and discrimination (direct or intersectional, e.g. trying to strip trans rights from autistic trans people, where diagnosis is actually dangerous, and people choose to avoid it if they have the option to do so even if they seriously struggle with negative aspects of being autistic) and hyperpathologisation and accusing people of being FaKErS because they aren't sufficiently miserable/self-loathing/self-hating or don't post their negative moments/experiences online. Autistic people are allowed to be happy and express it publically.
Honestly just sick and tired of seeing this shit in every single space I want to be part of, and pissed off ;p. I hoped this shit died when we collectively told Autism Speaks to fuck off, but apparently that was way too goddamn optimistic.
Note I'm not sure if this comment replied to who I intended it to but its showing up on another comment that fits soooo.
You don't know me.
And since you're quick to judge, all I can say is "thank heavens".
For those that did not get a diagnosis as a kid, self-diagnosing is how they begin to discover that component about themselves (I'm newly there right now in my 30's, parent present in my life didn't even know what autism was until the 2010's, I am going to be seeking a professional diagnosis), so I would be mindful that some of the self-diagnoses may be telling the truth and it's not all fad joiners/charlatans/attention seekers
To your credit, fakers probably would be somewhat obvious, but I don't have real life experience with a fake autist, mostly the opposite, autists thinking they're NT.
💀
Fakers aren't obvious at all unfortunately.
Most people have no clue what autism actually looks like, and the most exposure they have to autism are autism-coded characters like Sheldon Cooper and Sterling Archer. In other words, characters who are self absorbed and asshole-y for comedic effect. To them, fakers can definitely seem on-brand.
And those that do have actual exposure to autism usually fare no better, because autism is a very wide spectrum, and some symptoms and issues, to the untrained eye, look no different from simple assholeism. What looks like a simple unprovoked tantrum could infact be an autistic person lashing out in frustration because they don't know how to properly communicate something.
Shut The Fuck Up Boomer
Ok, kid.
No. I am autistic, I wasn't diagnosed with a disease. There's a difference!
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick this is spot on,and here’s why. My youngest is autistic. Like, he’s on SSI he’s so autistic. The government pays us a lot of money and covers his healthcare because otherwise they’d have to pay someone else more.
But every time I post something about him being autistic. Inevitably, someone comments about how “it’ll get better. Because they are autistic and it’s barely a hindrance to them. They are now just shy around people”.
These people act like autism isn’t a spectrum, and some people aren’t way worse than others. Once I explained that my child’s doctor even said that “He would probably never be able to live on his own”. These people told me to get him another doctor.
He already goes to the most sought after behavioral specialist in my city. A city that is built around a world class hospital, and connected college. Anyone that does that can go fuck themselves with a burning log of dog shit.
People that say “I’m autistic”. I automatically assume you are self diagnosed. Maybe start with. “I was diagnosed with autism”.
You're focusing on yourself.
I wasn't talking about yourself.
What? I was agreeing with you. Then I gave personal experience examples to show why I agree with you.
I'm not treating it as a combat.
I didn't focus on you. No personal experience should be used in discussions concerning general advisory.
You are literally not making any sense. I agreed with your statement. Then I gave a personal account of why I agreed with your statement.
There is no combat. Because for there to be combat. There would have to be a disagreement. There was no disagreement.
Are you ESL?
It’s like if someone said that a lake “didn’t have big fish in it.”
Then you say “the lake does have big fish”
Then I come along and say “the lake does have big fish. I know because I’ve caught one.”
It’s the exact same thing.
You're free to pay no attention anymore.
I’m just curious. Why shit on someone that was agreeing with you?
You seem upset. I apologize.
Less upset. More perplexed. You took the time to type out a well thought out and intelligent comment. I agreed with your comment, but you then aggressively shit on mine. Like, to say something on the internet and have people agree without a caveat is rare. To then shit on them is even rarer.
My guess is that English is not your first language. You have used certain words in our back and forth in a way that no native speaker would use. Which I’m not saying as a negative. Simply pointing out that, as a reason you misinterpreted what I said.
Either way. I hope you have a good day, and just for what it’s worth. It’s rare that you’ll hear the words “you’re right”. It’s best to graciously accept those wins. Because they won’t come often.