I’ve been internet-diagnosed with autism plenty of times, but the one time I went to get evaluated, they said I didn’t have “it.”
But if it’s a spectrum with different combinations of different traits at different levels of intensity, maybe a diagnosis is irrelevant and what matters is what your constellation of traits actually is, regardless of an official diagnosis (which, let’s face it, is probably highly subjective outside of some constellations–that is to say, with a long enough list of psychologits, I could probably get a dx).
Personally, for me, what this means is I can look to autistic literature to see what resonates with me without worrying about the fact that I don’t share many of the hard markers for autism. For instance, my investment in the truth often conflicts with social niceties even though I can read people’s emotions. I can see myself as an unofficially atypical person in a lot of ways.
I’ll leave my resonsances in the comments below. Feel free to share yours.
I’m not sub clinical so I will put my reply behind a spoiler to minimize my intrusion on this space.
spoiler
I think it is a massive disservice to treat autism only as a disability. I think it harms ‘subclinical’ people and also people who are identified by medical diagnosis as requiring supports.
ETA: because it is only diagnosed when it a disability, it is sometimes viewed with shame and diagnosis and access to support is sometimes avoided for fear of stigma. This is particularly harmful when a parent chooses to deny a child access to care. Children are literally beaten into acting 'right: (its me, I’m children) rather than being understood.
OP mentioned ‘different levels of intensity’ which might be saying the same thing as I am about to, but I think it’s critically flawed to make autism diagnosis contingent on “clinically significant impairment in daily, social, or occupational functioning” because there is no good way to quantify the impact of masking.
I do hold the view that autism is a disability but when I say that I am referring mostly to the autism diagnosis which requires it to be debilitating. In addition to that, I agree with the social model of disability and that for at least some people they would have no or less impairment if society wasn’t built to only accommodate neurotypocals.
I think we lose a lot of data (unacceptable, frankly) by ignoring the experience of a massive set of neurodivergent people and how they experience the world. We lose the opportunity to understand each other better.
I’m late diagnosed and I think the only reason I got the diagnosis is because burnout nearly killed me. I can’t help but think of and mourn for all the people who died or had their quality of life severely impacted by being forced to raw dog life in a neurotypical world. How much shame people carry because they are called lazy or bad because they don’t fit in. How people pass that trauma on to their children.
ETA: I don’t think diagnosis is a magic bullet to a better life, but I’m imagining a better future where one of the first steps might be actually supporting people who have medically diagnosed disabilities and maybe once we figure out it’s not such a big deal then people will be like “we could do this for literally everyone, huh?” I’m in the process of turning diagnosis into supports and accomodations and it’s fucking exhausting. The process is abelist as hell.
This is why I strongly support self diagnosis and accomodations for self diagnosed people. More widely, I think people should be given the space to identify what they need to live a happy and healthy life and to be able to ask for accomodations to achieve it. I don’t think this takes away from people who need more supports than others. There isn’t a limit amount of caring and understanding we can give people.
Anyways, I’m hoping luxury gay space communism does away with the need for people to need to ask for support and we can all literally just vibe.
As someone in a developing world, where access to mental professional is virtually impossible, due to cost, availability, competency of doctors( lots of doctors here are down right malicious), and safety, I know that in truth, the majority of the people in the world, both developing and developed, dont have access to an official diagnoses.
Techinally I am now diagnosed with ADHD(though not autism) but amphetamines, the most effective drug for ADHD, is banned in my country. So even a diagnoses doesn’t guaranty you support, depending on where you are in the world.
I hate the conversation about self-diagnoses because there isn’t that acknowledgement. Most of the world has access to the internet, in some form. People are gonna use labels that resonant with them. I am even luckier than most, I self-diagnosed myself 5 years before my official diagnoses, because I only now have the money and resources to do so. Most self-diagnosed people want to seek professional help and get actual accommodations, bit there is no acknowledgement that is a privilege.
Just like being poor is a sin, being self-diagnoses is its own sin.
My diagnosis cost $3,600 in Canada where we apparently have universal health care because I couldn’t wait any longer. There was a wait list for that too, but just a few months.
I had been on a waiting list for a psychiatrist to who may or may not have been able to diagnose, we hadn’t even gotten that far in terms of discussion. I didn’t hear for a year so I called the clinic to ask and I got told that the doctor had left that clinic and gone to another so I was not in any waiting list and could expect another 16 months before anyone could see me. They said they told my GP’s office but my GP says he had nothing on file so if I hadn’t called I would never have known.
This is not to diminish your experiences, but to share how my individual privilege was used above the privilege I have living where I do.
You can get rid of the spoiler tag, brother, we’re all in this together. I’m happy to discuss this topic with everyone, including people who feel like maybe I shouldn’t be having this discussion here.
Yes, I think you touched on exactly my problem. We have neurodivergence, but you can’t say you’re OFFICIALLY neurodivergent unless it’s DEBILITATING. But being divergent isn’t about a disability, it’s about difference.
Politically, it’s a bit of a mess. People with autism want to overcome the stigma of it being a disability by recasting it as a style of interacting with the world, but if they leave the disability model, they lose legal protection.
Thank you but I’m going to leave it because I think edits get confusing with federation. Yes I did edit to add other stuff. No I can’t make it make sense lol.
I think it’s possible to talk about autism both as a neurotype and a disability but it’s hard for neurotypicals because they love implied meaning and hate when things are super specific and detailed lol.
I want to further clarify that it only looks at how debilitating it is right then (or up till then) and that’s a problem. Wouldn’t it be great to support people before they suffer?
Anyways consider yourself peer reviewed fellow autist. Your sonic the hedgehog plushie will arrive in the mail in 3-5 business days. (Reference.)
Fucken A, yes!!
Imagine a society where you could say, “You know what, this makes me uncomfortable and I’d like to achieve the same exact result this way instead” without having to get the entire psychiatric establishment and congress and judicial system involved in it every fucking time.
Thank you for the sonic plushie. I shall display him proudly next to my Certificate of Sanity.
ETA: I also sometimes want to say, “I’m autistic” because I have these traits, but I don’t like to say that because people will think I mean I can’t read emotions or detect sarcasm.