@space-aspi there are a lot of reasons to not have a professional diagnosis
iâm in the states where there are no free exams for adults, at least there arenât in my state, just seeing a psychiatrist for an entry visit would cost $200 out of pocket because most donât take medicaid and the ones that do in my area are very much recommended to not go to, evaluations are even more expensive
iâm self dx, not because i decided autism seemed like a cool thing or i fit a few trait presentations, but because i literally studied it for years, reading every new article on how traits present different in afabs than amabs, how different minority statuses effected it, how it can effect mental health for it to never be acknowledged, etc etc etc
i also actually read the diagnostic criteria (which is something every self dxxer iâve ever met has done)
you know why i wouldnât trust a self dx in the hands of some counsel of family and friends? because the world is an ableist shitshow
my sister is in a peripheral psychology related field (social work) and has decided, as such, she knows more about mental health than anyone in her family not in such a field - this includes her telling me iâm not autistic because it âdoesnât really seem to fitâ especially after meeting âreal autistic peopleâ
iâve literally been studying and learning everything i could about autism for approx. 11-12 years and also? iâm autistic, so yes, iâm pretty sure i know more about it than her
and i personally have gone in for an eval, back when my motherâs insurance still covered me, and got back bad results
iâve spoken extensively on this before, but i knew upon the completion of the eval they wouldnât diagnose me, and you know why? because i actually knew what the diagnosis would require and they didnât even ask for that information
there was no interview, no history, no asking to discuss my childhood with a parent, no questioning about sensory issues - i essentially had a standard eval and not one that could determine autism, because you know whatâs required in america to diagnose autism? a diagnostic interview
i left that eval and called my therapist, telling her they werenât going to diagnose me because they didnât even try to get the info they needed
and part of that was institutional ableism as when i got the results back, i was told âyouâre not autistic, youâre just so intelligent you canât connect with people sociallyâ
this is an oft used sentiment to deny people an autism diagnosis and itâs ableist af; being âtoo smartâ doesnât preclude autism
they also obviously didnât know the diagnostic criteria either because they told me the auditory processing disorder they diagnosed didnât contribute to an autism diagnosis, instead i should come back for more testing to see if iâm adhd - part B.4 of the criteria states hypo or hyper sensory issues directly contribute to diagnosis
i never even met the man that did the evaluation, i had a registration worker (not a nurse) that proctored half the test and then left me alone for the other half (against regulations, youâre never to leave a patient alone doing eval for a number of reasons and one of them is the results can be skewed by them doing something wrong which is highly preventable by being their during the eval) and a colleague of the elevator is who gave me the results
so yea sometimes professionals know better and sometimes? they donât do their fucking job
and there are plenty of reasons to not seek prof diagnosis
did you know in a lot of places, professional diagnosis can prevent you from adopting? or that it can be used to label you an unfit parent in court? there are real instances of autistic parents losing custody, not just to their ex partner, but single autistic parents and autistic couples that have their kids taken by the state because theyâre deemed unfit on the basis of being autistic
did you know that a diagnosis (in the states) can lead to your parent/guardian being able to retain power of attorney over you? regardless of whether or not their child is actually unable to care for themselves or make their own decisions about their life
did you know that a diagnosis can be used in institutional discrimination? itâs technically legal to pay mentally disabled people pennies on the dollar because theyâre âless productive workers.â and that many employers, if informed of an autism diagnosis, simply wonât hire someone or may figure out how to fire them without hitting the ada (americans with disabilities act)?
did you know that a huge reason people self dx isnât to label themselves with something trendy but so they can better know themselves, connect with a community that can better understand them, feel less like a âfreakâ or âbroken,â and make their own accommodations as necessary? i personally remember sitting at my table in kindergarten, five years old, having what i now understand to be a panic attack because i was so focused on not being noticed, not standing out, not doing anything wrong because i already realized i was different and different was bad and nobody could know
that was the entirety of my childhood. within a month of routinely interacting with a random group of 20 or so other 5 year olds, i had learned that weirdness, difference, wasnât tolerated by the populace, and came to believe that if i were to prosper, iâd need to not be different
iâve rarely come across a self dxxer that hasnât put a considerable portion of their lifetime towards looking for answers, towards suspecting but not year declaring, towards tentative steps in the direction of autism. i knew i was autistic when i was 15 and my sister came home from her senior psych class and said âsarah, i figured out whatâs wrong with youâ and showed me the definition for autism in the back of the book
excusing the ableism and that she has since decided iâm not autistic, i learned enough that day to self dx, but didnât for over a decade. and a lot of us court self dxing for a long time, speak to other autistic individuals about their experiences, and become slowly more and more sure
if youâre going to insist on counsel diagnosis, donât insist it needs to be by friends and family, who you have no guarantee would even accept a prof dx - iâve seen enough asks come into @autism-asks to know that a lot of family members and friends will just as easily brush aside a prof dx, claim the doctors got that wrong, etc
rather let self dxxers do what they typically do anyway and speak to the autistic community - iâm pretty sure we, the community, understand it better than anyone else
EDIT: professionals donât study a disorder for 7 years unless they are very specifically specializing in it, most autistic self dxxers know way more about autism both from actually being autistic and studying it exclusively for years, hence why i keep being told by people in the medical field âyou donât seem autistic/i never would have guessedâ who obviously donât understand autism doesnât have one singular image, my therapist studied for years and has a doctorate in psychology but readily admits i know way more about certain topics than her because sheâs not some arrogant asshole that thinks a degree equals actual knowledge
