EDIT: please, if you don’t agree with the arguments in the video, come in and discuss, don’t just downvote the thread.
I found this video with many arguments supporting self-diagnosis validity and wanted to share.
Main point may be that there is no valid reason to look for a self-diangosis than the fact of being autistic, and needing support for that. At least until there will be equitable access to medical care, self-diagnosis is the only way for people to understand themself and understand the support they may need in their life.
But, there is much more in the video, take a look at it by yourself!
You completely avoided my points. You don’t like confrontation and discussion, you just want to be right. You clearly are this guy form XKCD comic
Regarding your question, can you use google?
I guess I am wrong. There are no rules, you can decide you are autistic for whatever trait you identify. Because if you don’t function as a perfect and unrealistic human being it’s probably because you have a disability. I doesn’t matter how stupid I think it is, that seems to be the consensus.
I know I’m being passive aggressive but it really bothers me that some common flaws or limitations can simply fit some form of autism because is wrong to say it isn’t. For example, socializing is a skill, it sure comes naturally for some people but that doesn’t mean it isn’t something you can’t learn and improve (I think I only started feeling more confident about my social abilities a few years ago, and I’m 33). I don’t think it’s healthy for people, especially when young, to diagnose themselves with some kind of limitation that would impair development. Feeling discomfort is also a part of life and sometimes we can’t avoid it, we might even need it to become better and mature human beings.
People who claim they are always functional and that nothing bothers or distract them are liers. You know, that hustle culture bullshit. But there are some things to be learned from them too, the courage to face discomfort and work on limitations, balance is everything.
But apparently my opinion doesn’t matter because I’m simply wrong to think self-diagnosing isn’t harmless and a slippery slope for justifying very normal and common individual limitations.
You keep assuming that people don’t use their self diagnosis as a springboard to work on themselves and finally having the right tools to do so. A lot of people don’t use their self diagnosis to feel special, it’s an explanation to them for why they are the way they are and how to help themselves.
A lot of us self diagnosed people are part of the lost generation mentioned in one of the papers above. When I was a child, autism without a learning disability wasn’t even recognized. It just didn’t exist and I had to cope until I went into burnout several times. It took until I found a young therapist to even learn that my problems might be caused by autism. My GP still is of the opinion I couldn’t be autistic because I can look into his eyes.
(And for what it’s worth, I’m not officially diagnosed because in my city of close to 2mil people there are exactly two places that diagnose adults and only one of them has experience diagnosing women.)
I mentioned on my first comment of this discussion that self-diagnosis is good for a person to get interested in the subject and learn more about which could eventually lead to an official diagnosis.
And part of my comment explained why this is not always an option.
Thank you for taking the time of explaining what you think, your point of view is very resonable:
I don’t think there is consensus. On the contrary, there is a lot of ongoing discussion. You can easily find papers that say different things. The second link I mentioned highlight how the usual tests can report autism when the diagnosed porblem is different, just as an example.
And I have to agree with you that there is a lot of people (maybe the majority? Probably the majoirity of vocal people on tiktok) that takes this thing in a way that looks not as serious as it should, but there is a lot of people that documents itself, maybe starting from the content creators, but then finding more reliable and serious resources. I myself read the famous book form Atwood (which is focused on children tho) and the one from Devon Price, and others, plus a ton of papers. There actually is a lot of confusion and new theories (serious ones) popping up at an impressive rate. Have you hears the one called monotropism?
Your opinion, explained like you just did, was exactly what I wanted to know. To me at least, it matters.