9:31pm June 29, 2013

➸ Gry Blogs.: For the people who are angry at people who self-diagnose

narciii:

youneedacat:

autisticweirdo:

youneedacat:

gryblogs:

remember that there are two reasons why a person might say they are autistic when they do not have an official diagnosis that says so

1. They are applying it to themselves as a label in order to explain something silly or awkward that they did during a momentary lapse of reason, clumsiness, or poor…

Also even though I was already professionally diagnosed, that diagnosis was pretty worthless to me until I went through the same process of research and self discovery that self diagnosed people do.

^ OMG, that! So much! I had a professional diagnosis diagnoat the age of 9. It wasn’t until 10 years after the diagnosis that I really knew what autism was and how it played a huge role in my life. I had no idea it affected my life so much until I read the experiences of other autistic people.

Yeah I was professionally diagnosed when I was 14, didn’t even begin to get a real grip on what it meant until I was maybe 19. Like didn’t even understand the words autism or pervasive developmental disorder before then, even though I read a couple books.

I tried to get a professional diagnosis.

The psychologist refused to even test me, telling me that hardly any Autistic people had jobs and the ones that did had “bad" jobs like bagging groceries and 2/3rds of them are non-verbal and live in institutions their whole lives.

She then un-diagnosed my ADHD and anxiety, which have been diagnosed professionally multiple times since i was SIX YEARS OLD, based on the fact that I’ve never had a bad car wreck. Let’s ignore the fact that I’m an under-employed secretary despite having a degree in biotechnology and driving leaves me woozy and dizzy and bewildered, and I plan my entire life around minimizing the amount of driving I have to do, and I’ve lost my license three times. 

So maybe I’m not on the spectrum. Maybe I’m near the spectrum but not over the line into a diagnosis. Maybe I have something else that presents similarly. But “just get a diagnosis" isn’t so easy when the ability to write and speak apparently makes me a “wannabe quirky genius", despite me doing months, no, YEARS, of research first and trying to write them out. And that’s WITH insurance and a supportive partner and the ability to sometimes navigate the medical system - without any of those elements  I wouldn’t have gotten even that far. 

Oh just because someone undiagnosed you doesn’t mean anything. I was undiagnosed with autism and rediagnosed with schizophrenia at one point by some throwbacks to the seventies who pretty much made me act the part. Then rediagnosed with autism by the same people who first diagnosed me.

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