as small as a world and as large as alone, I'm autistic but I have a MAJOR problem with...

4:57am June 13, 2014

mad-auntie asked: I'm autistic but I have a MAJOR problem with people who self-diagnosis. I had a non-biased expert diagnosis me when I was a child. I understand that money is a problem for some people. But others have said that even if they could afford it they wouldn't. Why? It makes me rage, I feel they are pousers/attention whores trying to steal the spot-light from real autistics. What about you?

askanautistic:

TW: Ableism and Self-diagnosis prejudice

Nope, I’m self-diagnosis friendly and so is this blog.

There’s many reasons someone might not want to get an official diagnosis other than money. I understand that’s your opinion but I don’t agree that is appropriate to be angry at people or assume they’re not ‘real Autistics if they self-diagnose and you don’t understand why.

Official diagnoses go on peoples’ medical records. They create barriers against Autistics. There are loads of people prejudiced against us who can use this to deny us things. Autistics are usually not eligible to join the army, they may not be able to join the police or fire service etc, in job applications we can be legally obligated to declare our disability which can result in us not being employed (despite fair employment acts). It can cause issues for people in custody battles, other legal disputes, for those who want to adopt etc etc.

Not to mention some simply don’t feel they NEED an official diagnosis, they may not want to need any support a diagnosis could entail, so if they’re confident in who they are, there’s no reason for them to seek a professional diagnosis.

As far as I’m concerned I’d rather support all self-diagnosers including a very very small potential amount of non-autistics than disregard all genuine self-diagnosers who can need even more support than us who have professional diagnoses (if they’re unable to access an official diagnosis).

I was first diagnosed (confirmed many times since then) when I was 14, without any expectation of an autism diagnosis, when entering a mental institution for suicidal behavior. By a randomly assigned psychiatrist who saw autism pretty immediately as the issue. So I think I got a fairly standard one of the types of unexpected professional childhood diagnoses that a person can get.

I also, though, don’t care if people self-diagnose. In fact, I think self-diagnosis is a good thing more often than not. I also think that cousinhood is a great concept.

The reason I’m responding to this post, though, isn’t that I disagree with the OP. I disagree with a lot of posts about self-diagnosis and I don’t respond to most of them. The reason is that I’m very puzzled by one thing: What is this spotlight?

I don’t feel, as an autistic person, as if I am in, or have to be in, a spotlight. I don’t feel, as an autistic person, as if the existence of self-diagnosed autistic people takes away from a spotlight that I deserve. And if there were a spotlight, I’d think that it should be trained on as many people as possible, rather than one special singled-out bunch of us who happen to have been lucky (or unlucky) enough to get a professional diagnosis.

One reason I like cousinhood in fact is that more people can share in the autistic community without even having to be autistic, or to know whether they’re autistic or not. I don’t consider self-diagnosed autistic people any different from professionally-diagnosed autistic people – the only difference is life circumstances.

But I see the point of ideas like autism, is to make people understand themselves better, and to get services. For services you need a professional diagnosis usually. Maybe you shouldn’t need one, but you do. For self-understanding, for community, for support? Not only do you not need to be professionally diagnosed. You don’t even need to be fully on the spectrum. You can be someone with a few autistic traits. You can be someone with a neurological condition that has a lot in common with autism. That’s what cousinhood is.

So for me, the more the merrier. And I still don’t get what this ‘spotlight’ is that I supposedly deserve but self-diagnosed people don’t. I don’t like spotlights that much, having actually experienced being 'in the spotlight’ a little too much. If anything if there were a spotlight I might want to give up my spot to a self-diagnosed person who wants or needs it more than I do. But I don’t think there is a spotlight, so I really don’t understand, and it’s bugging me that I don’t understand.

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