Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, I am undiagnosed but score nearly autistic on a couple of tests and have significant scores in all areas of the masking questionnaire. My primary problem is struggling with social interactions and cues. It has quiet a significant impact on my life. In fact I had basically a melt down at the end of some intensive online training this week. I'm pretty sure the trainer thinks I'm crazy. A diagnosis would help that. But I am worried about the stigma I may encounter from health professionals and really other people in general if I go for a diagnosis. Other women who got diagnosed as adults did you notice a change in how people and health professionals interacted with you afterwards?
(I mention health professionals as currently everything I go to the Dr about is attributed.to the menopause I don't want to give them another 'easy to fob off' ready diagnosis)
It's hard to suggest if diagnosis would help you because it's so personal. I got diagnosed privately 2 years ago as an adult woman. I would say so far that it's not been worth the cost. Professionals don't really seem to give a damn. Having adjustments not implemented at work despite a diagnosis is a new level of frustration. On the other hand, I am learning stuff about myself that I wouldn't have if I didn't know I was autistic. My advice would be to experiment by treating yourself as if you have a diagnosis and see how that feels. For example, you could ask for adjustments at work without saying you need them for autism reasons, just say that you need them (all human beings are allowed to ask for adjustments, we need to normalise this!). You can also try treating yourself as if you are diagnosed autistic. Give yourself permission to be who you are without blame or judgement, because even if you aren't autistic, you still deserve to give yourself what you need and treat yourself with kindness
I really like your answer! Yes, we all need to be more compassionate to ourselves and others. I also have some thoughts about many mental health professionals being against self diagnosis. Is it for practical purposes, to protect the diagnosed people from confusion or harassment or abuse of the condition (to get away with bad behavior not having anything to do with the condition)? Or maybe it’s to prove to the world that only they are the specialists allowed to assess wether someone has the condition or not, which in ideal should be this way but the sad truth is that there are many misdiagnoses in the mental health conditions and many people struggle going undiagnosed and not being properly helped, just gaslit instead. Now we have access to knowledge and we can compare ourselves to others and the description. Only thing may be missing here is some objectivity but we can get it from some feedback. It’s a broad topic.
Where I live there is no support for autistic people on the NHS so that's why they don't care about diagnosis where I live, they have nothing to offer a diagnosed person so it's easier for them not to bother finding out. I find this is the same at work. It is inconvenient for them to make adjustments so they would rather just pretend autism doesn't exist. I find it really frustrating that in denying autistic people support and accommodations, they are also creating a society which is harmful for them. If everyone just agreed to be understanding and accommodating to anyone, regardless of diagnosis, the world would be such a better place. Kindness solves everything!!
As for people being against self diagnosis, that's just capitalism trying to stop people from getting any financial benefit. They make it so difficult to prove that you deserve help that you give up. The barriers to benefits then trickle down and stop people accessing help that isn't financial, but it all links back to greed.
MelonCauliflower said:As for people being against self diagnosis, that's just capitalism trying to stop people from getting any financial benefit. They make it so difficult to prove that you deserve help that you give up.
Yes, or maybe they make business out of the diagnosis itself. Why it’s so expensive? If someone needs support and can get it only after being diagnosed, then why would someone tax them so cruel for one document that the person needs? For me honestly the diagnosis could have been helpful when I was a child. Now I don’t care anymore about it the paper because I happily sorted out things on my own but I had it really hard way. Could have been better if I had a therapy when hitting puberty and getting adult. At that time my mom didn’t wanna have me diagnosed and got upset when I asked about autism, because of the stigma. And probably also because it would be an additional problem, so it was easier to pretend that it does not exist and just keep scolding me for stimming and ticking (that’s especially my granny’s part).Also self diagnosis for me is a way to better understand myself, improve myself and my life, but this way I’m not gonna apply for any financial support because I basically don’t need it. I’m lucky to be able to work and I happily do work. It’s been an absolute accident how I found out Autism describes me my personality and experience, just got confirmation from my doctor and that’s enough for me for the information.