Do you think it is wrong for someone to say they are autistic when they aren't diagnosed?

I hope you find self understanding/support that helps through the process anyhow good luck.

In regards self diagnosis, I am late diagnosed myself and highly masked whilst basically living in fight or flight and burnout, always being caught out and this felt like ostracization. I grew up in foster care, previously my mother was schizophrenic and not supported, basically I didn't have people who were concerned when I was young person, I went through school bullied etc but not diagnosed. My adult life has felt like living on the margins not much social life, anxiety, burnout, guilt for being unemployed all the time. Anyhow all this is to say I am triggered by the stigma around self diagnosis, because I had family tell me I'm not autistic, they were pretty ignorant and ablist just not accepting it, and always I lacked confidence and will present things sheepishly and be denied. This led me to not be able to advocate for myself to medical professionals and meant I went years doing CBT and living with no support and lying about what I'm doing to everyone because I couldn't make my life work in anyway at all. I am diagnosed now but it was a traumatic journey doing the assessment and I feel like an imposter still even though I'm not every time this conversation about self diagnosis comes up xD. It's also divisive, and I hate to think of autistic community policing itself by judging who is or not autistic. I have burnout a lot now, I know someone who has chronic pain condition from masking for years, so I think people should be careful judging things. Sometimes I think the way this is talked about a lot at the moment serves the purpose of keeping people from getting support. I do understand parts of the other side, where it's trivialising and where people feel it threatens people with higher needs from being supported. I'm giving my two cents anyhow I am biased the other way but because I had the trauma of years of not being able to advocate or be supported. I guess it could be useful anyhow to have the diagnosis as you say your circumstances are difficult. Reform, not to scaremonger, but they are lying through their teeth about mental health really trivialising it and with blatant dishonesty, so I would say it's not a bad idea to get a diagnosis the process might be validating to how much you actually do struggle and what your needs are, maybe you gone through a lot of that already but the forms and stuff do help bring a lot of that out.

I hope you find self understanding/support that helps through the process anyhow good luck.

In regards self diagnosis, I am late diagnosed myself and highly masked whilst basically living in fight or flight and burnout, always being caught out and this felt like ostracization. I grew up in foster care, previously my mother was schizophrenic and not supported, basically I didn't have people who were concerned when I was young person, I went through school bullied etc but not diagnosed. My adult life has felt like living on the margins not much social life, anxiety, burnout, guilt for being unemployed all the time. Anyhow all this is to say I am triggered by the stigma around self diagnosis, because I had family tell me I'm not autistic, they were pretty ignorant and ablist just not accepting it, and always I lacked confidence and will present things sheepishly and be denied. This led me to not be able to advocate for myself to medical professionals and meant I went years doing CBT and living with no support and lying about what I'm doing to everyone because I couldn't make my life work in anyway at all. I am diagnosed now but it was a traumatic journey doing the assessment and I feel like an imposter still even though I'm not every time this conversation about self diagnosis comes up xD. It's also divisive, and I hate to think of autistic community policing itself by judging who is or not autistic. I have burnout a lot now, I know someone who has chronic pain condition from masking for years, so I think people should be careful judging things. Sometimes I think the way this is talked about a lot at the moment serves the purpose of keeping people from getting support. I do understand parts of the other side, where it's trivialising and where people feel it threatens people with higher needs from being supported. I'm giving my two cents anyhow I am biased the other way but because I had the trauma of years of not being able to advocate or be supported. I guess it could be useful anyhow to have the diagnosis as you say your circumstances are difficult. Reform, not to scaremonger, but they are lying through their teeth about mental health really trivialising it and with blatant dishonesty, so I would say it's not a bad idea to get a diagnosis the process might be validating to how much you actually do struggle and what your needs are, maybe you gone through a lot of that already but the forms and stuff do help bring a lot of that out.

Anyhow reading this post has been useful I can see mostly people are critical of people on social media making throw away claims akin to tidyness=OCD etc about being nuerodivergent, which reassures me a bit more as it's not what I expected. I am anxious about the future anyhow I think I've tried to not be seen as something "wrong", "stupid", "incompatible" for many years it is hard to not be vigilant about how I'm perceived by others xD so I'm just generally worried about the future and facing more scrutiny and doubt from one direction or the other.. in my own case diagnosis has helped more than not anyhow.