Autism

Well I am feeling more lost again with this post. Discovered 4 months ago Asperger Syndrom from someone that had it talking about it online and I found their words surprisingly near me. Went on a trip online curious and read about it, felt more lost because not everything written is present but a lot is there. Decided to look on Reddit. Did the Raads-r test seriously, got a 131. But papers online say it's effective but finds some false positives. So I did the Clinical Partners Adult Autism Test and the results where strongly positive. Did the recommended Aspi-Quiz, and I got a 150 on 200 for broader autism. I'll be moving very very soon and taking rendez-vous with a specialist would take too long, so I am in a grey zones. Posts like that make me feel like maybe I could get an answer, and maybe learn more about myself, even if it's a "Well no you are not, you are just simply different" or a "Here, there is a word for what you feel you are living, go learn about it". But reading comments remind me simply I'm just there floating in ignorance for now, and a bit feeling lost about how I work, or think I work

So I'm someone who's very involved with the autistic community in my country (at least used to, taking a break now, not sure when to come back). I'm just gonna pitch in and say that self-diagnosis is more of a symptom of a larger problem: which is lack of access to proper, official diagnoses. It's not perfect, in fact it can be harmful. For example, I know someone online who thought they were autistic and through a doctor who specializes in autism, they turned out to have BPD. Now, imagine if a self-diagnosed autistic who actually has BPD doesn't and/or can't go through a proper ASD assessment (and to an extent isn't aware of their BPD either, because as I said, lack of proper assessment), and they enter the autism community, manifesting their behavior in less than ideal ways, which does more harm and good. This is one possible, and perhaps damaging result of the emergence of self-diagnosis. But at the same time, the system doesn't provide the assessment, and so self-diagnosis is the only pathway to understand what may be wrong with us. The thing we must collectively fight for is to make official diagnosis more accessible and affordible, the methods vary depending on the country, of course.

Full disclosure: I was officially diagnosed as a toddler. But I know many adults who resorted to self-diagnosis or get diagnosed remotely (by people who may or may not be qualified to do such assessment) because assessment for adults is difficult here. The local psychologists have not proven that they use the proper diagnostic tools to assess autistics in adults; a big hurdle is the lack of local translations.