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Autism fakers

I hope you NEVER quit the forum, @Suzette !! Your absence would be a great loss to this community. Self-identifying isn't even in the same universe as someone intentionally faking something. Self-identifying is a 100% legitimate action when done with honest self-discovery.

Wow! Thank you! I've been kind of down lately. That helps! :)
 
I self identified, I let my post's speak for themselves. Being retired I do not have any thing to prove. I am quite comfortable with who I am, do not need a test that would be pointless, do not need a label to tell me who I am.
 
I think that this can be a divisive topic. Yes, there are “fakers” who feel like they need to find acceptance (?) in some form. I remember back in middle school and the latest craze was for people to claim on tumblr that they were bi-polar because a “famous “ YouTuber claimed to have it, but turned out they didn’t. I remember that they made an apology video afterwards, although I don’t really remember how they were found out. However, it did place preconceptions about the condition, and that’s the issue because that makes it more challenging to have acceptance, let alone anything else that can be perceived as a negative connotation. And that’s what annoys me about it because it is hard to get acceptance when there’s a preconceived idea that’s based on a pretendIng influence. I don’t think that these people really realize their actions and effects....

Unfortunately, you’re also going to have some people who have nothing better with their time and will also make mischief by trolling but usually they get bored and. Move into something else.

However, it can be divisive because there are people who are self diagnosed and may feel like they are imposters. This assumption Can do a lot of damage.
 
Taking this one step further or maybe sideways, I know someone who I’m pretty sure has the Münchausen by Proxy thing happening.
The young man has been accomodated to such an extent that their needs and wants via the relationship with their mother, takes precedence over almost everything.
 
I didn’t mean to make it sound like I thought people who were undiagnosed/self-diagnosed were faking :(

The person I was talking about in my post was caught lying and proven to be lying, but continues to lie about other things to scam people for money and attention.
He has gotten a lot of attention on social media platforms where people have been calling him out as a scam artist. So this is a known issue that this person has.

I would never insinuate that a lack of diagnosis meant someone was being dishonest :(
I’ve had plenty of people tell me they don’t think I’m autistic, or they don’t think I’m disabled, or they think I don’t have PTSD, or they think I have a fake service dog, so I would never jump to that conclusion about someone unless I had evidence that there was deceit or dishonesty involved.
 
I knew someone who would claim she had the same disabilities as people she knew. Years later she’s been diagnosed with mental health issues I can’t begin to understand.
 
Even if there are autism fakers, i don't think that trying to discover them or call them out is worth it. It could be damaging to people both with autism and people that genuinely believe they have autism, like others have also said.
 
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I know a guy that’s an unrepentant bag of Richards to everyone. Instead of trying to improve himself, he’s just decided to claim autism and leave it at that. And if people call him out on his behavior he calls it discrimination.

It angers me to no end, because I work very hard to have a place in society despite my autism, and he’s out there giving people with autism a bad name with a diagnosis we both know he doesn’t have.
 
After my experience with one woman in my life who self diagnosed as bipolar, I was left with a dim view of most people who self diagnose illnesses.

Basically, she violated the boundaries of everybody around her, and she always responded to people calling her out on her crap behavior by claiming she was bipolar and it would be wrong to vilify her. She used her self diagnosis as an excuse to be a viciously selfish human being.
 
It's not new. People have been using one condition after another to justify lousy behavior since the dawn of time.

Autism and Autistic Spectrum Disorders are more popular now than they were twenty years ago, so people have another label to reach for. It's like how people would try to get away with swearing in public by claiming they had Tourette's.
 
I was warned by a high functioning autist that there are people who fake the condition. Has anyone encountered this in real life?

https://www.quora.com/Why-would-some-people-fake-having-autism

I don't think I've ever met a faker, but I suppose it is always possible. I've never heard of anyone faking autism in order to gain accommodation or anything.

The harmful pattern I DO SEE quite regularly is a paranoia that leads to gatekeeping within the autistic communities themselves. I've seen many individuals (who are struggling) develop imposter syndrome in response to these sorts of environments, feeling even more outcast and isolated than they were previously--particularly if they are self-identified or early on in discovering they are autistic.

I've seen this in other disability communities as well (concerning physical ailments), and it needs to stop.

I think it is important for us to ask ourselves:
What direct harm is coming to us if someone claims to be autistic? What are they taking away from the autistic community by claiming to be autistic? Will we not accomplish more if we act with calmness and compassion towards everyone (including those who are "fakers") than if we call them out?
 
People fake disabilities in order to qualify for Social Security Disability benefits, to recover money damages from a defendant in a personal injury lawsuit, and for economic gain. Disability judges see these kinds of people on a regular basis. Defense attorneys sometimes hire private investigators to surreptitiously videotape the fakers doing normal activities which the fakers have sworn under oath to be unable to perform.

Scam artists, frauds and con men seeking money. I daresay there are other fakers who do it for personal attention, to excuse bad behavior, to "belong" to a group, or because they are mentally ill but don't realize that their mental illness can be a legitimate disability.
 
I am self identified as on the spectrum. I have a lot of anxiety and feel like an imposter all the time. "Do people think I am faking?" Ugh! More than once I have thought I should quit the forum.

The thing of it is, the cost of analysis and diagnosis is way too expensive for me. Unless I get lucky and get an assessment for free, I will never have that little card.

Lots of folk will have their opnion about me. Some will even call me faker. I don't know what to say about that. It's too bad.
*hugs* I would never think this about you or anyone else here.

I am self-identified (with the support of my therapist and doctor), and it is absolutely valid. I don't have the thousands of dollars (and the time to drive hours to potentially be treated like crap--yay American doctors!) for an outdated assessment that was designed to be carried out on young white boys. If they ever update the criteria, I might change my mind and pursue it further.

I don't need the "official" paperwork and I have no doubt that I am autistic. The recent diagnoses of my nieces and nephews (who present very similarly to me) have only further confirmed this for me.
 
It does happen unfortunately. If you are disabled in some way in Norway, it`s possible to get what you need for free, a place to live and food and such. So people do try to fake things sometimes, even autism.
I'm not denying that there are individuals out there who fake things for personal gain. It would be naive to think otherwise. I'm simply stating I've never personally met or known anyone who did this. Many of us hear of these things by "word of mouth" (through media or online venues), but we don't see them happening firsthand. This makes me question just how common an occurrence it really is.
 
Reading through the posts in this thread I can see that to many an actual diagnosis is a luxury. There's nothing wrong with self diagnosis and it is pretty clear that most are either on the spectrum or in the surrounding area so to speak. To these people I say 'Hi friend, welcome to our community'. The same thing goes for people who aren't close to being on the spectrum who want to join us on here, all are welcome.
 
I have the diagnosis of adjustment disorder/ adaptive disorder. It's more or less an umbrella term as I've come to understand.

Like I've stated before, as someone with no official diagnosis, I can not claim to have autism but so far it has been the only explanation that makes sense. I sporadically went to psychologists throughout my life but I often quit after one or two appointments. I'm scared of being diagnosed with multiple mental health/ identity disorders and I don't trust a professional's judgment. Too many times I've met people who got a different diagnosis every time they've been sent to a different psychologist. I don't want to experience that.

I came to suspect autism during professional training in the social sector. Not once have I talked about this with family members or friends- I'm keeping it to myself. I certainly have autistic traits, I'm not sure if I'd qualify for official diagnosis. I'm not actively seeking out an answer right now. Maybe I will, in the future...

No matter if I'm autistic or not, I enjoy this forum and like to talk to people here. I also see it as a great opportunity to improve my English skills and to learn about different people and their culture. You've got members from around the globe, that's amazing (and this is a part of the internet that is more civilized than youtube, reddit and the likes :D ).
 
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It could be a form of Munchausen Syndrome or Factitious Disorder or whatever the heck they call it now. Autism is not a disease, but that wouldn't stop some people faking it to get sympathy and positive attention. Which is freaking hilarious since most of us on the spectrum have been treated like literal garbage and often still are.
While I did not know about autism back when I was struggling socially, I would have given anything to be normal. Who would want to claim something that so cruelly impacts one's life?
 

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