Labeling vrs naming

[@iam_cloud]

I know a lot of people here don't have an official diagnosis, I'm one of those people. But is it offensive for me to call my self aspie if no doctors have definitively said that I have the "condition"? I want to be respectful of the community. But I don't want to dance around the subject, like I have for more than 20 years. What do you guys think?

 

[Judge]

I'm self-diagnosed as well. I've never really thought about the label as such, probably given that no one here has actually "challenged" it. It continually interests me in that those who thought or were convinced they had it, eventually verified it through a formal diagnosis. It just doesn't strike me as something one could hallucinate or be delusional over.

For me it's a process- a voyage of self-discovery. Whether I eventually obtain a professional diagnosis or not won't change how much of myself I have come to understand on my own and with the help of others here.

With so many conditions which have overlapping symptoms it can be confusing at times. However that may also shed light on why they are now viewed as being on a spectrum of autism, rather than trying to isolate them individually.

In the meantime, it's sufficient in my own case to say that I believe/suspect I am "mildly autistic".

 

[Kari Suttle]

I was wondering this as well, whether it seemed insulting, attention seeking, or delusional to self-diagnose as being an aspie or having autism or whatever it may be. In my case, i am self-diagnosed as being high functioning autistic which my parents readily agree with as well. They actually were the first to bring up the idea after meeting a cheer mom with an aspie daughter that my little sister was on the cheer team with. After a lot of research on my own, i came to the same conclusion myself. Finding a community like this is helping me accept it though, and feel more like its okay to self diagnose. After all, who has the money or time to get a diagnosis these days? I know i don't. That and adults don't have the kind of services readily available to them like kids on the spectrum do.

 

[Ereth]

For me it really depends on the situation. If somebody legitimately thinks he or she is on the spectrum and has done research and all that, that's fine with me. But if somebody's just looking for attention and wants to use autism as an excuse for being obnoxious or abuse the term in other ways, as some people on the Internet have done, then I would definitely object.

Obviously, Cloud, you're here for the first reason, so don't worry.

 

[King_Oni]

I guess somethig worth considering here is also the legal "implications" for being diagnosed officially vs. being self-diagnosed.

If you're functional enough to hold a job or go to college/university without any support, that's great and one can wonder how desperate you would need it to be official. That's when it is more of a voyage of self-discovery like Judge pointed out.

If you need some support to function, I guess there's this route of getting it official.

As for someone naming themselves an aspie if they self-diagnosed. Along the lines of what I just mentioned, people could ask themselves why they want or need the label in the first place.

If you feel you fit in with any community I don't see why you couldn't try to fit in and belong there. Though I guess "trying" to be an aspie is an odd thing in general.

I think any community, and perhaps ones that deal with illnesses (and overall stuff they have little control about) even more, will deal with people that want to join just because they think it's "cool" to be one of them. It happens in autism community, but it could happen in plenty of others as well.

Someone barging in and calling themselves aspie, regardless of the way someone is diagnosed doesn't bother me. But I guess something can be said if you keep referring to yourself as an aspie, have no valid proof and act like the total opposite (and in general act obnoxious). It creates a lot of situations where one person can essentially tarnish the reputation for an entire group (and that's something that, especially media, want to pick up fairly easily.)