I definitely have autistic traits but always hesitate to talk about; I think there’s a lot of negative sentiment towards undiagnosed folks self-diagnosing.
You are the most qualified person to diagnose yourself since you’re the only one that knows what happens on the inside which is where autistic symptoms predominantly are.
Neurotypicals lump themselves to early with autism and autistic people do it too late since they feel the criteria is very strict. Think NT saying “yes, I have autism because…” and autistic people say “no, I don’t because of…”.
Honestly, just take some tests and use them as a screening tool and take it from there. Good luck!
I can understand some negative sentiment in contexts where it’s used dismissively (e.g. “I’m [self-diagnosed] autistic and I don’t have this issue, so you’re obviously just a bad person”), or if you use it as an excuse to be a shitty person. Although I’d say that a professional diagnosis wouldn’t make any of these scenarios better.
In your case, you’re experiencing problems and you’re trying to solve them. A self diagnosis helps a lot in narrowing down what the causes could be and help you prioritize different potential solutions to try. It makes no sense to handicap yourself and try to fix things like a neurotypical person when you have good reason to believe you’re not.
SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Frankly at this point self-diagnosis shouldn’t be as demonized as it is. Because getting a diagnosis is, 1. Expensive, 2. Involved as all hell sometimes, 3. Not all professionals being great, and 4. In certain countries cough the US cough, it gets you literally put on a list
I say this as someone who is diagnosed. Just preface any statements you make with you not being professionally diagnosed and that you think you might likely have it and such, and you should be fine. Ultimately the point of the diagnosis is to help you. If you feel like the autistic framework is useful to understanding yourself, use it.
ski11erboi@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I self diagnosed myself and thought about going to get an official diagnosis but ultimately decided not to. I realized it didn’t matter what a professional said because everything I was reading about how to deal with autism was helping me. If the “solutions” benefited me, it was in my best interest to continue believing I have autism; whether I do or not.