I’m asking because I’m suspicious I might have autism but I cannot access a psychiatrist.

If I do self diagnose and no matter how much evidence I find that I have autism at the end of the day I don’t know that for a fact.

So if I go around claiming I’m autistic when I don’t even know for a fact I am, it feels extremely disrespectful to people with autism right?

It’ll be even worse if I do get access to a psychiatrist and they tell me no I’m not and I’m just weird or something.

EDIT: I don’t want to reply to everyone one by one but I do wanna say thank you for everyone’s kind and helpful answers. I appreciate it.

  • schmorp@slrpnk.net
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    2 days ago

    The entire list of mental disorders is made up - people have just grouped certain symptoms together and gave them an invented name. This can be useful for categorizing and treating people, but ultimately your mind is your own and nobody can really say what’s going on inside. I have diagnosed myself and find categorizing myself as autistic useful - although I hate the idea that whatever goes on in my brain is considered a disorder, so I prefer the term neurodivergent. I’d use official diagnoses where they are useful for getting help and support, but always take them with a grain of salt. Psychiatry is not an exact science and both diagnosis and treatment are often not much more than trial and error.

    Be especially careful when you are a person who has every reason to be angry about something in their life and someone tries to diagnose you with something like “Is-angry-for-no-good-reason” disorder, as it used to be the case of women suffering from ‘hysteria’ and abused teenagers getting diagnosed with personality disorders.