You certainly prove your chops in your comments, which I always enjoy reading. I was curious: Do you think it is wholly rational to self-diagnose mental/social abnormalities, problems, or diversities?
It seems like it would be a difficult problem to tackle objectively, because:
1) The payoff, one way or another, is pretty intense: Either understanding a label that makes you unique and explains a lot about your life, fitting in a new piece to your identity, or learning of another thing that is wrong. These are intensely personal revelations either way.
2) If you suspect something is seriously different about your brain, you may suffer a confirmation bias in reviewing the data, quick to jump on different topics.
3) The existence of a supportive social groups like the neurodiversity community you listed allow a quick admission into a network of people that seem to understand your problems and eventually will likely respect you and your opinions, which is one of the basic requirements people have for happiness and something that is generally sought after i.e. Maslow’s pyramid and all. This is another element of incentive, subconscious or conscious.
I’m not that you’re wrong—from the things you’ve described, you’re probably right. I’m just curious what you think: self-diagnosis of a brain-related, social-affecting, central-to-personal-identity disorder seems like an extremely tricky position to maneuver through even for absolutely exceptional minds.
The trouble with disallowing self-diagnosis of high-functioning autism—especially in adults—is that it’s possible to conceal outward signs of the atypical thought processes or avoid triggers entirely. I have a (not self-) diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, but since I’ve moved away from home, I’m in almost complete control of my surroundings, associating with people of my choosing, and generally not subject to anything that would be likely to make me behave in any unusual way. I doubt I could get a diagnosis if I walked into a psychologist’s office today, but this isn’t because I no longer freak out in contact with certain offensive textures or because I have learned to read minds. It’s because I have created an environment for myself that is free of those textures and have made friends who are able to explain themselves to me, whereas as a child, my parents were not-particularly-accommodating obstacles between me and environmental/social self-determination.
Agreed, in an ideal world self-diagnosing would be simply foolish, for all the reasons you listed. Even in this one, it’s not always a good idea.
In my personal case, I already have a diagnosis of being neurologically atypical, which was made when I was very young and specifically re-tested when I was in my late teens, so I’d be able to claim most if not all of the benefits of belonging to the neurodiverse community anyway. Questioning that the correct diagnosis was made is not the same as questioning that there was something diagnosis-worthy going on in the first place. This is a relatively common story, given that the ‘high-functioning’ variants of autism only became well known about 10 to 15 years ago, and before that time people who were only mild—to-moderately autistic got other labels instead.
In most ‘true’ self-diagnosis cases that I’m aware of, the person was already very aware that there was something unusual about themselves, and had looked at and rejected one or more other explanations before realizing that autism was the one that fit. Those people generally did seem to also be autistic (the similarities in processing style tend to be pretty obvious when you’re interacting with someone in realtime, if you know what to look for) and the few of them that pursued official diagnoses got them easily.
I did run into a few people who did appear to be using the diagnosis for reasons like the ones you suggested; they stuck out like sore thumbs. My general observation about those people is that their general sanity waterline was very low, and that if they hadn’t been able to use autism as their attention-getter, they would just have chosen another one. The self-diagnosis appeared to be a symptom, not a cause, of poor rationality in those cases.
By the way, if you’re wondering why I haven’t gone for a diagnosis myself, it’s because a series of very bad experiences with psychiatrists and other mental health workers as a teenager left me with a bit of what appears to be PTSD. I could probably force myself to go into a situation like that, but the chance of my having a panic attack and getting myself into serious trouble would be significant, and the chance of me actually being able to interact with them well enough to get any benefit out of it would be negligible. (I don’t consider the diagnosis itself to be a significant benefit, just a prerequisite if I wanted other assistance, which… not goona happen.) (This is, by the way, a good example of that ‘quiet emotional system’ thing… I’m having a very quiet anxiety attack in the back of my head, which isn’t strong enough to interfere with my thinking much. If I were in the real situation mentioned, there would be enough of a feedback loop that the anxiety would go from being quiet to being overwhelming in about 5 to 10 minutes without extensive conscious management.)
I apologize if I caused you any stress, thanks for filling me in on the details. I would think some psychiatrists exist that are relatively fine with people having a panic attack during a session and escaping without ‘getting them intro trouble’—It seems there’s a niche to be filled, since lots of people ‘don’t test well’ (in a sense) while they might be otherwise fine in a normal conversation without the connotations. I think I understand your trepidation though, mental health professionals certainly have a world with a dark side in that if the employees don’t care of irrationally decide things on too little evidence can wreak severe consequences on people’s lives.
Don’t worry about it. It’s very easy to avoid talking about that kind of thing if I want to, but I tend to go on the principle that avoiding it makes the anxiety worse, and talking about it is likely to be desensitizing. Also note that I specifically volunteered all the information in the last paragraph—you didn’t ask for it. (The others were not stressful at all.)
I very much concur regarding the state of the mental health profession—that’s pretty much what I was referring to with my comment about this not being an ideal world. I just can’t talk directly about that yet without really stressing myself out.
Amusingly, part of the reason I’m so interested in brain- and mind-function is that I’m considering filling that niche myself, as a side job. It seems like I have an …interesting… path to travel if I want to get any kind of certification, though.
I took a tedious multi-day test for this sort of thing, among others. I wasn’t really able to use the results, as I had by then already figured out which things I was three and a half standard deviations below my general intelligence at. I didn’t fit the pattern for autism or anything else.
It would have saved me a lot of anguish if I had taken it when I was thirteen or so, so there’s a limit to how much I would indict the knowledge in the field.
You certainly prove your chops in your comments, which I always enjoy reading. I was curious: Do you think it is wholly rational to self-diagnose mental/social abnormalities, problems, or diversities?
It seems like it would be a difficult problem to tackle objectively, because:
1) The payoff, one way or another, is pretty intense: Either understanding a label that makes you unique and explains a lot about your life, fitting in a new piece to your identity, or learning of another thing that is wrong. These are intensely personal revelations either way.
2) If you suspect something is seriously different about your brain, you may suffer a confirmation bias in reviewing the data, quick to jump on different topics.
3) The existence of a supportive social groups like the neurodiversity community you listed allow a quick admission into a network of people that seem to understand your problems and eventually will likely respect you and your opinions, which is one of the basic requirements people have for happiness and something that is generally sought after i.e. Maslow’s pyramid and all. This is another element of incentive, subconscious or conscious.
I’m not that you’re wrong—from the things you’ve described, you’re probably right. I’m just curious what you think: self-diagnosis of a brain-related, social-affecting, central-to-personal-identity disorder seems like an extremely tricky position to maneuver through even for absolutely exceptional minds.
The trouble with disallowing self-diagnosis of high-functioning autism—especially in adults—is that it’s possible to conceal outward signs of the atypical thought processes or avoid triggers entirely. I have a (not self-) diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, but since I’ve moved away from home, I’m in almost complete control of my surroundings, associating with people of my choosing, and generally not subject to anything that would be likely to make me behave in any unusual way. I doubt I could get a diagnosis if I walked into a psychologist’s office today, but this isn’t because I no longer freak out in contact with certain offensive textures or because I have learned to read minds. It’s because I have created an environment for myself that is free of those textures and have made friends who are able to explain themselves to me, whereas as a child, my parents were not-particularly-accommodating obstacles between me and environmental/social self-determination.
Agreed, in an ideal world self-diagnosing would be simply foolish, for all the reasons you listed. Even in this one, it’s not always a good idea.
In my personal case, I already have a diagnosis of being neurologically atypical, which was made when I was very young and specifically re-tested when I was in my late teens, so I’d be able to claim most if not all of the benefits of belonging to the neurodiverse community anyway. Questioning that the correct diagnosis was made is not the same as questioning that there was something diagnosis-worthy going on in the first place. This is a relatively common story, given that the ‘high-functioning’ variants of autism only became well known about 10 to 15 years ago, and before that time people who were only mild—to-moderately autistic got other labels instead.
In most ‘true’ self-diagnosis cases that I’m aware of, the person was already very aware that there was something unusual about themselves, and had looked at and rejected one or more other explanations before realizing that autism was the one that fit. Those people generally did seem to also be autistic (the similarities in processing style tend to be pretty obvious when you’re interacting with someone in realtime, if you know what to look for) and the few of them that pursued official diagnoses got them easily.
I did run into a few people who did appear to be using the diagnosis for reasons like the ones you suggested; they stuck out like sore thumbs. My general observation about those people is that their general sanity waterline was very low, and that if they hadn’t been able to use autism as their attention-getter, they would just have chosen another one. The self-diagnosis appeared to be a symptom, not a cause, of poor rationality in those cases.
By the way, if you’re wondering why I haven’t gone for a diagnosis myself, it’s because a series of very bad experiences with psychiatrists and other mental health workers as a teenager left me with a bit of what appears to be PTSD. I could probably force myself to go into a situation like that, but the chance of my having a panic attack and getting myself into serious trouble would be significant, and the chance of me actually being able to interact with them well enough to get any benefit out of it would be negligible. (I don’t consider the diagnosis itself to be a significant benefit, just a prerequisite if I wanted other assistance, which… not goona happen.) (This is, by the way, a good example of that ‘quiet emotional system’ thing… I’m having a very quiet anxiety attack in the back of my head, which isn’t strong enough to interfere with my thinking much. If I were in the real situation mentioned, there would be enough of a feedback loop that the anxiety would go from being quiet to being overwhelming in about 5 to 10 minutes without extensive conscious management.)
I apologize if I caused you any stress, thanks for filling me in on the details. I would think some psychiatrists exist that are relatively fine with people having a panic attack during a session and escaping without ‘getting them intro trouble’—It seems there’s a niche to be filled, since lots of people ‘don’t test well’ (in a sense) while they might be otherwise fine in a normal conversation without the connotations. I think I understand your trepidation though, mental health professionals certainly have a world with a dark side in that if the employees don’t care of irrationally decide things on too little evidence can wreak severe consequences on people’s lives.
Don’t worry about it. It’s very easy to avoid talking about that kind of thing if I want to, but I tend to go on the principle that avoiding it makes the anxiety worse, and talking about it is likely to be desensitizing. Also note that I specifically volunteered all the information in the last paragraph—you didn’t ask for it. (The others were not stressful at all.)
I very much concur regarding the state of the mental health profession—that’s pretty much what I was referring to with my comment about this not being an ideal world. I just can’t talk directly about that yet without really stressing myself out.
Amusingly, part of the reason I’m so interested in brain- and mind-function is that I’m considering filling that niche myself, as a side job. It seems like I have an …interesting… path to travel if I want to get any kind of certification, though.
I took a tedious multi-day test for this sort of thing, among others. I wasn’t really able to use the results, as I had by then already figured out which things I was three and a half standard deviations below my general intelligence at. I didn’t fit the pattern for autism or anything else.
It would have saved me a lot of anguish if I had taken it when I was thirteen or so, so there’s a limit to how much I would indict the knowledge in the field.