Severely Autistic Adult explains the actual problems with self dx:
When your don't have a good neurologist, or actual psychologist specializing in Autism, diagnose you and explain your diagnosis to you properly, the only place you're learning about autism is just among those of similar support needs, based on how social media functions. So when you spread misinformation in a video, we often don't even get to hear it, because usually, You're Boring Your Eyeballs Into The Camera so we can't even read the captions we usually need to even process what you're saying. So, most severely autistic folks cannot watch these types of videos to even dispute the misinformation within. That's just one example how we're shut out of our "own community" via lack of social supports and education. It's a self-reinforcing exclusion. Your understanding of the severity levels of sensory and cognitive impairment that can be "Just Autism" are then limited even more, causing folks to spread misinformation about other people's disabilities, and what more severe autistic accessibility needs look like in general.
And that's not even my main problem with self diagnosis- there's also the huge crossover of symptoms in the DSM to consider- and I'm absolutely sure autism self diagnosis is preventing a lot of people from understanding their fixable problems that come from complex trauma and require intensive inner child work and DBT, rather than just autism accommodations.
So it's not always invalid, but it requires a lot more work than the average 22 year old barista on tt has the time, energy, and media literacy skills to figure out, so being skeptical that someone isn't actually just ADD, or some other cousin neurotype, with unaddressed CPTSD due to that, and not autistic, should be valid as well. And I really wish "labels" didn't matter, but they unfortunately do, when these are the people prescribing language and obfuscating the actual types of accommodations society needs more of for MY DISABILITY that they demonstrably do not understand.
For instance, why do self diagnosers hate the word 'Severe' so much? Is acknowledging someone actually has a life quantifiably harder than you really so ego-shattering? Oh, oops, it actually is, because none of you will go get proper therapy for your trauma because you're all too busy in cycles of codependency and accusing each other of being secret evil narcissists, when really you're all just traumatized weird kids who are desperate for community and don't know how to heal. I get that now. But just, try to find that without prescribing language for people's disabilities, if you could please. And if you have time to self diagnose, you have time to take a full DBT course online or do some DBT workbooks. No matter what your neurotype, they are useful skills, especially if you were not raised kindly. And for every low support needs person on social media you follow, seach and try to find just as many higher support needs folks to follow too. And other severely disabled folks of all disabilities, too.
(Leaving this here to read feedback, refine the points, and turn it into shortform when I'm up to it, probably next year. Sorry if you've ever dm'd me, I do not consume any Tumblr currently, I only post. Super burned out, only social spoons for my baby and our team.❤)
