#self dx is not harmful in the way people pretend it is

[stinkrascal]

Plz tell me how you got diagnosed with autism? I defiantly have symptoms but don’t want to assume ):

i could sit here and tell you to drop thousands of dollars on a formal assessment or hundreds of dollars each on therapy sessions, but i will tell you a secret instead. u are not harming anyone at all by assuming you have autism without having a formal diagnosis. i promise it isnt as big of a deal as you think it is and anyone who tells you otherwise is uneducated

[compassionatereminders]

i wanted to mention that a recent post of yours that has gained negative attention, I thought was very good and thoughtful and not harmful or hurtful. I say this as a person who has schizophrenia and autism, and has suffered pretty badly when people had the ability to tell me what was wrong and chose not to bc of their own bullshit or hurt feelings or whatever. This is, too often, the 'I have a mental health dx/may be neurodivergent, so that absolves me of ever having to make an effort to maintain relationships or responsibilities or make an attempt to be a decent human ever at all in any way and you're a big ableist bully if you ever indicate otherwise' website.

Truly, I don't think that most of the people who react like that understand that having a mental health condition is not a free pass, that actually, it does require a lot of work and a lot of relearning to function in a way that does not harm other people, whether you mean to or not. Again, as a schizophrenic and autistic person, I want to be allowed to be my authentic self, and that includes my autism and my schizophrenia. But I would be a douche and a liar if I pretended as if all my traits that came from schizophrenia or autism were automatically 'morally neutral' or harmless or should be exhibited in public just because they come from my neurodivergence and that sometimes, yeah, it's better to find a different way. Anyway, I understand if you don't answer this because I honestly don't think it's fair for people to be rude to you like that, and if this might inspire someone else to be shitty, it's okay to just trash it. But I wanted you to know, there's more than one profoundly neurodivergent person who finds you to be a rational, reasonable, compassionate resource.

Real growth does require discomfort sometimes, and I admire the way your blog can reach people despite that. As you doubtless know already, most people do not want to be challenged that way.

Yeah and it's not like I'm a neurotypical speaking from some ivory tower of privilege. I am schizophrenic, and before that I was diagnosed with autism, and I have a severe anxiety disorder. I am well aware that communication can be hard! I am well aware that many people can't learn to master perfect communication! I just don't think that's an excuse not to work on it at all. Especially not if your behavior is hurting other people

[juicequeen21]

hey. i need your help, and the only autism help blogs i could find had asks off. sorry if this is too much.

so in june i got a evaluation for autism and OCD. i was diagnosed with OCD. i was told that I "wouldn't benefit from an autism diagnosis" (exact words). a previous doctor told me i had symptoms we "could label as autism or ADHD" (thanks) and i had been running on the assumption that I was autistic for months to keep from spiraling. I have a terrible memory, and therefore can't say 100% that i had symptoms before the pandemic.

i can relate to a good deal of autism experiences.

should i ask for another test? just self-dx? pleas help.

i love your posts. light in skirt forever

Hey! I am so sorry I am getting to this kind so late. So there is a lot of things to consider here, so to start as you have already experienced it can be hard to get a diagnosis for ASD or a variety of reasons. I imagine what the “wouldn’t benefit” comment was about is I know there was some information spreading about how being diagnosed with autism could be potentially harmful to someone legally or in other scenarios. I don’t know how much of this is based in truth or if it is just fear mongering, it would be something that you would want to do research on.

Next, self diagnosing. Because it can be so difficult to get a diagnosis for a variety of reasons, I’d say for the most part it is fine to self diagnose. Yes people have improperly self diagnosed for whatever reason but for ASD I can’t really see the benefit someone would gain from pretending to have it. There are such harmful negative stereotypes, and almost everyone around you seems to have at least one nasty thought about ASD that I don’t know why someone would want to expose themselves to that when they don’t have to. Personally I am all for self-dx in most scenarios, I think the fact that you are questioning whether or not you have the right to self-dx shows that you don’t have harmful intentions.

As for the not knowing if you had symptoms before hand, once you learn about ASD and are diagnosed or even self-dx you start to let a bit of the mask down, so those symptoms become more apparent. You also start to realize your behaviors are the same and just your entire life experience is inherently autistic in a way. That shift of a constant mask to being able to let your natural tendencies flow freely is shocking and it makes you question whether or not you are just faking it because you didn’t used to do it to this extreme. The reason it was less so in the past is because you didn’t know what it was and were trying to hide it, not because it didn’t exist. After I was first diagnosed I questioned whether I had always been the way I am or if it was new, basically that’s a common part of realizing you are autistic.

If getting an official diagnosis would help you in whatever way you desire then you should go for it, but if you want it because you think you need an official diagnosis for others then I wouldn’t get one. If you relate to the experience even if you aren’t autistic at all you still relate and there is nothing wrong with that, we can still talk about our shared experience. I wish I could word all my thoughts better and I know its bad, what I want you to know at the end of it all is that whatever you choose to do should be with your best interest at heart and if that means self-dx, go for it.

[voidstain]

Proper Pinned Post

Anonymous blog that started as a writing blog. Now it's a bit of a mishmash. Self expression, often unedited and done on mobile. Maybe discourse, maybe rambly posts, who really knows.

Quick rundown: Pro-ship, pro-endogenic systems, pro-kink, pro-sex work, pro being radically inclusive generally. Disabled (physically and mentally, though the distinction is not one we feel needs to be made), queer, tired. 25+ body. We block liberally but do try to be understanding and own up to mistakes.

Feel free to block for any reason. We try to respect DNIs, if they exist/are accessible for us, but don't really think stating one ourselves is worth it. If you want to interact, you will, a DNI isn't going to do much to stop people. If you don't want to interact because of our stances, you aren't going to anyway.

Info on us and what you may expect to find on this blog below the cut.

We are a plural system that prefers using headmate/fictive terms over parts/alters/introjects. Voices will not be given names, and are numbered in order of choosing to use this blog, not by how many are actually here.

Currently:

Voice 1 (They/It)

Voice 2 (She/Her)

Voice 3 (They/It)

Voice: undisclosed (could be anyone, or a mix! Not necessarily a voice given a number.)

Voice 4 (They/Them)

Voice 5 (He/Him, & any)

Topics you may find:

Queer themes

Neurodiverse themes (Autism, ADHD, plurality, trauma, & more)

Cripplepunk/Madpunk/Punk in general

The woes of chronic pain

Lots of identity stuff

Self harm/Suicide/Death

Religious trauma

Unreality/Things of an otherworldly nature as if literal and as if really had happened

Dealing with reality, usually with hopepunk, but like, yikes

Fandomish stuff, maybe. Headmates/fictives being vague probably.

& more!

Any identifying info is not happening. If you think you know us no you don't. NDA this shit. Redirect your brain cells away from suspicion. If you browse thats fine but leave no trace, nature trail visit this place. Coincidences are just that, not even correlation. Or else.

(We'd probably just be embarrassed about being Known(tm) and kinda upset about some stuff being seen thats private but pretend I have a gun for the meme)

Thanks for coming to our ted talk, except psych, bonus ted talk of thoughts will be randomly added below

Anti-psychiatry. Yes we have a psychologist headmate, yes we are in therapy with a therapist who knows about us. Tear down the medical field and rebuild it brick by fucking brick without any brick not being seen to by someone it impacts. No one should be forced to have medical choices and bodily autonomy stripped like that.

As such, obviously, pro self-dx, because dx labels are like. a horrible mess. Half of it is different brands of slightly varied symptoms lining stuff up to see which eye glass you see through best at the eye doctor. Whatever's comfy yall. It's like trauma all the way down anyway. Yes for like, almost everything. Even the biological stuff is exacerbated by trauma. Life in our society is inherently traumatizing for 99.9% of people.

So like. Drugs. Relatedly. Addiction is a societal problem. Free supervised substance use sites is a public health issue. Stop jailing people (disproportionately BIPOC who are often then exploited as prison labor) for drugs. Stop villainizing them. Addicts should be supported, and you know what? If someone wants to do drugs sometimes, let em. They aren't a crime that forever marrs your immortal soul or some shit.

Opiod crisis. Pain relief seeking behavior being classified as drug seeking is costing lives, just give them the prescription. Also on this topic free healthcare. Abortion is an inherent right to bodily autonomy. Let someone trans their gender as much as they please so long as consent is informed. Also palliative care over life-prolonging care any day if the person wishes. Also physician's assisted suicide.

For the love of the vast void or whatever you believe in stop letting cops kill people. Stop letting cops. That's it end of sentence. Redirect funds to better serve the community. Cheer when the station goes up in flames. Also just because you're European doesn't mean you're free of the racism of the US.

More to be added when we feel like it. Also posts may get made abt these separately

[la0istouden]

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done a post like this. These are my personal beliefs. If you plan on arguing any of them, be respectful or leave. If any of these make you uncomfortable, please unfollow me. If any of these make you vehemently angry for no real reason, block me. 

This is about to be a hot mess

- Black Lives Matter. Eat The Rich. ACAB.

- The safety of minorities matters more than the hurt feelings of their oppressors

- Trans and nonbinary people don't owe anyone passing, presentation, gender conformity, or medical transition

- Self-dx is okay (especially in the case of autism, adhd, and DID) People know their brains better than you do

- Cancel culture is toxic. It denies someone the room to grow, and learn from their past mistakes. This doesn't apply to people with violent or harmful beliefs that are spreading them carelessly by using a large platform, one that they were given by the people their beliefs are harming (looking at you, jkr)

- Trender means someone who is knowingly, and willingly pretending to be trans. You have no way of knowing if someone is pretending, So stop fucking calling trans/nonbinary people trenders.

- People of any age experimenting with gender are not a problem, and are definitely not trenders. So again, /stop calling trans and nonbinary people trenders!/

- I know this one is a lil controversial. Dysphoria and Incongruence are the same thing, incongruence is a useless term that just means less intense dysphoria. Dysphoria and Euphoria are two sides of the same coin. If you didn't experience one, you'd never recognize the other for what it is. Dysphoria/Euphoria levels fluctuate between person to person, meaning someone who is 99% euphoric and 1% dysphoric is just as trans as someone who is 99% dysphoric and 1% euphoric.

- Dysphoria is not self hatred! Stop saying it is.

- Ace/Aro people? Beautiful and Valid. Also lgbt+

- Pan and Bi mean essentially the same thing, /but the difference in label matters to some people, stop forcing other people to use your label/. Be careful of both pan and biphobia. We lift each other up, not put each other down.

- Every label we use started out as a slur. Don't call someone a label they aren't comfortable with, but also respect the label someone uses for themselves.

- Use whatever pronouns you want as long as you're respectful ig

- Misgendering is not some heinous crime, if its done accidentally. Please remember that the average person is going to misgender you if your presentation is societally different from your gender. Politely correct them, and then if they refuse, get upset. Accidental misgendering happens. People slip up, your friend's will slip up. Politely correct them, chances are they didn't mean to. Please remember that people are human, and human's make mistakes.

- Children are people too, you'd think I wouldn't have to say this but the amount of people on this site who treat children like hellspawns or parasites or whatever is alarming. They're little people, their behavior is a reflection of their parents. Be kind to them. Even if you don't particularly like them.

- "Problematic" topics in fiction are not a problem. They aren't promoting, or condoning anything. Im sure the writer of the unwind series didn't approve of using unruly children as organ farms (its a great book series actually, check it out.) Im sure every murder mystery writer doesnt approve of actual real murder. Fiction is a safe place to explore these topics, and the effects they might have on people. More often than not, people writing about these dark topics have gone through something similar and use the fiction to vent/cope/better understand what happened to them. As long as something is properly tagged, its not an issue. Fictional people do not matter more than real people.

- Stop sending death threats/sui-baiting/gore/ect. It's childish, and also a crime! On that note stop insulting people based on appearance. It adds nothing to your argument and makes you seem like a petty immature child.

- Pets being outside supervised is fine. But also if you leave your prey pet outside, unsupervised, and unprotected, then don't get mad at someone else when their unsupervized animal eats it.

- If you are not a part of a minority, you get no say in what is/isnt bigotry towards them. Listen to people who are actually the minority, uplift their voice, and shut up about things you don't understand.

- If you're going to ask questions, try to be as respectful about it as possible. Most people are going to be understanding of botched/unintentionally insensitive wording.

- Autism Speaks is trash. Support ASAN instead. Better yet, just support autistic people, individually.

- Autism and ADHD manifest in so many different ways. Stop telling people they dont look/act "autistic" because they don't have the stereotypical traits.

- If you need it to live, it should be free.

-No one needs guns. If no one had  guns, no one would need a gun to protect themselves. 

-Terfs/Swerfs/Radfems are not allowed on my blog. Feminism is supposed to make everyone equal, Therefore, feminism is for everyone. 

- Punch nazis. 

[trickstarbrave]

im mad and tired so all points of “you should never self diagnose ever!!!!!” are gonna be debunked 

1. you don’t know your own symptoms/conditions as objectively as a doctor would! doctors are trained to learn all of these symptoms!!!

its impossible for a doctor to memorize all illnesses, conditions, and diseases. obscure ones or difficult ones are extremely unlikely to have any given doctor be an expert in. and doctors are not always objective-- far from it. doctors are people too, doctors can have biases, and doctors can be wrong. it is very common to go through multiple professionally diagnosed conditions, and sometimes doctors will flat out say “we’re not sure what you have” but give you treatment based on your symptoms 

2. its dangerous to self-dx!!! you can hurt yourself!!!

most ppl who self dx only look for non-medical ways to improve their lives or symptoms. people who do it are looking for a community and life-style changes more so then they are to self medicate (which ppl can and do do w/o self-dx). there is usually little harm in it. 

3. you make other mentally ill people look illegitimate!!! no one will take us seriously if they assume WE dont have professional credited illnesses!!!

bigots look for any reason to discredit mental illness. if all self dx stops, they will still try to de-legitimize your struggles and mock you/deny you access to care or support. that’s just a fact. 

also the purity of ‘real credited illnesses/conditions’ is just bullshit. health is rarely clean cut. rarely is anyone a textbook example of anything. we barely understand mental health and plenty of physical illnesses. all we can do is make guesses at what happens in the brain to cause these symptoms, and there is also a lot of debate in the medical community about how effective it is to even have rigid categories of symptoms when instead you can just treat the symptoms as needed (because not every bipolar person for example will even have the same treatment and ppl w/ other conditions might find certain anti-psychotics helpful in their treatment) 

4. well what if you’re wrong and then you have wasted everyone’s time and look like a big faker now? you’ll make everyone in the community angry!

like i said, doctors can also be wrong. its extremely common to go through multiple diagnoses and treatments because one diagnosis is settled on. being wrong or mistaken is okay, and instead of being quick to label everyone as an ‘EVIL FAKER’ the second they are mistaken or their doctors change what condition they have on a piece of paper is extremely harmful and can push away people who are NOT faking

5. self dx lets more fakers into the community!!!

being mentally ill is not some fun old club people are just scrambling to get into. mental illness is not a fun experience. while i will say there are people online who WILL try to fake stuff (much like how ppl pretend to be a dif race or gender or sexuality just to look more credible on subjects of oppression), there is little stopping them from just lying about their doctor diagnosing them with a certain condition. 

plus there is more so an issue i think of this mentality of shunning healthy coping and personal improvement that has more to do w ppl mislabeling their experiences than just self-dx. ppl esp on tumblr are increasingly discouraged from talking about or having positive experiences (someone making a post abt how much they can do if they just sit down and focus-- cause they just got meds for ADHD and suddenly everyone is mocking them for being ‘neurotypical’, stuff like that). and this type of toxic mentality will not be stopped by banning self-dx, more people will just refuse to seek healthy patterns of living and never even think to question their symptoms, bc questioning symptoms and not having it as bad as you might have thought makes you stupid and neurotypical. 

6. well if there is no issue, why not just go GET a professional diagnosis!!! if its just the same but you get less legal treatment, why not GET IT?

access to the medical industry is extremely limited, especially for mental health. while low-income health services DO exist they are frequently overcrowded and severely underfunded. wait lines to just GET IN for an appointment can be months or years long. and some illnesses require several visits to finalize a diagnosis, or doctors may not have the authority to give a diagnosis to someone under the age of 18. and even if you GET a diagnosis, medication might be impossible to buy without insurance, and medication will probably be one of the first treatment options you will be given by a professional. 

this means people cannot get in and get quality care. they may also lack the money to pay for even low-income services or get transportation to the doctor. many poor people refuse life saving medical treatment just bc they cant pay for it. what makes you think they will immediately seek out mental health treatment? until we can improve the medical industry, its cruel to expect poor people either never seek out ANY help, even online for their conditions, until they can fork ove the money and years taken to get a professional diagnosis in an unfriendly industry. 

also there is the case of people refusing to seek help because of medical abuse. and those people we should support. this post is already long so im just going to encourage you to seek out stories told by people of medical abuse, and look at the statistics of doctors who lose empathy for patients during or after medical school. this is another serious problem we should correct. 

so in conclusion: no one thinks doctors are stupid and cant do anything and that we’re all flawless beings who know everything about ourselves. we just understand the limitations of the medical industry and the fact not everyone can even access it. in a perfect world everyone would have easy access to the medical industry, with no bias, no fear of sexism, racism, ableism, or abuse, and quality care that isnt so absorbed with putting us into sloppy categories just so our insurance companies agree to pay for our medication. 

[justabisexualmess]

Autism Acceptance Month - 30 Days of Questions

30. Give 5 ways allistics could improve your life or the lifes of autistic people in general. 1. Stop invalidating us. Especially self dx people! Everyone deserves to be respected. 2. Stop supporting harmful organisation that pretend to be for autistic people. 3. Try and understand that sometimes people are not being rude because​ they don't want to be touched or talk to you. 4. Everyone is different and that includes autistic people. It's not because some of us don't do certain things that means we aren't autistic. 5. Stop trying to divide us into groups. Every person in this world has a different way to do things and to think. Bonus/6. Stop shaming people for their stims, let us be who we are!

[stinkrascal]

i dont normally talk about self-dx/”tiktok autism” bc i honestly just dont think its as important or harmful as people pretend it is, and the conversation shouldnt really center around Is Self-Dx Good Or Bad anyways bc that isnt a productive or meaningful conversation to have. but i will say there is one specific component of the tiktok self-dx autism community that makes me so annoyed every time i see it, specifically because i DONT experience this at all. its that bullshit with the “if you always reach for the little spoon instead of the big spoon when eating, you might be autistic!!” because i literally ONLY reach for the big spoon unless im absolutely out of big spoons, then i’ll grab the small spoon, but even then, im not dying on the inside just because i used a small spoon, its literally just a preference in its truest form. i think a lot of times tiktok autism communities feel really disingenuous and uneducated, not because theyre wrong or theyre faking their autism, i honestly dont think the majority of people who relate to symptoms of autism and then post about it online, claiming theyre autistic, are faking their autism, i really dont. if anything, i think passionately stating your own perspective as the One Truth of autism is a really autistic thing to do, because i know for a fact that as someone w autism it can be really difficult for me to see other perspectives, and i often pull from my own experiences because i understand myself very well, and other people not at all. so, to me, the spoon thing is kinda a manifestation of that, communities of uneducated autistic individuals who cant conceptualize the idea that there are other autistic people whose sensory experiences differ from their own, which is why they speak about the disdain of The Big Spoon with such confidence, because thats genuinely how they feel, so how could someone else feel differently? i think that this pattern could be applied in broader terms too, to the community as a whole. and like i said, its not the worst thing in the world either, its just annoying for someone like me whose experiences are different. i think we would all do better to recognize that our experiences greatly differ from others, instead of insisting our experiences are the only ways to experience what is a very complex and nuanced disability. yeah

[bruhhhiiiiiiiiiii]

I’m sorry you feel that way, but it is very much hurtful, coming from someone with an actual diagnosis. I don’t support you being bullied at all. But with regard to the idea of self diagnosis, it does hurt people with mental illness, and perpetuates the stereotypes associated with certain mental illnesses. (See: the 100s of tumblr posts and tiktoks about how people are soooooo OCD for cleaning their bathroom, or so anxious because they’re scared to present a book in front of their class)

And imo being anti self dx isn’t hurting people. It’s just us saying that we are tired of the posing and posturing of people on tumblr and other social media engines pretending like they not only know what we go through, but also have it 10x worse because of this thing or that thing. I actually think self diagnosis hurts the person doing the self diagnosis, because they tend to get so stuck in the idea of themselves/their illness that they’ve created off of a few similar behaviors, that they 1) make every benign thing they do into a symptom to prove their point, 2) doctor shop until they get the diagnosis they want, or 3) both. 

People have turned mental illness into both a trend and a pissing contest. It delegitimatizes the struggles we face to have these tumblr blogs telling users “It doesn’t matter what your doctor says! They’re bad at diagnosis anyways! Find a new doctor that agrees with you!” 

Again, I don’t agree with you being bullied at all whatsoever, but to say that being anti self dx is intentionally harming people is just not right. It is our space that is being infiltrated. It’s not wrong to want to have a space for ONLY people like you.

So someone left a comment on one of my posts, I can't read all of it for whatever reason but it seemed to say cross tagging anti self dxers is the same as cross tagging self dxers.

Being anti self dx is intentionally hurting people.

Even if self dxing does hurt people, which I very much disagree with, it's not intentional.

So no.

Not the same.

-Zeke

[awkward-teabag]

I want to jump in and give one of my experiences with medical “professionals”. I’ve told it elsewhere but when I was admitted to emergency therapy and a psych because, hey, I was put on suicide watch (that little thing that kills 10% of people with BPD) and was severely depressed, I mentioned I probably had BPD. Not had, just that I strongly suspected I had it.

Know what happened? They listened and helped me...

OH WAIT NO.

THEY SCRAMBLED AROUND TELLING ME I COULDN’T HAVE IT AND I SHOULDN’T WANT TO LABEL MYSELF WITH SUCH A “HORRIBLE” THING AND I DIDN’T SEEM LIKE I HAD BPD AND IT WAS PROBABLY JUST A MIX OF DEPRESSION, SUICIDE IDEATION, CHILDHOOD TRAUMA, ZERO EMOTIONAL SUPPORT AS A CHILD... which are all huge parts of BPD.

And that was in about 30 minutes and I only brought up BPD because I was trying to explain how I perceive things that would be crucial in knowing if the therapy was going to be helpful.

Which it wasn’t, because two people assumed they knew me better than I knew myself and ignoring me when I said that I get X is the “normal” response but mine is Y so asking me to work around X is impossible or outright harmful isn’t conducive to getting better.

And in all honestly, I think I knew more about BPD than they did because they were convinced people with BPD are only ever violent angry people.

So yeah, it’s hard to get a professional diagnosis when medical professionals are being ableist pieces of shit. I can’t afford to go to a specialized person who isn’t biased or are NT and got into psychology because they found people who are ND as “interesting”.

Not even sure I want a professional DX because in Canada, being diagnosed with BPD prevents you from surgery if you’re trans. I’m genderqueer and on the fence about HRT and top surgery. If I were to get diagnosed with BPD, those are now outside my reach even if getting them would drastically improve my life and health. If you’re an immigrant, getting a professional DX can also cause you to be deported. This also includes autism, btw.

I see very, very, very few people pretending they have something as bad as BPD. And so what if some people don’t “actually” have it but a the symptoms line up a lot? Someone doesn’t need to get a professional allergy test done to know that garlic doesn’t agree with them.

Treat mental illness like allergies. Unless it’s causing issues, believe them. Some people may lie but the majority don’t and by ignoring them you’re intentionally saying you know them better than they know themselves. You can encourage people to see someone or offer alternatives you think it might be, you can even cut them out of your life if it’s a problem for you, but someone shouldn’t have to produce a signed piece of paper for you to believe they’re sick with something invisible

And like allergies, saying something like “I’m allergic to red meat”/”I have BPD” conveys a lot of info in less space than “I’m allergic to beef, veal, mutton, pork, goat, and horse”/”I have problems regulating my emotions and can swing from one extreme to another and may love you one moment but hate you the next. Also I need a ton of attention otherwise I feel like dying. Oh and if I do become suicidal there’s a 1 in 10 chance I’ll go through with it.” And so on.

And to end things, I’m perceived as a woman thus hysterical and prone to not knowing myself or my body by the medical community at large (and BPD’s symptoms are based off those experienced by cis men). If I can’t get anyone to take me seriously with actual physical problems that can be seen, how do you expect me to have people who are biased and sexist to believe me with something that can’t be seen?

Self DX can be the only way to seek out knowledge and treatment and coping mechanisms for people who the medical system, government, or guardians throw under the bus for not being NT.

“”“"self diagnosis isn’t accurate and it’s not okay to do that. u always need to go to a professional because only they can correctly diagnose u!! especially personality disorders!!”“”“

i mean u couldve just saved ur breath and said “i’m ableist” but