I think getting rid of the Aspergers label was a big mistake on that part. Yeah he was a nazi eugenicist, blah blah blah, but having a label that both differentiates "people who seem like weird fuckups but are otherwise kind of normal?" from "people who have significant disabilities preventing a normal life" and is widely known was a useful shorthand to have.

Plus "aspie" is a much cuter term than "autist" that hasn't to my knowledge been used as a slur.

I fully understand wanting to avoid self-diagnoses for attention seeking or blame avoiding purposes, but I tend to lean towards believing people first.

One, because there is always going to be a discrepancy between the population of the accurately diagnosed and people who have a condition, because of poor access to mental health, because of the stigma attached with seeking help for and admitting to having a disorder, cultural differences in diagnoses and because there are poorly trained mental health professionals.

And two, because rejecting people outright when they share what may or may not be a serious problem they’re facing puts them on the defensive and tells people in the vicinity that you may not be a safe person or contribute to a safe place to express themselves.

The average person is going to be doubtful anyways, unless you fit into their understanding of your expressed condition. How many times have we heard “how could he kill himself, he seemed so happy?”

So let all people who cannot afford a diagnosis go fuck themselves, right?

nor want to fit into the society

The more power to them. This society is disgusting, and it's people who want society to evolve according to their values the ones who change it for the better, not the ones who go through life bowing their head to injustices.

There's also no shortage of people who have been on waiting lists for years for a diagnosis.

Mine took almost 4 years between referral and assessment. Two of my friends have been waiting two and four years respectively when both were told the list was "about 18 months long", with medical professionals asking the latter if they're sure they want to keep waiting, trying to get them to come off the list. And this is an area that has shorter wait times than average for the country.

When you're dealing with that kind of scarcity of diagnosis it's not reasonable to dismiss anyone who has self-identified out of hand. Of course there are and have always been pretenders and misguided teens who want to feel special, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that a lot of those are some kind of neurodivergent and that desire to feel special is born of trying to find a "right fit" in a world that feels wrong.

I say "I'm autistic" at least 40% specifically to avoid people like you and weird gatekeeping crap, despite having been diagnosed for a long time.

You will never be "one of the good ones" and trying to force yourself to fit a mould, and shitting on other people who are less amenable/able to going through the entire structure, in a hostile and repressive and cruel society will not make them treat you better or provide accommodations more. <.<

I'm not getting into all the other issues with shitting on self diagnosis around class and accessibility and discrimination (direct or intersectional, e.g. trying to strip trans rights from autistic trans people, where diagnosis is actually dangerous, and people choose to avoid it if they have the option to do so even if they seriously struggle with negative aspects of being autistic) and hyperpathologisation and accusing people of being FaKErS because they aren't sufficiently miserable/self-loathing/self-hating or don't post their negative moments/experiences online. Autistic people are allowed to be happy and express it publically.

Honestly just sick and tired of seeing this shit in every single space I want to be part of, and pissed off ;p. I hoped this shit died when we collectively told Autism Speaks to fuck off, but apparently that was way too goddamn optimistic.

For those that did not get a diagnosis as a kid, self-diagnosing is how they begin to discover that component about themselves (I'm newly there right now in my 30's, parent present in my life didn't even know what autism was until the 2010's, I am going to be seeking a professional diagnosis), so I would be mindful that some of the self-diagnoses may be telling the truth and it's not all fad joiners/charlatans/attention seekers

To your credit, fakers probably would be somewhat obvious, but I don't have real life experience with a fake autist, mostly the opposite, autists thinking they're NT.

Shut The Fuck Up Boomer

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick this is spot on,and here’s why. My youngest is autistic. Like, he’s on SSI he’s so autistic. The government pays us a lot of money and covers his healthcare because otherwise they’d have to pay someone else more.

But every time I post something about him being autistic. Inevitably, someone comments about how “it’ll get better. Because they are autistic and it’s barely a hindrance to them. They are now just shy around people”.

These people act like autism isn’t a spectrum, and some people aren’t way worse than others. Once I explained that my child’s doctor even said that “He would probably never be able to live on his own”. These people told me to get him another doctor.

He already goes to the most sought after behavioral specialist in my city. A city that is built around a world class hospital, and connected college. Anyone that does that can go fuck themselves with a burning log of dog shit.

People that say “I’m autistic”. I automatically assume you are self diagnosed. Maybe start with. “I was diagnosed with autism”.

"Oh cool! Are there any particular triggers we should know about, like loud noise?"

Autism and its effects can differ greatly from person to person, such that the 'rules' for dealing with one person might not apply to another.

In the context of revealing your autism, many will not do so simply out of hand because of insert response from OP's post. Usually the only reasons many high functioning autists will even reveal it to someone they do not trust is because they either have to (eg: there is the potential for the presence of a meltdown trigger, reasonable accommodation requests at work) or they're relating to someone with their own disabilities.

"oh, okay." is generally a good bet, then if the person wants to they can expand on any special needs they have.

Like if someone's physically disabled you'd be rude to make a big deal out of it, you just acknowledge that it is what it is and try to accommodate for it.

Reads username

Huuuuuh.

Dad. Now did you ever get those cigarettes?