TikTok Gave Me Autism: The Politics of Self Diagnosis
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- Опубликовано: 8 авг 2023
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~BIBLIOGRAPHY~
Garb, H. N. (2021). Race bias and gender bias in the diagnosis of psychological disorders. Clinical Psychology Review, 90, 102087
McClure, T. (2022, April 26). New Zealand denies entry to autistic daughter of immigrant couple. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/world/202...
ASAN. (2023, March 22). Asan condemns restrictions on gender-affirming care. Autistic Self Advocacy Network. autisticadvocacy.org/2023/03/...
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality. Penguin Books.
Foucault, M. (1961). Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason.
Crane, S. E. R. (2017). Foucault, disability studies, and mental health diagnoses; a literature review. Journal of Disability Studies, 3(1), 23-28.
Geschwind, D. H. (2008). Autism: many genes, common pathways?. Cell, 135(3), 391-395.
Arnold, L. (2022), “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is: whither identity?” in The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Autism Studies. Taylor & Francis.
Baron-Cohen S, Leslie AM, Frith U. Does the autistic child have a "theory of mind"? Cognition. 1985 Oct;21(1):37-46. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(85)90022-8. PMID: 2934210.
Baron-Cohen, S. (1997). Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind. MIT press.
Botha, M. (2022), “Community Psychology as Reparations for Violence in the Construction of Autism Knowledge” in The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Autism Studies. Taylor & Francis.
Gernsbacher, M. A., & Yergeau, M. (2019). Empirical failures of the claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind. Archives of scientific psychology, 7(1), 102.
Descartes (1641), Meditations on First Philosophy,
Yergeau, M.R. Yergeau (2018), Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness, p. 10
Butler, J. (1997), The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection
TikTok
Video Essay 
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![Kehlani - Next 2 U [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MpI7ekFG8A0/mqdefault.jpg)
So, I have a sister. She was diagnosed with depression, and only depression when she was around 15. Years later, my parents, her, and me are saying to doctors “I’m pretty sure she has something else guys, can you please help?” And they kept saying “it’s just depression”.
She had bad impulse control, had a hard time learning and focusing, had anger issues, etc. At this point she had turned to heavy drugs because none of her medication was helping her. And, like, she died a year ago. When my parents were talking to a therapist, the therapist said “yeah, it sounds like she had adhd”. It was too little, too late.
A personal anecdote to prove that sometimes psychiatrists don’t do their fucking jobs.
i'm so sorry that happened to you and your family, much love from an internet stranger
I have a similar story with one of my siblings. I’m so sorry that happened to you too.
that hurts my heart :( I’m so sorry…
I'm very sorry for you and your family, but your gut was right. When someone uses stimulating drugs and suddenly feel better and more productive, ADHD is a possible diagnosis that has to be investigated.
🧡
One of the things that frustrates me is how hard it is to explain that "I don't come across as autistic because I've become very good at learning how to fit in even though it makes no intuitive sense to me". Like, just because I'm very good at coping and masking doesn't mean I'm "normal".
It gets worse if you're twice exceptional. The only people that I can relate to are autistic, but I don't seem to qualify for a diagnosis because the traits didn't emerge early enough. I didn't actually have many friends at all growing up, so it makes it really hard to make a clean diagnosis one way or the other.
part of why i don't care to get a diagnosis is because i started identifying as autistic in order to use the label to convey this fact to people succinctly (generally what labels are for), yet it turns out i have to explain it all anyway, because it's not common knowledge. getting a diagnosis would probably just increase the number of scenarios where i have to explain the concept of masking again.
it is its own brand of autism, I'm trying to convince people. My disability isn't gone because i learned to mask, my disability is now trying to get people to respect the work I did to fit into their society, and at least validate my reality.
I think a useful metaphor are glassess. They are so commonplace that near-sightedness is no longer considered a disability, so they can be the axle point for showing ableist hypocrisy
Example:
Would you say that you can see well?
(Yes: and how well would you see without the glasses?)
(No: that’s true, and you have a prosthetic for your eye that lets you see.)
What would the consequences of being forced to wear glasses all the time be?
(If they can’t come up with examples: nose would get tired, ears would chafe, sweaty eyebrows, uncomfortable when running, need different kinds of goggles and face masks)
So imagine the “normal” way of interacting with society, the *mask* as we call it, are a prosthetic for social interaction. It allows for smoother life in a world hostile to disabled individuals, but like all prosthetics, it is tiring to wear all the time. And just like some people with limb prosthetics can achieve the same or even greater feats than fully abled people, it doesn’t make them any less disabled. It would be cruel to require a legless running champion to put on their running legs and run everywhere, all the time. Likewise, it is an ableist cruelty that society requires normalcy from neuroatypical persons for them to be considered valid and sane.
Correction regarding 9:46 - This seems to be a common misconception on the Internet. New Zealand does not in fact ban people on the Autism spectrum from immigrating as you suggest. The truth is more complex but the short of it is that most people classified as Autistic would not be barred from citizenship. The actual law on the books is that any individual with a disability that requires medical costs of $NZD81,000 per 5 years (they raised it from 40,000 last year) may be denied, and there have been a few cases over the years where children and adults on the Autism spectrum who require a high degree of care (i.e. nonverbal or extreme sensory processing difficulty) have been denied citizenship due to the cost of their care. I consider those rulings and the ableist policy backward and stupid all the same, but saying that literally anyone with an Autism diagnosis is banned from New Zealand is just plain wrong. I have not been denied on that basis, for example, and I have been living with an ASD diagnosis for a while.
Your heart is clearly in the right place here, but any misinformation, even if unintentional, really harms the point you are trying to make. I hope you can correct this mistake. Have a wonderful day.
True! Videos like this are the first frontier for the general audience to find this information, so to speak- so Alex would be better off specifying very clearly that immigration is denied only if medical support for your diagnosis will get too costly for the state.
That being said, I think Alex's point (not very well-conveyed here) is that just having a diagnosis alone means you have to start worrying about looking up which countries have autism-related laws. Whether they accept level 2s and 3s, whether the costs won't get too high, what paperwork they need, etc etc. for people struggling in life, who just want to understand what they are, why they're at odds with society, and to know where they can find people like them to help out and give advice- finding a community for autism is more urgent and sometimes the only thing they need to adjust to neurotypical society, maybe they won't ever need the legal diagnosis.
Thanks for this comment!
Yeah, I wanted to make a similar comment. When I heard that statement I instantly went and looked up the law because I've been thinking of ex-patriating to New Zealand more and more and never came across this.
+
Thank you!
"To be declared mentally ill is to be declared non-human" Thank you for saying this. I feel so alienated from my own humanity, having trouble to think of myself as human or even a person, because I am autistic, but my neurotypical family just does not understand how I could possibly think something so dark.
you are a human though. and i'm reading your words and feeling this with you.
what are your thoughts on person-first language? e.g., "person with autism" vs "autistic person." would that help? to think of yourself as _having_ autism rather than _being_ autistic?
as a side note, i know this is easier said than done, but absolutely bring up this feeling of disconnection the next time you get a chance to speak with a psych. there may be something else going on, or you may be misdiagnosed, or you may simply need talk therapy. you deserve peace and understanding.
That's depression, not 'autism'... just FYI, the condition is named ASD, if you want to pretend you're disabled, you should do more research into the condition... the name comes first.
@@zubetp Um, you do understand that the video is talking about you, right? He's using sarcasm to say something which seems to have flown over your head.
And just to reply... i prefer the term 'scoper' 'raspberry' or 'Freak' (you'd have to watch an old movie to understand that last one).
@@jack-a-lopium what??
@@jack-a-lopium you are so dumb its hilarious
I think what people don't understand is that having the diagnosis doesn't make people start taking you seriously. I got diagnosed with autism earlier this year, at the age of 23, and every time I bring it up to a medical professional, their first words are STILL 'Are you sure? You seem too independent to have autism.' I have the paperwork. It's on my file. I spent the money and did the testing and waited months and months for the results. Now the question has gone from 'Are you sure you think you're on the spectrum?' to 'Are you sure you agree with the test results?'
Yeah it's annoying especially if you've learned to mask.
The thing about people is they're mostly stupid barn animals who only understand things through the lense of consumer culture.
You have to be rain man to be autistic to them. You have to be this utter caricature of an autistic person to fit these people's label.
As someone who was diagnosed in the 90s, i can't imagine not being sure if you really are autistic. From the moment I defended a family of bats I found in the roof of the playground's playhouse from any and all intruders for 16 hours, before I could talk, I knew I was just built different.
You know why, right?
It's because they think it's acceptable to discriminate against people with autism.
They think that treating individuals with autism as though they are children or animals is acceptable, because they consider individuals with autism as lesser than them.
That's why there are so many adults with autism who were unfortunate enough to get a diagnosis as a child, and spoiled so rotten by their own parents that they can't function as human beings. My theory is that it has nothing to do with their autism and everything to do with their upbringing.
So when they see an individual with autism who they cannot push down beneath their level, they get confused. Because they're so used to autistic individuals being, to them, "subhuman".
Admittedly, I am guilty of this myself. I denied autism at all costs because I was painfully aware of and terrified of the stigma.
Edit: now that I've gotten further in the video, basically what the video said lmao
I get the same thing with my bipolar disorder. I've been told I don't act bipolar, don't seem bipolar, that they know a bipolar person who is 'crazy' and I'm NOT crazy so I must be misdiagnosed. That they're just trying to sell me drugs and keep me spending money at the psychiatrist. That I might have been bipolar in the past, but maybe I'm cured. That maybe I'm just depressed or anxious, that I'm probably on the spectrum, that I have ADHD instead, or that nothing is wrong with me at all and all my feelings are normal human experiences. I can't count the number of times I have had to patiently explain myself, as though I have to prove myself before I can be trusted.
The advantage of mine is I got it very early in life, meaning whenever somebody tries that they are informed of 16 years of education and training both in and out of government programs to make me appear normal. They then get asked if they would prefer I drop the facade and act how I want to, the answer is always no and the conversation moves on very quickly
Oh so thats why ive always related so deeply to your videos. It was the transgender autistic to transgender autistic communication
Relatable
lmao same
fr like, almost all my friends either transgender or autistic, or both.
i swear it's like magnets
SAAAAME
...same
my therapist never formally diagnosed me, she told me I have BPD, but she never "put it in the books" so to speak, because with all her experience treating pwBPD she was convinced that through the stigma that comes with that particular diagnosis there was much more to lose with diagnosing it officially, and almost nothing to gain
And she was absolutely right, years later I wanted to transition and a recorded bpd diagnosis could have very well nipped that in the bud, not to mention my drivers license and my ability to hold the kinds of jobs I work in.
i feel the same, i wouldn't be able to get access to HRT in germany because therapists need to ensure that gender dysphoria is your only mental issue before prescribing you hormones etc. if i actually got a diagnosis for my borderline i would probably not get the hormones i need anymore. its such a stupid and outdated policy, and you really see that the insurances that run the medical business here only care for the money that they snitch from patients who they would rather see die while waiting for a doctors appointment than actually helping them.
Yeah I'm DEFINITELY bipolar but one person diagnosing me w BPD fucked me over for YEARS :/ like v nearly killed me at one point bc they were like ppl w BPD shouldn't be hospitalised or on medication and i was like. A year into mania.
@@popepiusxv wow, that policy is so fucked up, I hope that it gets changed soon
I'm diagnosed with DID according to my insurance company, but they don't have my bipolar 1 with psychotic features on record? It's funny because I literally take mood stabilizers and anti psychotics for the bipolar.
I have autism and ADHD on the books with different doctors though.
I am heavily diagnosed lmao
@felixhenson9926 just increasing my lithium dose now, Bipolar is wild. I pray you have bipolar II, I'm told it's less severe. I have bipolar 1 with psychotic features...
Anyhow, my doctor says I have BPD traits but it's just a mix of DID/cPTSD, ADHD, and Bipolar+Pyschosis overlap. She refuses to diagnose me with BPD anyways because of stigma.
My neuropsych saw the binder of printed research I brought to my adult autism assessment. Im 40 and female. and one of her comments was "this is something a lot of my adult autistic patients do, but let's go ahead with the formal assessment." Most validating thing ever
lmao diagnosed by binder
Studying for the autism test 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Passed with flying colors
NOT ME LITERALLY MAKING A LIST TO BRING TO MY DOCTOR TO TALK TO HIM ABOUT HOW I THINK IM NEURODIVERGENT...
Well this is part of the problem, isn't it? Instead of just going to a formal assessment, you prepared and looked everything up. This is obvious confirmation bias.
@@itsgonnabeanaurfromme not really- by the point most of us (especially women) realise we MIGHT be autistic, we've often been put through so much shit from doctors (but also literally everyone else in our lives) dismissing our problems and concerns that we've learned we have to have serious proof to even have a single HOPE of someone taking us seriously. We're so used to being fobbed off or labelled as sensitive/anxious/depressed/weird that we just don#t have the time or mental energy to go through that whole ordeal anymore and we're trying to skip to the point where they at least try to listen. And as adults, a lot of people won't go to the doctor about something like autism till they're already basically a hundred percent sure they're autistic. And most neurotypical people wouldn't put in the same degree of research and still believe they're autistic.
I waited two or three years for my "professional" assessment. The report they sent back after our six hours together was multiple pages long, but the first two things they mentioned is I'm not autistic because I demonstrated imagination and empathy. I'm convinced by that alone that I'm better qualified to diagnose me than they are. Autistics lacking imagination and empathy, while displayed in some, is such an outdated stereotype to apply to everyone to the point of dismissing the possibility of autism if it doesn't apply :P
The first thing I said at 25 when I was diagnosed was, but... I have empathy? Turns out hyperempathy is a symptom lol, especially in AFABs
I had a friend who went in for evaluation after I said they might be autistic and they had to get re-evaluated after emailing the dude about all the things they forgot to mention in the moment (because autism) and also he said they couldn't have autism initially because they made eye contact (even tho they are frequently told by others that they don't and also, just as i do, will fake eye contact when necessary by looking at other parts of the face). Re-assessment showed they have autism.
Also I can't BELIEVE they included imagination. My only thought for why is that some autistic people have aphantasia??? But a lot of us don't lol. Although I know another friend of mine with a gen psych assessment by someone else was told they probably didn't have autism because they scored too high on the spatial reasoning portion of the exam.
Empathy... Is not a great one to include. I don't remember the names for the two types of empathy but we lack the type that helps determine other people's mental states (eg reading body language and other social cues). We DON'T lack and many of us have more than "normal" the type of empathy of "putting ourselves in other people's shoes" or feeling what others "feel" based on what we think or are told they feel.
@@FoxyFemBoi I really don’t like it when people dismiss symptoms of autism just because they don’t experience them. One of the earliest signs of autism is not playing with toys in a typical way.
I have a horrible imagination, as a child I never played pretend with my dolls because I literally didn’t know how and it never occurred to me that I could play that way. I can’t make eye contact and I’m not very empathetic. And I’m AFAB!
Of course I don’t think you should be automatically dismissed for not experiencing these things but some of us do show very stereotypical behaviors. People with autism level 1 tend to forget about level 2 and 3 people who do experience a lot of these things.
Mine told me I wasn't autistic because I was in college 😂
But in all seriousness, I've been told I can't be autistic because I "have feelings" and "have empathy." People look at autistics the same way they do at bugs before deciding to squish them
8:52 this is true to a literal painful degree. I'm a white guy, and the a few months after transitioning to male my teachers started to recommend that I get tested for autism. Traits I have expressed all my life, leg tapping, shirt chewing, trouble with processing numbers vocally, overly active pattern recognition, social issues, trouble finding friends, etc, that were normal for a "girl" are now things that are "obvious" as autism in a guy. medical system is fucked.
Interesting.
i have slash had all the thing you named. maybe i really should think about that
@@vinestaff It's something you could look into if you wanted to. I'm 17, so my no means an expert on autism, but in the reading I've done, it's more of a cognitive disorder, and there are some "tells" for autism, like "excess" sensory stimulation seeking, but most of it is neurological- how your brain actively thinks about things and compartmentalizes information.
I dunno, I go back and forth about my thoughts on autism. Sometimes I think it's more literally a spectrum, where there are two extremes that can never be met (like temperature) and everyone is a little autistic in some way. Same way I feel about sexuality, race, and gender. Like they all just seem like social constructs that are a wide spectrum. But sometimes I also think that because of that, it might be best to conform to those standards because the system is a cowabummer.
I accidentally just went on a rant but basically yeah consider doing research on autism, even without the consideration that you yourself could be autistic. It's good to learn about things people experience, even if you might end up not relating to it.
@@muffinbandit6643 okay , thank you
Oh no... you just brought back a memory I had as a kid when I had longer hair and took swimming lessons, I would such the chlorine water out of my hair 😂😂😂 🤢🤮.. idk why I enjoyed it but it was a gross habit I'm glad I grew out of.
My mother has been using her status as a special ed teacher to prove to me I am not autistic, telling me that autistic people are incapable of change or of controlling themselves, and the fact that I do this is an indication that I cannot be autistic. She tells me that she used to think I was when I was a toddler, but upon researching “gifted children“, decided that that was a much more preferrable thing for me to be. I have also heard her use the r slur a couple times. Her attitude conveys an utter lack of respect for autistic people, and, regardless of how she has impacted me in this way (which I am incredibly wounded by her actions and attitudes], I am beyond concerned to have someone like this working with autistic people. I know there are worse people out there who have done worse things, but we could be doing way better by autistic and other neurodivergent and disabled people by hiring candidates who do not have such a backwards way of thinking. Also having actually autistic people (who tend to have a more personal and compassionate understanding of neurodivergence than neurotypical people do] dominating the field would be ideal.
Special Ed teacher using the r word? The fuck??
yr mom should probably not be a special ed teacher
Retarded?
Gifted children=autistic.
My stepdad's ex-wife was a special ed teacher (retired now) and exhibits some pretty narcissistic and psychopathic behavior. We believe she just got off on having a position of power.@@rompepropfanboy
Shit, Foucault hits different after you have sat at the psychiatrist's office and known that the person across the desk has the power to decide whether the rest of your life will be a never-ending struggle or not.
I got the ADHD diagnosis and the meds and now I am almost a functional adult. But I will never forget how powerless I felt in that office while a stranger with the right degree decided my fate.
But how would you change it? Should we have self diagnosing and give people amphetamines? Genuinely curious as it seems a necessary evil to me
@@the0nlytrueprophet942That is such a crazy ass leap its giving me vertigo
If we're talking about the short-term, and honestly a bit of the long-term, **ensuring** that patient experiences are the center of treatment is one way to do it.
Dismantling the way our epistemology regarding these conditions will take time, and we might already be dead by the time it has. But if there is a step to take, i think it's that
@@the0nlytrueprophet942I mean, we should legalize all drugs anyways
@@the0nlytrueprophet942 did you watch the video
@@the0nlytrueprophet942 how did you get from "patient experience should be at the center of care and should be taken seriously and maybe one guy with a degree shouldn't be considered the top authority on another person's life" to "oh so you want free amphetamines for everyone??"?.
I don't know what long term changes should look like, Foucault didn't claim he knew either, and who am I to think I'm better than he was. But short term we should work to change how medical institutions think of themselves as the ultimate judges of the people in their care and start thinking more like at the service of the people in their care. In my opinion that means a whole lot more informed consent based practices, not in the sense of "person comes in claims they want x medicine and the doctor gives it to them" but in the sense of "let's talk about your symptoms and experience and see if we can work something out together, while I try to explain to you why I think this particular medication or course of action is warranted"
one gripe i've always had with the demedicalization approach in regards to neurodiversity is that people often use it to discount the suffering present in many neurodivergent people's lives that stem from our interactions with the outside world.
It almost feels more dehumanizing to hear people say "oh you're not any less capable than anyone else, you're just a little different" when i can't even go to target without noise cancelling headphones because if they play the wrong song on the store radio, i'll have a meltdown. Like please just acknowledge my struggles and need for support. I do really feel like i am being thrown under the bus for the sake of being progressive sometimes- I also wanna say that there seem to be a lot of people who hold the view that being seen as disabled is somehow inherently dehumanizing, which is extremely extremely ableist
@@MynameIsnotforsell You are hopefully gonna learn one day that not everybody experiences things the same way you do, and that just because you can't imagine something, it doesn't mean it's fake.
But until then: Get outta my face with that garbage, you unseasoned chicken nugget.
It reminds me of misogyny and the misappropriation of feminism. The way that mainstream feminism doesn’t recognise other realities of being feminine or being a woman (like being poor or living in a developing nation). But I find people often find a way to misappropriate complex theories and simplified them for power to be maintained.
It makes it easier for complex and radical social theories to be simplified to be maintained in the power structure.
@@MynameIsnotforsell similar things have happened to my autistic husband and myself. some songs are horribly overstimulating with certain repetitive noises or frequencies that we can hear better than others. it can even be disorienting! that can get scary. some songs can trigger ptsd as well. maybe ask questions instead of coming out the gate dismissing it? anyway, now ya know!
@@azuremoon6583 oh damn, that's a great analogy!
Have a good weekend, my friendolinis
I've always been of the opinion that it's not dehumanizing to be seen as disabled, only dehumanizing to be seen as "wrong"
What I’ve noticed more as I’ve got older is how scared parents are if an autism diagnosis. I learned recently that, although recommended several times, my mom always refused to get my diagnosed.
My partners mom refuses to believe that they have autism, even after being diagnosed.
It’s sad because both are truly good people but are very stubborn in this one particular area
I'm starting to think that this reaction has a lot to do with the dangers associated with formally "outing" oneself as neurodivergent that were far more dire when they were being socialized as young people. The normalization of mental health and wellness talk is something that many of us take for granted, but their generation was riding the wave of the lobotomy age... Even today, disclosing an autism diagnosis or any other mental health condition can backfire by way of dehumanization and disregard. If you're able to pass/mask, that has incredible socioeconomic benefits. I understand that it's complex, and there's some bigotry attached to parents' fearing an autism diagnosis in their children (and sometimes a fear that the call is coming from inside the house), but I like to think that they are also, at some level, navigating a murky & treacherous relationship to biased, and at times, hostile, social institutions.
Yeah, organizations like Autism Speaks really like to simplify and vilify autism in order to make it into this horrible life-ending terror so they can get money given to them for a "cure". like their horrific "I am autism" commercial. Scared people don't have the capacity for nuance.
When my brother was diagnosed as a teenager, it took our father years to accept it. My brother is a brilliant man and in my dad's mind he couldn't be both brilliant and autistic. He said this can't be right, they must be mistaken. After some time he accepted it and now he understands that there's nothing wrong with being autistic, just because my brother is a kind and intelligent man doesnt mean he cant be autistic. But it took time to get there.
if i was autistic i wouldn’t want the label either. label or not, i would just be me. if u cant change the condition the label is only valuable if u seek community or validation, which is totally fine and i have no problem w that, just, not everyone wants that and either way i think it’s ok
edit: people probably get much more from a label than just community and validation, those were just examples. my point is some ppl might not want any of it.
@@br0wning i feel similarly…it can also be a whole ordeal to get a proper diagnosis.
when i was a teenager, my primary care doc i had at the time suspected i had adhd, so he gave me an adderall prescription and sent me on my way. i only took it for a few days because the side effects made me feel awful (but i was able to focus for the first time in a life time the few times i took it)
after seeing a psychiatrist to find a medication to treat adhd that would work better for me, and she just said “if you really had adhd, the adderall wouldn’t have affected you that way”
so, i spent years thinking that i was just lazy and stupid because a psychiatrist would know what they’re talking about right?
here i am, over a decade later, on a medication for adhd that works better for me and a psychiatrist who actually listens to me. i don’t technically have an “official diagnosis” but he told me once “if you have the symptoms and the medication helps, then what’s the difference?”
i have no point to this story other than: psychiatrists are wrong sometimes
i cannot stand the "adhd meds won't give you side effects" sentiment i've seen so many times. idk if it's still prevalent since i don't look into adhd stuff online much at all now. but i absolutely have adhd, and meds absolutely have/had side effects for me. i really don't get why this is the only prescribed medicine i see get treated like side effects shouldn't happen if you have the diagnosis it's being used for. ssris, benzos, mood stabilizers, etc, in my experience, don't receive any comments about side effects suggesting you probably don't have what's affecting you. like, i'm taking amphetamines. i'd be surprised if it DIDN'T have any normal side effects, lol
@eg4441 god.. THANK YOU!! I feel seen 😅
They definitely can be! Its why I would recommend getting a second opinion, as any profession has people that are incompetent. I understand that there can be financial difficulties with this, it's really regrettable that care is so expensive. I would say most providers aren't this way, sorry to hear you got so unlucky :(
Where are you from? I am asking this because the itnernet skews US, but I feel that the ludicrous prices to helathcare create a barrier in situations like yours where you got a pretty life altering comment from a respected proffesional but you didn't immediatly go to get a second opinion.
that is wild, because aderal SUCKS, it makes me so anxious, but I definitely have ADHD, and when I get vyvanse regularly I'm way more chill, and it improves my insomnia
It's interesting just how much power plays into the doctor-patient relationship. When I was around 23 I had this weird feeling in my stomach one day and was constipated. This was very unusual and I pretty quickly came to the conclusion that I had appendicitis. I figured I would wait until the morning to see if the feeling went away before I went to the ER for no reason. Well, the next morning, I was in more pain, so I went to the ER. I explained what was happening and said that I was worried I may have appendicitis or something. After multiple routine checks, the doctor was pretty convinced that I was fine and they told me to stay off the internet. But I wasn't having it. They decided to do a CT scan and once the results came back, wouldn't you believe, I had appendicitis! I was immediately rushed to surgery after almost being sent home.
The lesson I learned is, doctors don't really like when you diagnose yourself and are far less likely to take you seriously if you combat their ego. (even if its wrong!)
(also, thanks to hbomberguy for the suggestion. Keep up the great work!)
Yyyyyep, its doubly worse when you're AFAB or present femininely! medical misogyny is a real thing and its pretty fucked up. Woman goes to the ER with abdominal pain, many medical professionals wont take her seriously and will just assume its period cramps and that she's overreacting, or that its a pregnancy related complication. Her pain wont be taken seriously... and if she tries to suggest to the doctor what she thinks is happening? forget it! I've learned the best way to go about it is to just describe the symptoms you're having in detail and hope they reach the right conclusion (of course, if its something as serious and life threatening as appendicitis tho, stand your ground by any means!)
Im sorry that happened to you tho. Its absolutely awful how they tried to dismiss you and i'm glad you stood your ground!
I have a story of self-diagnosis vindication as well, Thankfully I didn't need to go to the ER for this though and was taken pretty seriously. Once as a teen, I was getting over a cold but the cough just wouldn't go away. It was getting worse, even. I decided to google my symptoms and discovered it might be Whooping cough. I told my mom and we got a doc appointment where they tested me and wouldn't you know it, I was right! was government mandated to quarantine in my house for a few days and emails went out to the entire high school. Whooping cough is highly contagious and dangerous for very young children and the elderly. This was pre-covid so i was surprised how seriously it was taken.
i went to the doctors finally after 16 years for my hips. ive been able to pop them out at will for as long as i can remember, but i dont really like doctors so the most i ever saw for it was mmy gymnastics coach who said hed never seen anything like it before and that i may be hypermobile in my hips. my health teacher once mentioned his daughter had hip dysplasia, and i began googling it. a couole symtoms matched and when left untreated for decades, it can result in early onset osteoarthritis. i had begun experiencing hip pain in my waitressing job so i got scared. my parents have really good insurance, so i went to a orthopedic place. i mentioned my concerns to the male doctor, excluding snapping hip syndrom because i wasnt concerned if that was my only problem. i took an xray and afterwards he wouldnt let me see them because "only 10% of women have 'perfect' hips and if i point out a minor issue to you youll be googling things and self diagnosing yourself" very patronizingly. i was pissed. i dont go to doctors. years of having my primary write off my concerns has led me to only seek medical attention when i really think its serious. i think ive had had a hernia for 2 years now and ive still never mentioned it to my doctor even after seeing what the two my dad lived with did to him. to be talked down to like that and barred from seeing my own bones, seriously, my first xray and i didnt even get to see it, it would have been cool as shit! well it rubbed me the wrong way. i got prescribed a couple of months of pt which didnt even help because i have just about the most egregious case of snapping hip syndrome ever. most cases are in runners and the elderly, not in barely active young adults who stand wrong and their hips pop out. sorry that was such a rant but it was my most recent example of being talked down to as a fem presenting person seeking medical attention.
Here's the thing - did you ask that doctor how many times a patient claimed they had appendicitis and actually did, vs. how many times the patient claimed they had appendicitis and didn't? I bet it's a thousand to one, and you may be the only time it's happened
@@Caffeine_Addict_2020 I definitely didn't go in depth to ask his experience no, thing is, I maybe said that word 3 times my whole visit, once to the ER desk and another time when i was even my concern. I never insisted the doctor was wrong, but asked him if there were any other way we could be sure, as I was very anxious about what i was feeling in my body.
This seems to come back to the argument of 'self diagnosing taking away resources from people in need'. If someone is concerned about something why not extort all the money you can out of the concern? Health care in the states is a crooked game as it is
@@ErieRosewood I hope that you may find a doctor that will help alleviate the medical traumas you've dealt with. There certainly are great ones out there who will listen to your needs. Don't give up hope, your health matters!
I was such an enigma to my doctor as a third grader, they wrote multiple pages of analysis that basically said “idk this looks a lot like autism but I’m gonna go with dysgraphia bc she held her pencil weird” 🙃
I had disgraphia and Autism.
Haha I had so many teachers try to fix the way I held my pencil with bribes but to this day I still hold them weird along with any other utensil.
I hold a pencil in between my ring and my middle finger, with my pointer sitting on top of my middle finger and my thumb laying across my pointer.
@@razzlejazzlesLike a paint brush with less pointer finger, interesting
people sharing relatable experiences is quite the opposite of thinking the world revolves around them. Sorry you aren't having fun.@@NotVille_
I have autism, ADD, and disgraphia, dyspraxia, dyscalculias, and just a touch of dyslexia which does not affect my reading, but does show up in my writing.
It's called "The buffet table."
But, because I have high verbal and reading skills, and remember a lot of things(so long as they do not involve numbers, physical memory, or rote memory with no context) many people did not see me as mentally disabled in any way, so they just thought that I was not trying.
I had one IQ test put me at 136, which is high average. Another put me at 80, which is developmental disabled, so you know something is unusual with me.
I think this conversation would be massively improved by the inclusion of a number of people who are profoundly disabled by their autism. The reality is that a lot of self-diagnosed people tend to be around the more able end of the spectrum who, quite bluntly, live in a very different world to people who are nonverbal, have an intellectual disability, or other common symptoms we consider in the high support needs range of autism spectrum disorder, as a broader part of the ongoing modern segregation the disabled experience. Unsurprisingly, a lot of these folks aren't on RUclips and TikTok, and the few who are don't end up with hundreds of thousands of followers in social / political commentary bubbles like this. We often talk about platforming the marginalized in leftist social media-based communities, and like, this is really one of those times where it's probably very necessary to do so, because for a lot of people, people who are almost indistinguishable from able-bodied / neurotypical folks have become the representative model of autism, despite the fact that (according to autism research sites like Spectrum) 20 - 35% of people with autism are nonverbal and 25 - 30% have an intellectual disability. While not the majority, those are some heavy numbers, and they never seem represented when it's time to discuss online autism community drama.
Goodness, yes. This is exactly what I was thinking. A lot of low-support needs autistics who mesh better with neurotypicals tend to completely forget or ignore our siblings on different parts of the spectrum. Broad statements about autism within those circles don't always apply to high-needs autistics, and there's no platform for nonverbal or intellectually disabled or in-some-way-high-needs autistics to speak about their experiences. There's, like, this "stereotypical" general public view of autism: nonverbal, "stupid", easily overwhelmed, oh I feel bad for you type, and then there's the progressive "educated" view: oh not all autists are like that, most of us are "normal" and just have sensory issues and need extra help, autism is a spectrum! And I don't think the "educated" view is very... educated because it tends to stick to low-needs autism. We need to be aware of the full spectrum of autism, not just one side, and to do that we need to listen to the autistics that are left behind. Self-diagnosis is almost always on the "educated" side and tends to stick to catering to low-support needs autistics without any conversation room left for mid- to high-needs autistics.
Lovely comment, and I agree 100%. My own comment is likely worded poorly since I spewed it out at hyperspeed but I just wanted to respond with my similar ideas too.
I agree in some ways but ability associated with level of autism can fluctuate. My son was non verbal until 4 years old and had extreme impairments from his speech delay. He received speech therapy and occupational therapy for years. He is also the reason I was diagnosed with autism. But from the outside now that he is a sophomore in high-school you would likely liable him highly functioning. I am part of the 20% of autistic people who actually hold a full-time job. But I have gone through periods where I could not and had to drop down to part time and cause me and my son financial hardship because I was failing to function. I work night shift most often to avoid overstimulation. I am going to college at almost 40 because I could not function high enough when I was the appropriate age. I often am unable to meaningly communicate when I just wake up, have extreme symptoms of body dismorphia during my period and have had suicidal ideation since I was a child. The only reason I am here is because of the statistics associated with suicide of mothers and how badly they would effect my son. The son I feel I should not have had but I do and have done everything in my control to make life better for but I still gave him this disorder. So the question of function I think is up for debate. How well did I actually function as a kid? I barely remember because I was in an extremely abusive situation and ran away at 16 and was forced into masking traits to survive. Would my life and ability to live on my own be changed had I had supportive family? I actually supportive family may have decided I was not ready to live on my own until mich later in my life. I dont plan for my son to live alone unless he wants too.
I know you are meaning severely impared autistic people but many of those you are referencing do not jist have autism alone and also have more physical impairments like cerebral palsy and other forms of intellectual disabilities on top of autism. I would love to hear from them as well. But I think the presentation of "high function" is misleading.
Low support need or verbal autistics are not entirely indistinguishable from neurotypicals. We are just as disabled as high support need or non verbal autistics. We just experience things differently.
@@Xplreli You are not just as disabled as high support needs autistic people, c'mon now. Let's not be silly. That someone would say something like that is exactly the reason I think that actually including high support needs autistic people in conversations like this is so important.
Disablement isn't an "on" or "off" toggle state and many social realities, most of which are marginalizing, exist exclusively among the profoundly disabled. This doesn't mean you aren't autistic, but engaging in a conversation wherein everybody who should be at the table is invited to actually be at the table isn't a ridiculous request.
In short, there's a significant difference between someone with a cane and someone with no legs. The person with the cane is not invalidated by the fact that they have legs, nor is the person without the cane, but both should probably be invited to a conversation about mobility impairment.
I fully invite you to volunteer a couple days at a residential care or day service and put some praxis to the prose, it's the best education on the realities of disability someone can have, whether they're personally disabled or not. :)
@@rcndg educate yourself please. You clearly haven’t been doing so in regards too the discussions being had about low and high support vs verbal and non verbal.
“No using your identity to deflect responsibility,” that right there is one of the most important things for self diagnosing. It only bothers me when people use it as an excuse.
I hate wasting food and a terrible habit I had when living with my parents was that I would put food in the fridge and a family member would move it to the back. Then 2 weeks to 2 years later someone asks me why I even bought it if I wasn’t going to eat it. I forgot it was there. It wasn’t in front of me so I forgot.
Finally moved out and lived alone. I started forming this habit of putting things only in the front of the shelves. I was one person so I didn’t need to use the whole fridge. Surprise, way less food waste. It still happens sometimes when the strawberries fall behind the sour cream but rarely. And then I learned that people with ADHD are taught to do this. To keep things within sight so you remember them when you see them. Clear containers or choosing not to put something behind something else. So maybe I have ADHD or maybe I don’t but using some tactics in life that play in favor of people with ADHD has done me some good. Self diagnosing for me was to seek solutions, not seek excuses. Not to tell everyone I have ADHD either
I think that's what the goal should be, looking for solutions instead of excuses. You said it very well.
For me, it didn't give me excuses for late homework and missed assignments, that happened more before I had the diagnosis. I learned not to be as harsh with myself when those things happen, and I also don't let others be too harsh. I have an explanation and a way to find actually effective ways to manage my daily life.
There's a difference between an excuse and an explanation. And for many people who are diagnosed by a doctor with ADHD it isn't as simple as implementing new habits, because you've got to remember those habits even exist, and remember why you even need the habits. Extremely difficult for the average ADHD haver. Congrats on figuring your shit out but your attitude is "why can't everyone just get better and not tell everyone" and that's so weird.
@@idab6864Yeah, as someone with ADHD it rubbed me the wrong way. For some reason we're expected to solve our impairment... through impaired means. Without proper treatment or trained habits, it's quite likely we'll forget things every once in a while. I don't get why that's framed as a moral failure of some sort.
Nice to see that some people are able to dig themselves out, at least.
@@squinz3824 ADHD is quite literally a disability, people keep acting like it's not, even people with a milder form of ADHD. It's terrible. Being able to conform to neurotypical capitalist society is NOT a flex at all..
@@idab6864 I agree, I may be really good at masking, but that doesn't help my mental state.
Unironically those damn "ADHD trait" TikToks got me to seek professional help. Got diagnosed with ADHD at age 18 after YEARS of struggle. Finally I am medicated and oh my god, I quite literally owe my sanity to TikTok. Turns out being a meth baby can cause ADHD, and turns out I can get HELP for it! My grades are better than ever, I can actually fucking function in day-to-day life, I can KEEP A JOB!!!!! I can not believe a stupid clock app literally saved my school life, work life, social life, and probably other aspects of life that idek about! Oh and I guess Vyvanse plays a part in it too...
makes sense! a type of adhd medication is an alternate form of meth that doesn’t deplete your neurotransmitters the way meth can
Same for me, which is why I usually tell people self diagnosis for ADHD is not enough. Even when you have medication, you have to understand how your brain locked off executive function and how to get it back. Seeking psychiatric care and talk therapy is really the best way to work with your diagnosis
Same here. It's not like I saw some Tiktoks and was certain that I have ADHD. I still sometimes think that maybe I have something else hiding as ADHD. But those videos made me feel like maybe I wasn't actually lazy, but there's a reason why I can't apply myself even though I actually want to. After doing more research, getting an official diagnosis, trying different drugs and therapy, I finally feel like like my adulthood can start, even though I'm already 31 years old. Thankfully I have a pretty good job, I am doing my second bachelor's degree and I own my apartment and now even a car, so it definitely could be worse, but damn I wish I could've had this state of mind when I turned 18.
The first hint at possibly having ADHD I noticed was a really shitty meme on Facebook that I thought was incredibly cringeworthy yet weirdly relatable. As annoying as seeing them or people saying "that's totally me for real" in the replies can be to me, people can at least consider getting the possibility of getting themselves checked or diagnosed properly through relating to them. I just wish people didn't jump to an assumption before getting a professional to check. Not only does the average person not have the training to know how to identify and distinguish different disorders that may have overlapping symptoms, but in making an assumption they rob themselves of the chance of getting treatment even if it is just the recommendation to talk to a therapist about their problems. Vyvanse helped me more than I could ever say, but therapy overall has corrected years of built up bad habits like procrastination that no medication could ever treat and without it I still wouldn't even have a job. Whether someone truly has a disorder that requires medication or is minor enough to not require more than counselling, or even if they're neurotypical and only suffering from a poor lifestyle, having a professional point out the core issue and offer real, proven treatment for it is invaluable.
I also take Vyvanse, its very helpful.
Sadly I cannot take it on vacation for over a month, so I will be without it for 6 months once vacation starts.
I think one thing about self-diagnosis that a lot of people don't get is this: usually the first step to seeking treatment and getting a diagnosis is in fact recognizing certain patterns of behavior in yourself and making the decision to speak to a mental health professional. That's literally it. I spent years being gaslit and gaslighting myself into thinking I don't actually have social anxiety and that I'm just finding a reason to be quirky/different but finally decided to get help after having a panic attack in class. Told them "I think I have social anxiety" and they basically said "yeah you probably do." Got medication a couple sessions in and it greatly increased my quality of life. I understand that most of this discourse is with regards to latching onto and parading a certain label, but I do think that self-diagnosis is important and useful especially when it comes to actually getting help you want/need
Hey so I have a disability it was diagnosed by a doctor and everything. As a disabled person- doctors know Jack about shit. The amount of appointments I've walked into knowing a thousand times more than the doctor in front of me. Having a community of people with the same condition is a necessity, doctors less so just to get medications. A medical diagnosis is in my opinion just a tool so it can be helpful or unhelpful depending on circumstances. One doesn't need daddy doctors validation.
@@rambunctiousvegetable I'm so glad you've had positive experiences with specialist. I said doctors for a reason, I've known more than specialist who've been treating me.
Social anxiety is a hell of a lot different to autism, and what you are describing is self-suspecting followed by getting a diagnosis.
@@rambunctiousvegetableIf they are a specialist in autism they may be a specialist in childhood autism that doesn't mean that they know much about autistic adults.
Many autism specialists also don't know much about how autism presents in many girls or women.
Same for people from different cultures.
So while they may be specialists they may have holes in their knowledge or may be biased by outdated knowledge or cultural beliefs.
Yes, professionals can be biased.
@@rambunctiousvegetable I was diagnosed with level 2 autism at age 47. I was already on disability for another disability. So technically I didn't need an autism diagnosis to survive. But the diagnosis has been good for my mental health. I woke up every day wishing to be dead. I do that less often now. I also have less self-hate.
If someone can research autism and evaluate themselves carefully then I have no problem with them self-diagnosing. They could be wrong. The experts are less likely to be wrong but are still wrong sometimes. I have been misdiagnosed by experts many times.
I used a stimulus check I got during the pandemic to pay for my diagnosis. Otherwise I would not be diagnosed. Many people can't pay or have other barriers to being diagnosed. I have no problem with them diagnosing themselves. They should have the same opportunity to feel better about themselves as I have had.
After my board-certified psychologist therapist told me after multiple months/years of seeing me that I definitely had autism, my psychologist refused to give me a diagnoses because "you wouldn't have laughed at my joke" when she made a joke during our appointment. Like a lifetime of abuse leading to masking doesn't exist. Felt very scientific.
Psychologist can't diagnose. Only psyciatrist.
@@56BBSthat's not true at all. Understanding the DSM-V and using differential diagnosis on clients is the foundation of working as a psychologist. Try just googling "can psychologists diagnose clients?"
In most states psychologists cannot prescribe medications for clients. Psychiatrists can prescribe medications as they are medical doctors that take another six to eight years to specialize in psychiatry.
Hope this helps
@@56BBS"board certified"
You are misinformed.
@@56BBS I don't know where you live because it might be different there, but in most places clinical psychologists can diagnose, are trained to do so and diagnosing is a big part of their job. It's just that they can't prescribe medication, only psychiatrists or general practioners can do that.
@@56BBSin Virginia where I live psychologists can diagnose. Big part of their job is conducting assessments and doing clinical interviews so they can diagnose people, however, they can’t prescribe medication if that’s what you meant.
One of the most frustrating things about studying psychology is that all of the real ones (in this case referring to professors and staff) will tell you that there AREN'T any actual rigid boxes for mental illness diagnoses. One person with anxiety will behave entirely differently from another person with anxiety, personality disorders are a bitch to diagnose, and the answer to literally every question posed by the field is "it depends". It's an entire school of thought consisting of trying to give specific definitions and criteria to the functions of human mind, one of the most fluid things to ever exist. Everyone knows as soon as they say "A causes B" that there are already exceptions to every facet of the statement, people will spend entire experiments trying to prove or disprove it (because "it depends" is not accepted by academia), and your professor will tell you all of this while still having you memorize the dsm-5, cursing it under their breath.
And yet, this doesn't change the fact that I cried tears of joy the first time I took Adderall, because I'd finally found something that really actually helped me focus and keep my moods in check after years of feeling aimless and insane, or that a therapist telling me I had depression and anxiety when I was a teenager didn't literally save my life after my parents dismissed my cries for help as just repeating stuff I'd read on tumblr. The relationships we have with mental illnesses and the institutions in place to aid and understand them is one of the most complex I've ever encountered, and I think I'll spend my entire life trying to wrap my head around my feelings on it.
An excellent video, with very well-articulated points.
I remember when I was a teen and my depression was just setting in, I constantly told myself it wasn't real because it wasn't diagnosed, and that I was just attention-seeking. Of course, the reason it was undiagnosed was because I was hiding it from everyone, and because I never told anyone how bad it really was. All this anti self diagnosis shit kept me from getting treatment for YEARS.
Ten minutes in and this is fantastic
This is some of the highest praise you can ever receive on this dumpster fire of a website
i've spent the last 3 days watching your vids, great to see 2 of my fav video essayists on the platform interacting :))
Hbomb I've watched all your videos like 3 times I hope whatever you're working on comes out soon lol not to rush you or anything
I hope you're well 💛
This should have been ten minutes long
i've definitely been guilty of the "they haven't suffered like i have" mindset. i'm jealous of my friends who can appear normal, but they're jealous of me because i can't be anything but myself. trying to play the trauma olympics is kind of pointless, we're all losing by playing against each other in the first place.
It's so easy to do the whole "Maybe I'm secretly better" or "You don't know real pain" when you're in anyway discriminated, marginalized or ostracized for your own. Gate keeping suffering is a thing we all need to stop. Someone sad and hurt is sad and hurt, no matter what the cause was.
I GENUINELY understand how you feel. This video made me realize just HOW MANY privilege's I have actually enjoyed. Because I have a parent who has Adult adhd....They had me evaluated early on, which not only was probably EASIER to get the diagnosis then, but obviously was a lot less expensive especially when you can be on state insurances. I truly appreciate how This video was set up cause it truly not only challenged some of my views, but made me more comfortable possibly having other diagnosis or possibly being on other spectrums. All I know is You can tell This was something made in true heart and spirit to help those with these issues, and obviously from the perspective of someone who deals with it themselves. Impressive video completely. And as you say, rather than competing for "who had it worse" lets all find togetherness and help each other, knowing we ALL are dealing with these issues.
Every experience is different. I think in the end, we can't claim our own life experiences are universal, yet that doesen't makes them invalid.
What really pisses me off though is that many self-diagnosed autistics that I've met (mostly irl but also online) say genuinely ableist shit and act like bc they dont experience certain symptoms/traits of autism, that those traits/symptoms arent valid and are just "excuses"
@@deeplyconcerned9306 that's shitty, but it's definitely not exclusive to self-diagnosis. some people will turn on their own community just to be tolerated by the mainstream, and a lot of them just haven't really worked through their internalized ableism.
Before starting, my opinion is basically that when someone nonchalantly says ‘I do X so I probably have ADHD’ - especially people who I feel function better than myself - it can feel like that person is trivializing the obstacles I’ve overcome. But at the same time, I don’t think you have to have any kind of diagnosis to benefit from ADHD coping mechanisms and accommodations. Rising tide lifts all boats.
This was actually the reason I stopped referring to myself as 'on the spectrum' or 'a bit autistic' years ago, because I recognised that it was something seeing more public discussion and being more widely diagnosed (and correspondingly saw increasing use as a slur in certain parts of internet culture). I didn't want to feel like I was treading on the toes of 'genuine' autistic individuals, particularly when they clearly had support needs that I don't. I've recently had cause to examine the possibility of having autism in a more serious way (in the sense of it explaining a lot of difficulties in my life - ones which have affected me significantly socially and professionally) and I realise that drawing such a hard line in my mind between 'real' autism and whatever is going on for me has stopped me from properly examining my behaviour before. I'm a generation older than the TikTok demographic at 35, and that reticence to self-diagnose "Like all the kids seem to be doing" has negatively impacted me. I don't think I'll be directly identifying myself as autistic any time soon (though I'm considering an assessment) but openness to the possibility has already helped me look after myself better.
Exactly. Trivialization happens with many people self diagnosis. Similar to us having actual gender dysphoria
Precisely.
to be pedantic (And because it was my instinctual thought)
"Except ones with holes in them"
And having written that, I would expand on it. A boat with a hole stuck on a rock that is barely above tide, will sink under.
Not to diminish the saying or your point, I kinda just need(want, and will fixate on it if I dont) to write this
What you are saying is mostly correct! It just depends on what the root cause is of your symptoms. If anxiety is making it so you can't pay attention in class, ADHD skills might not help that. Vise versa.
Here after hbomb's recommendation and i have to say i was nervous looking at the title becasue i've been shut down so many times about my autism self diagnosis (or how i like to refer to it sometimes, peer reviewed diagnosis) and this is just a breath of fresh air as a trans autistic person who's desperately pursuing an official diagnosis to be taken seriously
ditto. it actually came up in the recommendations from the youtube algorithm a few times when he first posted it, and i was afraid it would be something entirely different lol. i'm glad that snap judgment was wrong.
Please do not dig yourself in this hole. You are helping no one by self diagnosing, least of all yourself
Just got my formal diagnosis but go off I guess @@yamiyugi2894
I had a 9th grade science teacher (this was nearly a decade ago), who, on the first day of school, told our class something that completely changed my view of the world. He said “facts are only true to the best of our current knowledge, and are not the objective truth, which is impossible to reach”. It was that day that I started to question literally everything people told me. Not in a paranoid or obsessive conspiracy theory way, but I’m a way that really helped me understand what it means to think critically and for myself.
This video rlly brought me back to that day. Amazing work ❤
Holy shit. That is why I always wanted to know more about History. I now finally have a phrase for that.
I may complain about my family, but I am thankful that my dad's inability to find a church which he fully agreed with caused me to see a lot of different external perspectives on his religion without ever giving me a way to tell which were correct beyond "what the book says" (and no explanation for ambiguity) taught me this.
Of course, I reacted to it by becoming a hard progressive liberal, but thankfully i have become a leftist since.
this is a big revelation i’ve been coming to terms w for a few months tbh. it might sound obvious to ppl but as a pre-teen i was so deep into scientific and philosophical videos (vsauce, kurszquzagt *yk what i’m tryna spell*, those types) and i found myself making depressing existential conclusions because “facts” were brining me there. like we’re all gonna die so nothing matters and everything is filtered through our heads so reality doesn’t matter) and thinking that everything has a cause and effect and follows the laws of physics so free will doesn’t exist. basically my absolute trust in scientific “facts” made me think the world was cold, simple, and pointless. as i mature i realize that existentialism might always be scary to me but nothing is absolutely true. maybe the human brain taps into some spiritual realm allowing consciousness and free will to exist. many think that we have free will bc of god or their religion. i’m no longer convinced that science is the answer to everything and that starts w realizing that facts and logic can only get you so far and there’s value in emotion and spirituality.
I’m glad you came across that teacher!
I recently told my 8 year old stepdaughter: “You know, adults don’t know everything, they’re not always right and they may change their minds about some things during the course of their lives. I’m telling you this now because I only realised this when I was much older than you and I got a bit upset😅”.
She looked at me like she had this big revelation and said: “Ok, I’m going to start questioning things more auntie”.
It was a proud moment ❤️
I got diagnosed with autism about a month ago and I really love this video. I've noticed a lot of things like the dehumanisation of the mentally ill in my everyday life, especially because I study applied psychology. Once we had to have a debate about whether people with a low IQ should be allowed to vote, I was the only one who thought they should be able to. In this same debate someone brought up that autistics also shouldn't be allowed to vote because apparently we have no emotions or empathy. The more time I spend in the psychological field, the more I grow convinced that it's made for psychologist to have/use/observe the mentally ill as little play things as opposed to helping people. I say this as someone who has greatly benefitted from therapy. I think we need to let go a little bit of objectivity and the idea of inherent truth when approaching these matters. I really loved how you approached everything in this video and it really made me think.
Thank you for sharing
I personally avoided all forms of psychology classes when I was in school despite being very interested in the subject
Even though I wasn’t diagnosed I have always felt very uncomfortable with fields that categorize and make judgments about others brains. It feels icky to me
I think that class exercise was another way of saying "who has actually interacted with people who have special needs for a nonconsecutive hour of their life." Aka, is a sheltered person with a homogenous social group. I have special needs coworkers at the store I work at. They have opinions, thoughts, there are things that make them angry and things that make them happy. They talk about sports and what their siblings have been doing. They watch the news and can have as much awareness as any typical American or whichever voting demographic we need to talk about.
Dude, felt that. I have a psych degree and even post-graduation I continue to see this same bullshit mindset from people who are supposed to be professionals. Drives me up the wall
Even if someone is not intelligent, they definitely can experienxe oppression. Therefore they should have a voice in democracy. And if we are talking realistically about disabled people, and not just some imaginary group of dumb people - disabled people often are oppressed. If democracy is a system that strives to give everyone a voice to avoid oppression, then disabled people should have a voice, and it should be a powerful one, one that's often consulted in issues about oppression and democracy.
I was thinking the other day about the study of medicine and nursing and how those fields are very separate and segregated in our education system (Finland) and work settings. Besides a class difference and an elitism from the doctors' part towards the nurses, there's a significant approach difference towards their work. The doctor's job is to put people into categories and assign them solutions to their problems based on that. A nurse's job is to support a patient's wellbeing by reacting to their needs and relieving their pain.
I've personally experienced this difference recently in my adhd evaluations. In meetings with the psychiatric nurse, she wants to talk about how I'm doing and how I'm dealing with the process emotionally in order to support me. In meetings with the psychiatrist, she asks me through a list of pathologies, trauma and medical conditions in order to deduct my problem in a sort of systematic, mathemathic way. She observes my emotions to gather information about me, but she doesn't interact with my emotions. A nurse is there to take care of you - a doctor is there to fix your problem. A doctor is kind of like a mechanic, while a nurse is kind of like a friend. The nurse doesn't care about the name of your problem, they're there to support you through it. Meanwhile a doctor does the opposite.
Both very important things and couldn't do without the other. Yet the devide socially is so strong. Doctor is one of the most socially strived for occupations, while nurse is one near the bottom. Although they essentially have the same job (the care of the patient) and the emotional intelligence a nurse needs must be at least as demanding as the logical intelligence a doctor needs.
Soo. The first thing I learned in my clinical training about a self-diagnosis (or self-suspicion) of autism is that it's usually correct. Interestingly enough, I learned that while I myself was being referred for evaluation for autism.
It's important to keep in mind that medical categories are meant to serve a medical purpose. If medicine categorizes X a certain way, it's not neccessarily meant to wholly capture the experience of X - or even identify every person who might be properly adressed as "having" X - but to provide a framework to identify and help persons with the specific sort of problems associated with X. That goes double for categories like the DSM, which are simplified and standardized for the purpose of providing a framework for professionals in research and clinical settings to communicate and still be (somewhat) mutually intellegible, not to correctly label every person you might think to apply them to.
One huge limitation of this kind of diagnosis is that most of the problems psychiatry handles are not universally problems. While some medical conditions like, say, septic shock, will most likely be a problem in just about every circumstance, conditions like totally degenerated spinal disks might not even inconvenience the person in question in their daily life - depending on the challenges they face and the resources they have. To bring this back to a psychiatric problem and the DSM, some problems - for example, those that arise chiefly in a social context, like a fear of public speaking - are only meaningful in certain contexts, and might be wholly inapplicable in others. A person struggling with social phobias might be completely at ease when undertaking a months long solo hiking trip in the wilderness, and might not even readily recall that they have this type of problem when queried at that point in time. Or, coming back to autism, a person who is very solidly - even stereotypically - autistic can function smoothly for decades if they live in circumstances that accomodate their needs.
Hence, the "checkbox-ticking" type of diagnostic assessment one does when rigidly applying DSM criteria can only ever capture that one point in time when the assessment took place - and even if you carefully query a patient about their previous history, everyone with some clinical experience will be aware that the same patient can recall quite divergent histories when questioned at different times by different clinicians.
The DSM is still useful in helping standardize communication, but one should keep in mind that it's purpose is that - and really, only that. It cannot be used devoid of individual context and clinical judgement, and it's not meant to give an accurate assessment of an entire person, just of the problems they might present with. It still leaves the professional with many questions. Such as:
If you happen to meet a person who meets diagnostic criteria, but is quite obviously not suffering from a problem, does their problem warrant diagnosis? Or conversely - someone who does not quite - or not even halfway - meet criteria, but is clearly suffering from problems that seem to fit the idea of the diagnosis? And what if you, personally, think the problem is best described as Y, but the patient already very much identifies as X? What if their parents feel strongly that X is correct, and the patient believes them?
The answer depends on what a diagnosis is supposed to even do, in the context of society at large - medical diagnoses have legal, social, and financial repercussions that will likely make you answer the question differently in each individual case, and that's quite hard to express in a checklist.
Lastly, a personal note: I happen to be lucky to have grown up with very individualistic parents who largely encouraged me to be different, and I have overall suffered little from being different. To me, a diagnosis really is mostly about self-empowerment, and I probably could have gotten the same things from diagnosing myself. However, many, many patients are not so lucky. They grow up with parents and teachers and peers who try to make them "fit" into a more normal mold, and as a result, struggle with their differences - even if they can self-diagnose, one ot the most important jobs a clinician can do for them is to promote understanding of their being different - sometimes to themselves, often to their families. That is quite hard to do for yourself, and I do not think seeking and recieving this kind of help diminishes them in the slightest. Nor do I think psychiatry, when practised this way, is coercive.
Your comment about public speaking and context and resources really resonated with me. I teach literacy-level ESOL with adult immigrants, and I truly believe some of them have undiagnosed language-based learning disabilities. But, they still thrive in their environments as parents or barbers or electricians or bartenders etc, and their difficulties with decoding/encoding/processing/producing language or whatever haven't prevented them from leading happy and meaningful lives. I love your approach of 1) helping your patients to understand how they may be different and 2) connecting them to resources/supports that can help them. That's exactly what I try to do with my students- brains are weird, and we're all trying our best. Thanks for sharing your clinical training perspective.
i love this comment so much. i gleaned so much from this video, but i do feel the arguments presented in conversations like these always revolve around checkbox diagnostics and discount the nuance that goes into assessment (my speciality) and differential diagnosis. the mere presence of traits does not always warrant a diagnosis, and that’s something that usually gets left out of this conversation all together.
i cant believe the last 2 words of this incredible video essay were "your mom" hats off to that patreon supporter
Funny, this video came out the same day my doctor rejected the notion that I may be on the spectrum as “if you were autistic we would have caught it already.”
Great video :)
i send good vibes your way, i'm so sorry you had to hear that, that's BS. it's so frustrating how like... the reason we get diagnoses when we're young vs older is bc we haven't learned to mask yet. it's just more ableism on top of ableism fueling a cycle that just... urgh. doctors really do just say the darndest things, don't they? drs talking ab disabilities they don't know enough about will eternally have the same energy to me as when little kids don't think before they speak & then cause maximum psychic damage
@@nobodyimportant1968 Thank you
This really reminds me of the whole "everyone can tell you're trans" rhetoric, these people are so self-centered that they believe themselves to be objective arbiters of truth as opposed to biased subjects
@@NotVille_ ratio
@@yosukehanamura3507 it feels really weird still seeing map flags on queer spaces
I think your last point about "they didn't suffer the way I did" is really true, at least in my case. I was diagnosed when I was younger and being autistic always seemed to be the thing that made me suffer. I grew up wishing I was "normal".
So when I first saw these people online diagnosing themselves I found myself being really resentful. "How can they want to be autistic? Do they even know what it means?"
It took my quite some time to understand that they probably had similar experiences as me and that they could approach autism from a positive angle because it gave them some sort of explanation or reassurance.
Due to how my diagnosis was treated by the adults in my life growing up, I am still working on understanding that autism in and by itself isn't the bad thing, the thing that needs to be overcome.
late diagnosed autistic here, i feel like there's an additional layer of trauma that a lot of undiagnosed autistic people end up experiencing because we don't even have a "name to a face" as it were for what the hell is wrong. we just think we're inherently broken people, and then we have to mourn the life we "could have had" that we've been expected to fall into from our peers upon being diagnosed. i received so much abuse that i know for a fact would not have happened were i diagnosed (specifically, parental abuse and abuse from who i believed to be genuine friends at the time only to later learn they never liked me at all). i self diagnosed at the age of 12 after a failed diagnosis on the previous diagnostic manual (the 4th edition) basically said "you have autistic/asperger traits but not enough to tick all the boxes for a diagnosis of either, as well as add/adhd" but the dsm-5 kind of smushed them together. and then i was like... so you're telling me if i waited a whole year, i would've had a diagnosis that would fundamentally improve (in theory) the access to care i could receive?
logically, i know early diagnosed autistic people are just as shafted as i was, and its the same institutions which failed me getting a diagnosis that fail to give autistic people the care they need. but emotionally there was a sense of injustice of how much of my life would be different and how much abuse would i have avoided and how much trauma could i not have were i diagnosed early - or simply normal.
@@aerialdiveagreed
Yes😊
I can promise you the only difference between you and someone who is struggling but undiagnosed is that your parents cared enough to have you checked
@@yngsheldonfan1956 my parents did have me checked, and i still wasn't diagnosed. trust me, the system is a lot more sucky than that.
Hey, so, I just had a thing or two I wanted to say here. I think this kind of video is a wonderful medium for a layperson to connect with and begin researching psychological, social, psychosocial, and philosophical ideas more in depth. I certainly learned a few interesting things from it, and agreed with most of the points made.
So, on that basis of honest and positive communication, I wanted to say that I felt a rather negative impression after and indeed throughout my viewing of the video. It is here that I may show my own bias, but I hope that my explanation might show the deeper warrants behind it.
I am a psychology major, finishing my bachelor's degree in general psychology, and looking forward to someday reaching a doctorate-level degree in clinical psychological practice, geared toward therapy. I want to state first on that front that this video seemed to consistently portray psychological fields and psychiatry as the same thing, or at least to me gave such an impression. Psychiatry is more a medical field dipping toes into psychology; a psychiatrist is a doctor that can give basic psych tests and administer psychiatric drugs. A psychologist is someone who has spent years studying their field specifically; this is how many if not most licensed therapists get their degrees. To combine psychiatry and psychology together is a common misunderstanding, and one that hurts the field of psychological and therapeutic research and application. Since psychiatrists, which are influenced by medical practice and thereby also the practices of medical insurance providers, are a large part of the problems with the DSM at any iteration, I think it's important to differentiate and not give a negative impression of therapists as a single vast generalisation. I don't mean to say, either, that psychiatry or psychiatrists are bad, nor that they are not also striving to change the system; I only want to point out that a well-researched video, even with an intended message or goal, should strive to make sure its portrayal of people, institutions, and systems is accurate and doesn't leave laypeople with misinterpretations.
My second and main other point of contention, here, is that I felt this video skewed its takes on the more nuanced background of current psychological clinical practice. There's a known phenomenon in psychology which states that, when rated to be of equal potency, a negative event will require multiple positive events to outweigh it in our perception. If I recall correctly, it's called Negativity Bias. This video, despite leaving small caveats here and there about the positives of psychological intervention and resources, far outspoke any positive points by critiquing the system of therapy and clinical practice with what almost seemed to be malice. Please don't misunderstand my position, though; I fully agreed with most if not all the critiques given. I give many of these same critiques myself, especially when talking about the methods and forms that autism diagnosis involves. I only wish it was more blatantly and emphatically stated that the psychological community is not a monolith - that there are people like me, many of my professors (with various doctorates), and many psychological professionals that are debating every day in favour of changing these standards. These standards are internally controversial, just as controversial as you seem to feel they should be, if not more. They are hotly debated and fought over, and many had misgivings about the latest DSM revision's idea of "Autism Spectrum Disorder" from word go. Please understand that I'm not criticising or arguing the ideas put forth in this video for the most part, but neither are many, many acting professionals in the field you're so readily speaking against. I don't believe your points alone are wrong; I believe the way they were presented would give the wrong impression to a common audience who doesn't have more behind-the-scenes information on how these things work. Your video gives a much stronger impression that the whole system is broken and therapists at large are adversarial or arbitrary on this issue, when the reality is that it's not that simple. While many professionals are that way (I've had my own invalidating therapists), there are many and perhaps far more even who are trying their best to really research, work with, and make positive progress in these areas for the sake of their patients, clients, and many even for themselves. I just feel that wasn't stated enough in this video for a common audience to pick up on, and that I feel is the major mistake of this video.
So, please, I ask you and everyone who might read this to think about it more deeply, and do more research into the way the psychologist community is addressing these topics. While I deeply agree with almost every criticism you gave, and found myself very interested and engaged with the things you discussed here, I just wish you had taken more time on the actual nuance of the topic instead of painting therapists and psychology (which you called psychiatry so often) with broad strokes. There's nothing wrong with pointing out the problems, but there is something wrong with implying no-one is already working to fix them.
Thanks for the work and time you put into videos like this. I hope to watch more of your content when I have time!
Nah. When we can't trust science, we also can't trust the professionals that work based on science.
@@HarryPotter-kb7we but like, science isn't "the truth", ever? that's just not how science works. laypeople seem to have this idea that we can "prove" things through evidence, but we can never have enough evidence to be 100% sure of anything really. what we do in science is design research projects that we hope will provide support for our theses, and then others do their experiments which seek to adress flaws in the previous ones, or with new variables, or trying to provide an explanation that accounts for discrepancies. that doesn't discredit science - it's the way it's supposed to work.
every healthy field has controversies, that's how they evolve. that's what makes them trustworthy.
@@DafieYo A science that is unethical and doesn't actually care for the people most affected by the research shouldn't be taken seriously at all. That's most of autism research, with exception of research done by autistic researchers and participatory research.
@@DafieYo I never said anything about truth. Science is a tool to produce knowledge. Yet, the knowledge the science of autism produces is highly flawed and unethical, dehumanizing and severely lacking in face validity. I'd rather trust my own judgement than to trust professionals that work based on bad science - if we can even call it science. If you want to understand better, google "autism dehumanizing rethoric"
Great comment! I wrote a comment of my own about the "negativity bias" but I think you better articulated it. As someone who works as a therapist I feel some concern that this video paints us with a broad brush and leads people away from getting help (hopefully that's not how people here feel). I don't think the caveats they provide are enough. Best of luck in your studies, you seem very bright!
I really appreciate this analysis. I feel *complicated* about self diagnosis. The reasons I feel opposed to it are much more medical and I feel like that conversation wasn't had enough in this video.
If what you're looking for is people experiencing similar things, and coping strategies other than medical ones, then self diagnosis seems... Fine. Except for the "autism is trendy" phenomenon where people seeking diagnosis are written off.
On the other hand, what if you're wrong? It's legitimately dangerous to be wrong. I don't object to self diagnosis for any moral or political reason really. I kind of do on that instinctual level you mentioned, but part of what pushed me to objecting to it almost entirely was watching Dr. K's video on the topic (channel name HealthyGamerGG) and realizing that I had suffered needlessly from my own self diagnosis in the past.
As a teenager, I thought I had depression. I told my admittedly incompetent pediatrician who took me at face value, told me that depression isn't real but he'll give me antidepressants anyways, and sent me on my merry way. My therapist then told my mom that she was stupid for taking me to a pediatrician instead of a psychiatrist, so then my mom took me to a psychiatrist who didn't question the diagnosis at all, but did switch the medication I was on to a very similar thing.
I did not have depression. I had ADHD and the antidepressants didn't do anything to help it. They made everything worse and prevented me from getting a very much needed diagnosis and treatment because I was scared of getting back on medication and my mom told me that's the only treatment for ADHD.
It also came very close to fucking up future treatments for a different disorder. I have PMDD and one of the most effective treatments for the "want to die" side of that disorder is Prozac. But my psychiatrist looked at my chart, saw I had a bad time with 2 other, similar antidepressants, and was hesitant to prescribe me with the drug that I now credit with actually saving my life.
I have stories about my mom too.
My mom thought she had "adult onset ADHD" which people who know anything about ADHD know doesn't exist. But when she looked that up, she realized it was being caused by the sleep apnea she already had been diagnosed with (apparently it's common for people with sleep apnea to feel like they've developed ADHD in adulthood only). But if she wasn't diagnosed with sleep apnea already and sought an ADHD treatment, it could have been dangerous to go without sleep apnea treatment.
More recently, my mom texted me describing what to me sounded very much like the overwhelm I experience with ADHD. She told me she took some of my meds that I don't use anymore and that they helped. So that seems like case closed, right? ADHD symptoms that were relieved by ADHD medication means she has ADHD, right? That's what I said to her.
She's diabetic. She had dangerously high blood sugar. It was messing with her brain. When she realized the real cause, she was able to fight the insurance company to finally get her back on her diabetes medication. I don't want to know what would have happened if she diagnosed herself with ADHD in that moment and didn't figure out what was really going on.
And I understand the barriers to getting a diagnosis. Healthcare is expensive, psychiatry isn't perfect. My brother was diagnosed with autism in elementary school because he's a boy and I was diagnosed with ADHD a semester before I graduated high school because I'm a girl. Even after I accepted the idea that medication might be the only option, it took a very very long time for me to get diagnosed. The first person I was taken to seeking a diagnosis for ADHD was a female doctor who told me it was my period. But if you can, I think you should go to a doctor with the symptoms you have.
I would also push back on the idea that mental disorders or being neurodivergent is only a disability because of social constructs. I don't know if that's what you were trying to say at a few points here, but I want to make something clear regardless, because it's important to me and the sentiment is popular.
Getting treated didn't just help me function in society. It didn't just help me get good grades or be a perfect laborer for capitalism. It also helped me do things I enjoy. Things that don't give immediate gratification, but make me happy anyways. It helped me think through decisions instead of impulse spending all my money.
I don't want to say that my path is right for everyone, but I think that treating neurodivergence as a disability even outside the current social constructs is an important thing to keep in the conversation.
It sounds to me like what was lacking in your case was propper testing and medical interviews done by the doctors before prescribing you with anything. If a person goes to a profesional and has physical tests done that explain the self diagnosis has other cause then there is no harm. Also your mother taking adhd drugs is not something that should happen, you should not take drugs that are not prescribed to you, and in an ideal scenario if someone suspects they have a condition the most they can do on their own is adopting coping skills, they will most likely not obtain certain drugs without official diagnosis.
@@majawwww you're right, but that's my point. The first pediatrician was incompetent. But the psychiatrist right after that had no way of knowing that she should have questioned that diagnosis. I guess my point is that going in with a list of what you're experiencing is more likely to lead to the right result than diagnosing yourself.
And then there was another pediatrician I went to who gave my assessments to give to my teachers and determined that I did not have ADHD based on those. She told me it was my period. Nevermind the fact that I was 16 and had learned to mask the symptoms by then. Nevermind the fact that both of the teachers who filled out the assessments were entirely unsurprised when I was later diagnosed with ADHD (both of them had ADHD too). There is a broken part of the medical system, but trying to diagnose yourself isn't going to fix it
I have been assessed multiple times (twice times) and each time I meet the diagnostic criteria, but do not get a diagnosis because I do not meet the "demographic criteria." The second time this happened, my mom pushed back to try to understand why they are saying this. They told her that because I am a girl and not an "extreme case", I will proabbaly never be diagnosed. After speaking with my therapist about this 10 years later, she decided to treat me and recommend me medication and accomodations that have worked for autistic people. It has been a night and day improvment in my life. My grades in grad school significantly improved, my outlook on life improved, I burn out and break down less. Unfortunately, my therapist is not authorized to formally diagnose, but I am very thankful to finally have someone validate my view of the world.
What drugs would you need to take for autism? And what accommodations?
literally same and yeah my therapist was he distant at first but then she moved to a practice run by an autistic woman and it rlly clicked but for me i think my interviews just went terrible both times i got assessed which didn’t help 😭
@@balalaika852...Medication dosing for Autistic people can be very different than for neurotypicals, especially with psychiatric meds. We also tend to have weird reactions to non-psych meds (certain classes of antibiotics being high on the list). So the meds we get for depression or anxiety might be the exact same thing NTs get but we generally need them in much smaller amounts.
@@balalaika852 Might not be the same for OP, but some common medications are usually stimulants, SSRI/SNRIs, and occasionally antipsychotics. My brother, for example, is prescribed a generic form of Ritalin. He also had the benefit of accommodations in K-12, speech therapy, and better support options.
@balalaika852 medication is used to treat symptoms of Autism, not the disorder as a whole. lots of Autistic ppl are also ADHD. in which case, stimulants help to replace their dopamine deficiency. lots of ppl with either dx also experience anxiety & depression. SSRIs & muscle relaxants can help reduce those symptoms.
if you are AFAB with ADHD and/or Autism, ur hormones fluctuate throughout the month. since hormones control lots of functions in the body, your symptoms can worsen during these spikes & dips (esp if u also have PMDD). birth control or HRT patches can help to even out your hormones. this is most notable when hormone production decreases in perimenopause & menopause. another medication you can use (off-script) is low-dose Naltrexone. many Autists say that it helps to reduce sensory sensitivities from light, sound & touch. similarly, it can reduces your sensitivity to pain. a common comorbidity of Autism is Fibromyalgia (whole body pain, nerve pain, muscle pain), and connective tissue disorders, specifically EDS (collagen production and/or mutation issue)
definitely fact-check everything ive mentioned from legitimate sources. and consult your GP (or multiple specialists) to get informed consent about the meds ive listed. a lot of them have common not-so-great side-effects. or have very complicated protocols (eg. take X tabs for X days, then X tabs every other day, then 2wk break). and a lot have significant withdrawal symptoms - to the point where u miss a pill or two & ur in hospital for big big brain problems (psychosis or u know - attempted un-aliving)
I self-diagnosed with adhd a couple years back, and I actually got an official diagnosis with a psychiatrist earlier this month. The main reason I self diagnosed was mostly because my access to that type of service was very limited due to money and pressure from my family. Without self-diagnosing and resources online, I would have never seen a psychiatrist
I feel like I should also added to my original comment that I have, at one point, self-diagnosed myself with autism, the one time I asked a professional about getting tested as an adult, I was essentially pushed off and told that those type of diagnoses don't matter. I have gotten to the point where I acknowledge I'm different, and relate deeply to neurodivergent folks, but at this point, I know myself enough, and I'm old enough at this point that my functionality is not impaired by my "strange" attitudes and behaviours, but unlike my adhd, which can be helped from professional medicine, my asd can be handled and understood by me without needing the paper, since I *myself* understand how I am, and I ultimately control my identity, not anyone else.
@NotVille_ ratio
I basically got diagnosed by everyone in my immediate surrounding (including people who were diagnosed with adhd by a proffesional). I denied it for years, but have come tom accept it more now as it explains a lot of things. I don't want to get medicated and have a good way of coping with it so I don't feel like I need any treatment. Because of that an official diagnosis is quite useless to me. They are probably going to tell me everything I know already and it won't add anything to my life. Or they will tell me I don't have it ofcourse. Either way getting a medical assessment won't add much value to my life as long as I can handle my symptomes
@@Cyhcg5uhgb as long as you can handle your symptoms, everything's good. With my ADHD, I struggle with my symptoms so medication really helps, but with my asd, it doesn't really matter because I understand my symptoms and can handle them
Your comments have given me a lot to consider! Thank you for your input and for sharing your experience. On an unrelated note, I love your profile pic/username :)
The main issue I have is not necessarily with people who self diagnose, but everything else surrounding it.
I don't harbor any ill will to anyone who does self diagnose after intensive research and self discovery, but I do towards people who throw around the label without much second thought--I'm not fond of autism jokes most of the time, because either something isn't really autism exclusive or it minimizes how much the condition really affects your life.
In my experience, I've been hurt by misconceptions about autism.
Within the name itself it's called "Autism Spectrum Disorder" but the internet narrowly portrays how autism presents.
It creates a stereotype that I don't fit.
In my personal life, I feel the need to tell people "I have autism", usually it helps people better understand and empathize with me. But, because of how the internet likes to trivialize autism I face a new set of problems.
Surely, someone who has extensive knowledge about autism, or someone empathetic enough to understand that some blunders can't be helped-- Will not be confused or misguided into a stereotype of the disorder.
But to those who don't know that much, because I now realize, it's wrong to expect people to know what you know- They judge me for not fitting into what their idea of autism is. This has always been a problem for people on the spectrum; A stereotype is made and some don't fit it, and discrimination happens, but it's strange to me this time around, because it disguises itself as awareness, as acceptance- when it's not.
The internet gives you many contrasting and contradicting ideas about autism, and people who aren't educated enough about it have hurt me many times before.
People assume it's nothing more than a quirk, while forgetting that it can severely affect how you see the world.
I have an anecdotal example of this.
I used to hang out with my girlfriend's friend group since I wanted to spend more time with her, I continously clarified I had autism in case I said something strange that I did not have bad intentions and that I don't use a lot of subtext when I talk about things. Time and time again i'd get into arguments with them because they had falsely made the assumption I was saying things to make them feel inferior, that I thought I was better than them, and that what I said was an attack on their character, even though I tried to explain myself, she never bought it one bit, she just dimissed it and privately admitted to a somewhat ableist claim about me because I didn't meet her expectations of what an autistic person was like. This really hurt me as I had been used to being scapegoated and treatedly badly because of me being autistic and she had just done this to me.
This is why I have qualms about the portrayal of autism online.
In any case, I don't have an preference for any stereotype relating to autism as I think most are unhelpful and alienate people.
I really dislike the idea of a one size fits all concept of autism when the disorder itself lies on a spectrum.
I think too many people stereotype the disorder and make specific claims about autism which are wrong, which is my main issue with people.
I believe in psychology, psychiatry and medicine since there's observable trends we can find in life, which are helpful to our understanding of the world and how to help people.
While, self diagnosis (when done right) is acceptable, I don't think people should look to it first. It's MOST optimal for people to seek professional help because you might discover something you wouldn't have known otherwise, either a differential diagnosis or other screenings that come alongside it which might further benefit you. Psychiatrists and psychologists can also just help give you better tools and skills to deal with things. Which I find valuable.
We can know how subjective everything is but, when it comes down to our current and modern life it's not truly practical. What matters most is the quality of life people have in the end of it all. If an autism diagnosis helps someone, then that's all there is to it, to me.
Edit:
The edits were made to correct some grammatical issues with the post.
English is my third language and for some reason I have a tendency to make more grammatical errors on youtube.
The internet is a double edged sword. In a lot of ways, people being able to directly access the thoughts and conversations of communities outside their own *is* a deeper awareness than like, only seeing others represented to them through a health class or a PSA or whatever. The internet gives us access to tons of primary sources! With enough dedicated time and effort put in to uh, "listening," one could totally come out of that with a more nuanced understanding and awareness. Buut most people aren't going to put in that time. The PSA approach does have an advantage in that it can curate that representation to efficiently convey a message to a wide audience about how that community of people ought to be regarded/treated. In other words, if there's *going* to be a stereotype, someone with enough authority could mold the stereotype to work in our favor.
In the wild wild west of the internet where there is no authority, everyone is burdened with the task of being their own ambassador 24/7 and that really sucks. I think people should be able to throw around words and joke and express themselves in an unbridled fashion without having to worry about the way "outsiders" will take it and twist it. I guess really the problem is that on the internet, we're always in mixed company.
I absolutely relate to this. I've had an employer fire me because of a misunderstanding they had with them - I apologized profusely and was bawling my eyes out, explaining I never meant to hurt anyone and that I had autism, and explained what that meant.
The employer said that I should have been grateful they "treated me normally anyway", like that was what I had asked of them. In actuality, I'd asked them to understand I didn't mean ill intent and was over explaining out of anxiety that they'd misunderstand... which they did anyway.
Some people just don't get it. Even my own mother claims people are being "purposefully rude" when she doesn't explain to me that she's upset. I just wish neurotypical people were better at communicating their emotions and stopped assuming the emotions of others...
I don't have much to add, but I really appreciated how much you put into this comment and that i feel like this is a good way to think about this.
In that one example you provided, I'd say that sounds like ignorance and an inability to actually listen to you on their behalf. And I'd say things like big bang theory have a much wider impact on how autism is viewed than tiktok
I think the "bluntness" and ways autistic people communicate are partially not taken seriously because they cause emotional reactions in others, and they can struggle with getting stuck in that emotion and not wanting to move beyond the fact that they feel hurt.
ouch. ew. yuck. that relationship was not salvageable. she sounds like somebody who isn't interested in adjusting her perceptions even to like, avoid fighting with somebody. how old were y'all when this happened? because that's middle school behavior. what a jerk.
listen, at the risk of some trite and unsolicited advice that won't be news to you -
1. when people tell you who they are, believe them. she said "i'm the type of person to pick a fight because i misread your tone." 👎 no thanks, partner.
2. sometimes people just aren't going to be compatible, like two puzzle pieces from different spots in the puzzle (no autism speaks intended). you're allowed to just be like, "yeah, jessica and i don't see eye to eye, so i'll sit this one out." This Is Just The Friend Group is a geek social fallacy.
3. you shouldn't need to repeatedly point out your autism. you don't need a disclaimer that you're "weird," or a permit to be yourself. you're a whole-ass person who deserves respect inherently. people who respect you might need that clarification once, but will otherwise just go, "yeah, that's pat, they're just really straight up. they don't mean anything by it. i think it's refreshing." or whatever.
i have also been the victim of This Is Just The Friend Group and being perpetually in the penalty box for the last deliberately misunderstood thing i said. there was a time when i had barely any friends because i abruptly went no contact with everybody who had left me going home feeling frustrated and ashamed - and it turned out to be the significant majority of them. it was scary, the idea of that isolation. and it wasn't easy. sometimes i got lonely and wished my bullies would reach out to me. but overall it was actually one of the top five best decisions i've ever made. i could breathe again.
anyway, i'm between special interests right now so if you've got any recommendations i'm all ears
Labeling is a two-edged sword. one the one hand, you need to be aware of what you are, but it also influences what you are and can be limiting.
Personally, I think this may also apply to labels in the queer community. I find labels (queer and neurodivergent ones) confining because they don’t describe me quite right. I found it freeing to let go of labels. However, others may find labels comforting, and I think we should allow people to sit and vibe how they want to. Let people choose who they are
Yeah!! Like, labels don't work for everybody and for some only work to confine/restrict, however I also feel that it is a great term for those who *do* feel they work in order to communicate and express themselves! They're widely useful when they're applicable, but I def would be upset if someone tried to say that everyone had to have a label too
@@jadedfire4351Then there's also the fact that labels are context-sensitive. I will say "I'm a fem-leaning agenderfluid trans person" if I want to give a detailed explanation, but in most cases "I'm a she/they trans girl" or even "I'm a trans girl" is enough. And I would never try to explain my gender any further than that to anyone who could interfere with my access to HRT because they would probably force me to stop.
I absolutely agree. I spent years trying to confine my sexuality into a label but none of them seemed to fit right. Only a few months ago i decided to let go of worrying abt labels and just be myself. It has been so freeing to not have that burden of questioning myself and just being me. It's great that there are microlabels for people who find comfort in them and that there are broader labels for people like me.
May I introduce you to autigender? You're right, a label that doesn't fit is constricting. But when you find a shoe that fits it's soooo comfortable.
Going slightly off topic here. But as I understand it, gender labels other than "man" and "woman" are based on the assumption that gender is associated with various personality traits, correct? And if so, isn't there a real risk that this reinforces gender stereotypes and sexism?
I'm an AudHD individual. My friend talking about their ADHD experiences let me ask my mother and turns out that thing I struggled with was my mother hiding the fact I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, cause my mother believed in the stereotype of it.
@@NotVille_ Why are you being such a dick in these comments?
@@NotVille_ I'm not fatherless I have two semi ok parents.
@@NotVille_ I'm glad eternalism exists because it means somewhere out there is a universe where you didn't post this stupid ass ocmment
@@NotVille_ ... Are you a bot or true person that is this aggressively derisive? If it's the latter might I ask why?
Like all this person said was that they had ADHD and their mother hid that information from them. I think we can agree that a parent hiding your own medical information from you because of their own bias is bad right? Knowing one has ADHD allows them to understand and lead their own life, hiding that information makes that harder?
Like are you just here to try to hurt people or what exactly? You seem to be replying to every comment no matter what it is negatively and with attempts at ridicule. Your opinion seems to just be "Be angry and tell them they are bad, stupid, or whatever I can say that is mean"
You aren't trying to help anyone just deride and feel like you can feel superior to them I'm guessing. Just everything about you seems annoying; made to bully based on your many comments just insulting people here.
@@RoseInTheWeeds It doesn't really hurt me I've heard worse and seen worse by my experiences of being an knowledgeable autistic kid in the 2000's and 2010s ofc not knowing about the adhd. Plus I'm leading my life, my art is my passion and I'm planning to do that for a living. Typically those who try to act superior have some part of hurt in their lives that they're not open about.
I’m at 48:20 and I’m crying - happy and sad at the same time. It makes me so happy that you’re gonna talk about the very strange relation between “autism” and “self” in (modern?) society. But it’s also hard to be reminded of the pain this relation causes sometimes, or most of the times tbh.
I would love to *really* be in community with the people around me, be in tune with them, just vibe without wearing a mask all the time, forgetting about the way I present my*self*, because Self is a fucking social construct anyway (the microorganisms in my gut agree). But almost every social interaction is a reminder that I am *not* connected to everyone and everything around me, because apparently the social construct *Capitalism* and f-cking *Hierarchies* are more important, baybeee.
As an Archaeologist I imagine humans in the deep past still having kind of a hive mind, while already doing amazing human things like art and language… Should have been born a couple of 100k years earlier 😅
Anyways, it feels good to know I’m not completely crazy. (maybe)
-W
I've been thinking for a couple years now about how to talk about "seizing the means" of mental health and well-being in tandem with my unfolding awareness of the dubiousness of the DSM and here you've done that without being even remotely as pretentious about it as I was. Thank you so much. This was needed and timely
I'm part of the "I don't have autism, but I am neurodivergent, and the coping skills & advice from the autistic community are very helpful to me" boat. I do have ADHD and C-PTSD, but there are a few key diagnostic criteria that I lack for an autism diagnosis. Also, the diagnostic structure as a whole kind of sucks, because 'disorders' are less like a checklist and more like a pie chart, where a person has varying degrees of many different behaviors & symptoms. The field of psych *is* becoming more nuanced and inclusive, albeit the change feels comically slow at times.
As for the group of people self diagnosing who do not actually have autism, if they benefit from self diagnosing, if they feel seen and understood by autistic creators, if accommodations & life skills developed for autistic people help them function easier & be happier, then go for it. Self diagnosing can be hard to get right, for any disorder. Because it's almost like neurodivergence is really less of a checklist and more like a pie chart. The increase in popularity of the word neurodivergent (I think) is a good thing, our behaviors just diverge from what is common neurologically. This puts emphasis on two things: 1) disorders have biological and environmental factors out of the persons control that very often alter their neurology and 2) to diverge is to be different from, not worse or better than, whereas the word dis-order in itself means out of order, and the negative implications of 'failing to be orderly' is so like, ew.
@@NotVille_ Complex PTSD
@@2012petvet Don't bother. Their other comments and their avatar (which is the pedo MAP flag) is proof that this is a troll account.
@@NotVille_are u this insufferable in person? do u just listen to ur friends and then ridicule them for speaking? fuck man, do you HAVE friends with this kind of behavior? if you do, i truly feel sorry for them, they can do a hell of a lot better
I’m dyslexic and I’ve always seen neurodivergence as a venn diagram, where a lot of the symptoms overlap but there are a few that are for a specific disability (doesn’t feel like the right word in this case, but I can’t think of another one).
Thing is, there's the actual good resources online that can lead to useful self-D, but there's also the "OMG I forgot my keys at home I'm so ADHD"/"We're all a little ADHD" crowd that muddies the water and skews the public perception of stuff like that against us, making people think we're whiny bitches. And while the failing mental health side of tge medical system makes the first one necessary, the second one sucks.
Being told by my psychiatrist that they contacted everyone they could in the state (AR) and they all said they don't do adult assessments, and I should have been diagnosed as a child. ... Like, okay, guess I'm neurotypical then. 😐But now with people moving to not allow autistic people access to GAC, I'm not trying to get diagnosed anymore.
lol wtf, that's kinda absurd! It's not like you're the first time your situation has happened either (I mean, statistically speaking), they just apparently don't care enough to actually do something about the problem :/
What’s GAC?
@@boilingsoda Gender-affirming care I believe. Essentially any of the treatments for gender dysphoria fall under the label. There is a nasty precedent that by having one neurodivergent characteristic, you cannot be “trusted” to understand your own gender identity. It’s insane how much effort people will go through to discredit those who experience a dysphoric relationship with their assigned gender. It’s like how having a medical cannabis card can preclude you from accessing certain services or even buying a firearm in many places. The two are completely unrelated (boozehounds can buy all the guns they want) but dissenters to cannabis use want to make accessing facilities as difficult as possible for those who use it because they feel those people should be “punished” for their circumstances. Similarly here, we have a rampant base of transphobic law-makers who also have an archaic view of mental illness and want to punish those who dare try to find happiness outside of the bounds of traditional American culture.
@@boilingsoda Gender-Affirming Care
@@boilingsoda Thanks for asking, I was like "search engine says this is a TV Channel..."
the scrolling down the search results and then returning to add 'reddit' to the search made me laugh super hard. it's kinda funny cos i started questioning if i had adhd/autism when i started learning more about it (to better understand my friends and partner at the time) and ended up seeing myself. it even allowed me to become much much kinder to myself, unlearn a lot of harmful things, take care of myself better. on one hand i do still feel uncomfy saying anything but "i think" or "i suspect", but on the other i know i'm trans and have ptsd without a doctor's input so...hmm.
I 'thought' I had mild adhd for a long time, but because it can overlap with ptsd, etc, I was like, whatever. when I worked on the ptsd though and the adhd like symptoms didn't get better so I was like well, maybe I should see... it took a few psychiatrists but I have like, the most adhd you can have. so I think it can be good to be skeptical at first, but also that it's really easy to underestimate the severity of one's own symptoms. that said at least for me I do think that was the right order of operations, working through some of my history allowed me to be much clearer and the adhd help to like, help more.
@@StormSoughtthat's true, i feel like esp w neurodivergence it's like hard to see the extent of it by nature, like if that's your entire perspective how are you supposed to question it, esp early on LOL i had a v similar experience of being less skeptical as i've worked on myself and understanding myself. maybe i should see abt gettin tested 🤔
@@cryptidxcreature especially if you have family who are like, everyone is like that! because they also have undiagnosed neurodivergence 😂 it might be worth looking into! Going through the symptom lists and writing down everything I could think of really helped me, I started to realise more and more things I did and having to go back. That way when I went in for the test I could describe exactly what they wanted to know, too.
@@StormSought LMAO my parents are EXACTLLY LIKE THAT 🤣 though when i brought up that i thought i might be autistic one of my sisters said "i think you are, and i think i am too" and the other said "yeah....that explains a lot" LOL 🤣🤣🤣
@@cryptidxcreature that explains a lot 😂 yeah
A lot of the examples given for psychiatry being not great is just bad psychiatry. Its like saying oncology is bad because they gave a false negative for cancer. Or, the people posting online saying they have autism, dont have what we consider autism, and by wanting to have care that may not actually be suitable for them, that may have negative impacts on them. Not to mention the people who would benefit from that care that are being denied by inefficient use of a limited resource.
I was actually too aware of the whole "self-diagnosing" thing (although not Autism or ADHD). This made me brush off the serious mental health issues I had. Took me years to realize that not everyone thinks about suicide multiple times a day. So yeah.
(Don't worry, I finally reached out and I've got meds and a therapist.)
I was also made aware pretty early on that mental health shouldn't be taken lightly and also didn't feel like I "had the right to" struggle mentally, since I had good upbringing. I am only now realizing that I might have been experiencing anxiety attacks daily for months (due to fear of possible future social interactions). Instead I just told myself I was feeling "stressed", but I was suffering so much at the time, I was lucky it's gotten better over the years with some psychology sessions and practice. Now I recommend everyone to seek help, even if it's not to get a formal diagnosis. Just learning how to deal with your struggles can improve quality of life in a big way.
wdym not everyone thinks about suicide multiple times a day?? i thought that was normal
Yeah and imposter syndrome doesn't help either. I never even consider I'd have anything like autism or adhd but my girlfriend really helped show me that a lot of my lived experience and struggles could be explained by ADHD, and that seeking help for that might benefit me. But even then I'm struck by the feeling of "i don't deserve to call myself this because others have it so much worse or more concretely"
I've been dealing with something similar after finally taking steps towards bettering myself after realizing "hey I think I definitely have bipolar disorder and need to talk to someone about this." Still in the very early stages of medication and therapy but I already feel better in some very notable ways (- getting put on lexapro by a shitty psychiatrist maligned by his hospital).
bro i feel you i got put back on lamictal after getting The Lamictal Rash by the er doctor it was so stupid but good on you for reaching out and addressing it!! bipolar is hard but it gets better, it does
I used to honestly believe that self diagnosis was nothing but attention-seeking behavior, but this has changed my perspective! Thank you for giving me a new way to look at things, a way that is more understanding and less hateful.
@@NotVille_ help why are you in the comments of like half the videos i watch!! are you a real person or a bot!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's not attention seeking so much as it is "there's something fucking wrong with me and I need answers that the medical system has refused to give me, so I'm trying to find them myself" I don't know exactly what mental and physical disorders I have, but I know I have them and that they cause me to struggle.
@@NotVille_map spotted
And thank you for making room for other perspectives 😊 From a self-diagnosed individual currently waiting on a psychiatric evaluation
for me, i had a mental evaluation for ADHD/ADD when i was 15. This woman literally drew out what the neurodivergent spectrum was, said i was somewhere on it but only felt comfortable diagnosing me with ADHD because all of the tests she had for other types of neurodivergence were for little kids and she didn’t want me to have the disadvantages that came along with a diagnosis such as autism. As an adult, i realized i struggle a lot because of the lack of assistance i need to function as well as my peers.
I never officially say I have autism, just that I am on the spectrum which isn’t what’s officially on my medical records but just what i was told by a psychologist. so i guess that’s self-diagnosis but it’s rooted in a lot of truth. I’m not sure I want to get a new diagnosis yet but I do want help for the struggles and confusion it causes.
Something that frustrates me about psychology, specifically therapy is that it >can< be very situational. Sometimes the most it can do is help us cope with the system we’ve been born into. That isn’t to discredit therapy. I love therapy and think it’s extremely important. I’m studying psychology. If you’re put in the right environment you can thrive! Under the right conditions >certain< struggles can be dissolved. Most things are so out of our control and the world doesn’t cater to you in a way that lets you thrive. It’s no wonder so many people are left behind.
hi Alex,
I loved your video. Especially the quote regarding how we become defined by our conditions struck a chord with me. I had a friend who would mention my autism every time we hung out. It made me regret telling her about my diagnosis, and it's why I'm still hesitant to tell people about my diagnosis.
Correct me if I zoned out while listening to this while cleaning, but I don't think you mentioned the heightened sensory sensitivity aspect of autism, did you? I can understand given that you focus on how we as autistic people are constantly judged based on our social behaviour, because that's all that people know about autism, but I think it could've been a valuable addition to your discussion to the topic.
In her book 'But You Don't Look Autistic At All', Bianca Toeps notes how, in the DSM-5, heightened sensitivity to sensory stimuli as a symptom of autism is only discussed after discussing social deficiencies as a symptom, and somewhat bitterly remarks that it shows how the outside world assigns more value to and puts more emphasis on what the outside world can see and what bothers them about us, and still largely ignores/undervalues the symptoms that they can't see, but which often affect *us* more: i.e. the heightened sensitivity to sensory stimuli.
I think a mention of that heightened sensitivity could've been a valuable addition to the discussion to educate people that, as much as the outside world likes to focus on us "being below average at the theory of mid", autism isn't and shouldn't be exclusively defined by that, and that in fact, our social peculiarities may very well not be the most defining characteristic of our autism. For example, even autistic meltdowns, caused by sensory overload are often perceived as us showing socially deficient behaviour, and us requesting accommodations such as turning down the music are often perceived as weird requests that ruin the vibe, while we're just trying not to feel like our head is exploding.
I hope this doesn't come off as a lecture or anything, and if it does, I hope you know it is one of the 'neurodivergent infodumping for the sake of enthusiasm and wanting to share knowledge' kind, and not one of the 'how dare you not mention this' kind.
Freshly graduated therapist here. This entire video is so real and something my colleagues and I have fully discussed and are aware of. Where I live an ASSESSMENT cost $3000 and that's not including follow up sessions, subsequent therapy, etc. Self diagnosis can be incredibly helpful but there is so much nuance there.
Yeah I can definitely understand NOT wanting to spend $3000 just to get a piece of paper that potentially takes my personal agency away, as someone who wants to medically transition some day soon, in the United States. No Thank You.
Yes😊
Where I live, at least part of the assessment is paid for by public health insurance so it is reasonably cheap, but you do have to spend several years repeatedly harrassing both doctors in this city of 1.5 million people who actually provide autism assessments for adults until one of them even gives you a place on their waiting list.
Funny thing is, I have actually been rejected treatment by a CBT clinic (for therapy I really needed at that time due to a fairly long depressive episode) because the therapist handling my first session believed I was likely autistic after a few minutes of talking with me, and they weren't qualified to handle that. Of course, without a proper diagnosis, they couldn't refer me to a qualified specialist either.
I'm from the UK, where I can get assessed for free, but waiting lists are so long. I'm on what's meant to be a one year waiting list for an ADHD assessment, but a year has now passed and I've heard nothing. Meanwhile you get no support during that time. And it's crazy but I'm one of the lucky ones-in other areas of the country waiting lists can be up to seven years! Also, in my county, you have to wait three years for an assessment for autism. The quality of support is also quite poor; my ADHD diagnosed friend, for example, is on medication but the doctor prescribing her the medication seems to know nothing about ADHD, which I think is quite dangerous.
@@lenapenrhyn2173 Honestly every time I hear something about the NHS waitlists I get this pang of dread, having known people that have forced themselves to go through the NHS for gender affirming care (a nightmare) or wound up having to improvise after being on a waitlist for several years for brain tumors.
Commenting as a doctor, diagnostics is always a means to an end. Diagnostics are used to tell: who will benefit from a given treatment, who will be harmed by a treatment or by not getting treated, and who should limited resources be directed towards. In general resources are always targeted to those who struggle the most, regardless of the cause.
In Finland neuropsychiatric units have recently announced (although they haven't quite implemented this yet), that they will restrict adult ADHD diagnostics to "complicated" cases (i.e. drug use, other psychiatric disorders, complicated social situations, low function/ prolonged unemployment etc.). So in Finland in the future, if you're above 25, have a job and finished high-school or a vocational equivalent, you're potential ADHD will be treated by a general practicioner with minimal diagnostics... or you won't be treated, because GPs are so overworked and a majority have very limited (or no) experience with ADHD. In larger clinics there's usually someone with more of a background in psychiatry, or just a personal interest, but this isn't the case everewhere.
Is this right?
Some would say that resources are being wasted on "lost causes" and others might call this appropriate prioritisation, and there's always a third and a fourth opinion. This is not an easy conversation. Because it is fundamentally political (there's no need for anyone to "politicize" it), there's inevitably going to be violent disagreement.
But we'll just have to try the best we can, case-by-case. That's what I'm doing and all I think I can do.
Thanks for sharing that. Being from the U.S., it's easy to assume everything's perfect in a country like Finland so that's reality check. I'm not a doctor, but sort of academic support at a med school. And my dad is a psychiatrist so there's that. I get that medicine isn't exact and money is always a factor. But I'm kind of like "oh c'mon" at the self-diagnosis trend because I'm a bit familiar with steps physicians go through as students or when as professionals they do have time/resources to think through something like diagnostics. But that's not always the real world, especially not with U.S. healthcare. You're right in just doing your best of course, good luck with those ADHD diagnostic changes if that affects your job.
Shit, as a Swede y'all were doing so good compared to us, then this happens?
This is what my clinical psychologist told me about seeking diagnosis for neurodivergence in my late 20s and it really didn't help me at all. I just need to know if it's something I can rule out or if I can use the language to research ways to help myself and be included in peer groups because I've had burnout issues in the past. Instead they're all lumped under "depression" and tbh it feels quite hopeless 😢 I've been through different ones and starting all over again when I have what seems like an executive dysfunction is a kick in the nuts, so I guess I'll just self-diagnose for now and benefit from the shared experience of AuDHD folks.
@@tikalupit"but you just need to talk a bit about your problems, draw a few pictures and Take these anti-depressants and you'll be fine" /s
Yep, that's really helping therapy.
Pardon? What do you mean "restrict" ADHD to "complicated" cases? The Illness doesn't stop being there just because you refuse to diagnosis it, or to continue to keep it diagnosed? Are they willingly throwing a bunch of adults to the sharks because they don't want to deal with them? Because not dealing with them while they are experiencing mild symptoms is only going to make more ADHD adults become severe cases?
I don't have a diagnosis for ADHD/Autism and I've been in therapy for quite a while, but I do some?A lot of? things that might fit the criteria. The thought, that it's okay, and other people do this as well and it's okay and I don't need to be ashamed/hate myself because others struggle with the same things, gives me comfort. Even if I am neurotypical. The fact that it is talked about so much on social media know is very nice and helped me come to terms with me and how I behave especially in social situations. It just makes me feel less alone :)
As someone who has an ADHD diagnosis, I think if ADHD tips or relatable things help you to get stuff done or regulate emotions, then use them!!! Diagnosis mean nothing, it’s all about what you’re experiencing, label or no label; you’re struggling. :)
I think it's perfectly reasonable to not stress over it, I lived in this spot for a long time, but in the end it turns out I have just SO much adhd. and since there is medication treatment for that which helped me unbelievably, I do think if that's something you think you'd be interested in or that might possibly help, I do think it's worth looking into assessment, especially if you can find someone who seems qualified. if not, being undiagnosed and unsure is like, a primary adhd experience. diagnosed one day or not, "actual" adhd or not, you're in that with the rest of us, and I think basically everyone with adhd (and probably most with autism too, no diagnosis but who knows) is very chill about this in real life. I'm glad the stuff helps and you're using what works for you :)
As someone who is both officially diagnosed and undiagnosed, self diagnosis is fraught because e often cannot see ourselves, and also fraught because our experience of the world is locked in and we cannot experience what others experience. The most powerful part of talk therapy isn't the science behind psychiatry, it's the dialectic of I and Thou.
In Korea where I live, resources for autism is heavily, if not Exclusively, geared towards parents of severely autistic children. There is next to no chance of getting an autism diagnosis as an adult, especially if you’re “cognisant enough to communicate”. And autistic adults are often people who have had decades to practice passing well enough to “not seem autistic”. Never mind that I’ve learned it through blood and tears, that the experience has left me forever scarred and distrustful of humanity. Never mind that I feel just as alienated from the social majority as I was as a kid. Never mind that I still somehow “get things wrong” and don’t know why when people smile for my friend but go silent in my presence. Never mind the sensory sensitivities that my friends call an overreaction.
And with all this, I can’t belong anywhere. With no diagnosis to speak I don’t dare call myself autistic. I’ve been surrounded by scorn and accusations of “doing things for attention” all my life. Just to get the same treatment from both sides (NT and ND).
💜 sending you some comisseration feels. I've heard mental health resources in Korea and other East Asian places can be tough to get, since the older generations might not see it as all that important yet. I hope things change for the better over time!
Can u move ?😊
you watched this video and that means youre okay with gay people... anyone saying anything about being gay is just them trying to hear words that help them cope and if you try to argue they will try to kill you literally.
Wow, it's crazy how, across the globe, we are all treated like shit for just being born a little different.
Get over it lol
In my case, I don’t ‘self-diagnose’, I just “Have Suspicions of Things I’d Like Ruled Out by Professionals Eventually”. I’ve had people misunderstand and think I’m saying I *definitively* have *A Thing*, but I’m not. It’s just something I suspect, and I would like it looked into when I’m able to someday, but until then I see nothing wrong with finding reasonable harmless coping mechanisms to survive the symptoms day to day. I have been struggling all my life with chronic dislocations, extreme pain, easy bruising, etc - and getting a diagnosis for that has been proving very difficult. There’s a LOT of things it could possibly be, tbh, but so far the EDS community have been giving me some of the best advice on how to manage on my own.
I came to an EDS conclusion before I read the whole of your post 😂
From someone with eds (who was finally diagnosed last year after years of fighting for it) - self diagnosis is the first step towards actual diagnosis! When the medical system is largely clueless about EDS, i think that self diagnosis is mostly the only way to then *get* a medical diagnosis. And knowing *why* your body is doing the things helps so much with not feeling like you're going mad and giving yourself more leeway. I hope you're able to access diagnosis eventually, but I'm so glad that the community has welcomed you with open arms.
I would also be hesitant to recommend some of that as a community if it's a self-diagnosis. It can be helpful to go there for some advice, but if you were in it everyday, it can lead to genuine health issues/paranoia for some people. I developed a diagnosed functional neurological disorder just from being in those forums yearsss ago, for only a few months. I never had any kind of health anxiety before that. My whole left-side went numb, I was taken to hospital, they couldn't get my left-arm to reflex so I had an emergency MRI 2 days later (which is very hard to get under the NHS, normally it would take years or months if there's physical symptoms). It was an emergency because the doctor told me they suspected I had a neurological disorder, maybe MS. That was the worst week of my life. I had the MRI and turned out to have an unrelated common pineal cyst, but a healthy brain & healthy spinal fluid from the lumbar puncture. I developed it from stress because of the health anxiety from those communties, which was only just a kinda stress in the background that must have built up over the 2 months.
When I found out I was okay, after a week of my arm not responding to the doctors' neuro reflex tests, my reflexes came back *the next day* in that arm after my stress went down (as I found out I had good results). Before this, google was telling me basically it must be something seriously wrong which made it worse. Even when I googled what a pineal cyst was, the little preview section of text it gave me said there was an average 5 year survival rate - but it was actually referencing a type of brain cancer, not a harmless pineal cyst! God, the rollercoaster I had that week! 😭Yet, apparently neurologists see functional neuro disorder in nearly a third of patients, yet google shows the scariest results! All my bloods were fine, but I also had myoclonic jerks and my heart rate was at 140 at rest most of the time I was there (they did bloods to make sure my heart wasn't producing a stress hormone/protein or something, it wasn't). I was told this is actually quite common to see from the neurologists, the physical symptoms are genuine but it's not because of a physical cause. Your brain can seriously mess you up lol when you stress too much. I genuinely had no idea it could get so bad that I would go numb, barely be able to walk and not even reflex on one side of my body. It changed my outlook massively, so I am thankful in way of realising this (I try to not let myself get physically stressed for long periods of time, because it comes back). The jerks went away after 2 weeks, I sometimes get them when I'm very sleep deprived, but that's it.
So I'm just warning against people who may be susceptible to those types of anxieties, to not make the same mistake I did and visit this communities every few days. So, of course you should go to a dr for help, and google on what to prepare, but try not to stay in those communties for too long until you are actually are diagnosed with something. I also don't like how sometimes these communties are dismissive of the experience and impact of psychosomatic illnesses. They are serious, they are not a lesser diagnosis and people shouldn't be annoyed to be told that could be a possibility (of course, misdiagnosis is a common issue, but it's statistically more common in self-diagnosis)! What they don't realise is sometimes that outlook of complaining about not getting what they believe is a diagnosis for a physical cause is actually ableist. Some people think that's more "real", and they aren't "crazy". I wasn't crazy to experience a functional neurological disorder, it just so incredibly ignorant for some people to use claims that "it's not in their head" as if that's something that's not a genuine health issue. It's not a lesser health issue, I couldn't even reflex, something I can't control. I couldn't walk, I couldn't feel things on one side and was having jerks. I have genuine genetic health issues, but nothing has been scarier so far than my experience with that!
This is strongly my approach to my self-diagnosis of autism. It is pragmatic at this point to assume I am autistic and use that language to discuss and understand myself, and thereby discover better ways of existing for myself. Given that autism is not something to be cured, that's essentially what a formal diagnosis in adulthood results in and is used for; a useful explanation for behaviours, responses and experiences which help navigate ourselves and the world around us. That would only be disregarded if there is an explanation more useful for explaining things and for deriving solutions.
Additionally, I do not view myself needing any support or accommodations that are gated behind a diagnosis. Conversely, a diagnosis, even the process of seeking it, could and would harm me in other areas of my life. Thus, a formal diagnosis at present holds no value for me and would only be a detriment. I have zero reason to seek it
Hi! I totally get this, since I have diagnosed EDS that I was able to figure out around a year ago. I’m pretty young so I’m really glad I had incredible doctors who actually listened and tried to help me find what was going on, but honestly sometimes you have to try to research things yourself before you can ask professionals if the thing you think IS the problem like you are saying. My mom is the one actually who found out EDS existed and suggested it to my main doctor(personally I have HEDS hypermoble), because she was like uhh you have other symptoms so I don’t think it’s just fibromyalgia. Once we had a direction to point the doctors in they were able to reconnect me to specialists and it was the first time stuff like my physical therapy and pills actually started helping when we went to see people who knew EDS who could get me stuff tailored to it. Knowing I have EDS has helped me find other people online with their advice on how they cope, so I really hope you figure everything out, it can be hard and a bit tricky but if you’re able to find out for sure it can really improve things ♥️ best of luck!
I think you have missed a really important point of view here. I dislike subjectification extremely. I hate when institutions do it, though I do see the purpose and usefulness they can serve. I felt that note about the self and body becoming someone else's story to author like it was pulled out of my very soul.
And that is precisely why I dislike a lot of the self diagnosing community and discourse.
I am not bothered by people trying to find community and shared experiences. But often the self diagnosis community tends to pathologize every single behavior as possibly part of or resulting from autism. I tend to stay away but self diagnosers often love to talk about it and love to try to diagnose other people. So I am encountering this everywhere. Suddenly anything I struggle with or fun little anectdote about an awkward social situation I share has a high chance of being met with "oh that's a very X thing. I do that too. Have you considered you might be X? It helped me a lot."
My thinking goes like this
"I am glad you found yourself, I am glad you found your community, I am super happy it helped you. I don't even mind listening to you talk about it for the 10th hour this month. Heck I even write legislatures and read and listen to voices an experiences from the community because everyone deserves to be heard, helped, and included as best we can.
But I don't want or need to be like you in the current moment. You don't just get to claim me for yourselves and that I can't just be friends with you without you trying to subjectify me and every single behavior with your labels is actually what is distressing. I want a conversation with a friend not an analysis, deconstruction, and labeling."
I am of the opinion that if you are outside of the socially accepted "norm" but it doesn't distress you or cause you to need special accommodations you don't need to claim a label if you don't want to. Society forces so many labels on us already. But the self diagnosis movement tries to become the author of others bodies in a way that viscerally upsets me.
I've learned that there isnt much of a point to getting a diagnosis if u don't intend to receive further assistance that you would be able to get from said diagnosis. Or, for some, if getting a diagnosis personally makes you feel more validated. Some ppl do it for that reason too. That's also valid
Wow, I have about an hour before I have to leave and self-diagnosed autism. What a serendipitous occasion
How did it go 🫢
the stars have aligned
Excellent~
@NotVille_ you gotta try life coaching with wording like yours
@NotVille_ bruh why are you even here, you get over yourself also how is saying such stuff instituaing that world revolves around them?
I feel like the fact that different practitioners have different conceptions about autism not necessarily backed by evidence is one of the most important points in this video. I'm a psych grad student and both I and every other mental practitioner I've seen in the past 5 years basically unanimously agree that I probably have autism, so when I went to go get tested it was really just a formality. It took me a year and a half to get an appointment and it happens in 4 appointments over the course of a month.
When I got my results back I found out that they decided I was not autistic on the first day after an hour long test but still required 3 more 2-4 hours appointments I had to pay for. Instead I got diagnosed with social pragmatic communication disorder and tell me it's basically the same thing it's what we renamed aspergers too (This is not true even if it is used that way, they merged Asperger's into autism spectrum disorder because it's the same thing) because I don't repeat anything, am too intelligent, and I didn't volunteer information about my special interests without being asked. Also my sensory issues are just weird and unrelated apparently.
Barring a side the intelligence bit which is complete garbage, the traits they mentioned are all far less common in women than in men and is part of why it is so under diagnosed in women. Also the hour long test was the ADOS-2 which has previously been found to only accurately diagnose less than 33% (I can't remember the exact number) of "high functioning" girls who had previously been diagnosed with autism.
Long story short I called cap, my therapist called cap, my friend who does research into autism diagnostic testing called cap, and now I have to wait another year to pay a different practitioner another thousand dollars to get it fixed. And like honestly I wouldn't bother me nearly as much if they had given me no diagnosis but they gave me the wrong one on such obviously flawed logic. I'm just very happy I'm in a place financially to spend an extra thousand dollars on a label that is essentially meaningless other than it's internal value as affirmation of an aspect of my identity I'm very confident in. In summary mental health practitioners who can't prove they have kept up to date on empirical research in their specific field from the last 10-20 years should not be allowed to continue practicing until they do IMO.
damn, that really sucks :/
glad you're getting it sorted out though!
It’s not about empirical research as is is about the definition evolving so much that it’s now a catch-all and some doctors are trying to get more specific than this now-ver-broad catch-all box that has come to mean almost nothing anymore. When EVERYONE has autism, that means that autism is normal/typical.
I had a somewhat similar experience seeking an ADHD diagnosis. Ultimately I was diagnosed with (C)PTSD, dysthymia with anxiety, and unspecified personality disorder (clarified as avoidant personality traits and obsessive compulsive personality traits).
I went through the 5 stages of grief, but in the end accepted the psychologist's assessment as truth.
But, sometimes I can't help but think it over again. Why are my school records necessary? Sure people with ADHD typically do terribly in school, but not everyone. What about people whose hyperfocus happens to be on school, or they're excelling because they're coping hard? Are school GPA's medically relevant anymore?
Same for my parent's assessment of when I was a child. What if my mom just genuinely thinks I'm a good kid no matter what I do, or what if my quiet personality masks my impulsiveness, or what if my mom was a somewhat neglectful parent who didn't pay much attention to me anyway to see signs?
Factors like these make me doubt the results still... But, at the same time I am very much so aware of the PTSD, depression, and anxiety, so that's definitely true. Perhaps they just had a bigger impact on me than I realized, or was willing to accept. The denial could be an aspect of the avoidant nature, and the deep focus on one frame of thought could be the obsession. So I am considerate of the alternative.
Also, I did not realize just how _similar_ PTSD could look like ADHD! Especially CPTSD, which isn't diagnosable in the USA but my psychologist said I'd qualify for if this was a different country.
TLDR: Diagnosis is complicated on all sides... But yeah, you were definitely given BS reasons for not having autism. Ridiculous.
I am so glad this comment section has partly turned into neurodivergent ppl storytime of “that time i finally went to a mental health professional (via a roundabout process, at great personal cost) and, like a dumb ass, they chirped”
Ultimately then, why is it so vital to get an outside authority to give you a proper label? If you already know yourself and the diagnosis has no apparent practical benefit, then why not accept you are who you are? If there isn't a unique treatment being gatekept by the diagnosis, why is it so vital?
I have diagnosed ADHD and I have continuously tried to manage it myself, to own it and be who I am. However, sometimes the struggle is so hard I think I might be better with medication. In that case, the diagnosis is critical because without it, I wouldn't have access. Beyond that the only value in the diagnosis is the social capital that I am ADHD Verified™. That I can swing around the exact kind of social capital that this video is speaking out about.
I only speak to frame my point of view and I do genuinely care what your view is in relation to that and what you said yourself. Much love!
Excellent video. The claim at 9:55 is a lie, though. Garb 2021 doesn’t say that Autistic people can’t become citizens in NZ and around diagnosis alone doesn’t have that outcome.
I was really worried by the title after seeing hbomberguy recommend this video(I'm going to be honest that's how I found out about it) I was afraid it was going to be just tearing down the kind of people who make content people blame for "convincing people they're autistic" and "diagnosing strangers with autism" which is usually just autistic people on tik tok sharing their own experiences with autism and trying to show it isn't scary and strange, but then when it isn't "strange enough" people claim "well that's just normal, that's what normal people do." I was afraid this video would be like that, but it wasn't and I'm very glad. I think this video is great and made me really consider things about the mere concepts of mental illness and autism that I hadn't really thought about before. I really hope that those that are constantly complaining about the "epidemic of self diagnosed autistic people" will, at the very least, consider your words. Thank you
Adhd in girls is so unrecognized it hurts. I have adhd and I didn’t get diagnosed until i was 15. When people think of adhd they think of loud, disruptive boys. I was a quiet, shy girl who didn’t have many friends. I struggled in school but because I was so quiet no teacher paid attention to the fact that I was falling behind. Since no one helped me it eventually became to much and I became burnt out. I completely stopped going to school and no one noticed until I was failing every subject. I ended up not going to school a single day for over a year and a half and completely isolating myself. I always talked about not being able to memorize things and not being able to concentrate but everyone thought I was just lazy. No one ever even brought it up but finally my best friend. She just said while we were on a walk “I think you have adhd” and she started rambling symptoms I had. I had never even had the thought that I had it until then. I also had the idea that adhd = loud and disruptive. Couple of months after that I was diagnosed with moderate to severe adhd
As someone who grew up afab this is so fucking real, and though I came out as a trans man at 15 I still 100% struggled with adhd in similar ways to what you described especially academically. I felt like absolutely crap about it too because I knew I was "smart" but couldn't explain to people why I was struggling so much so I just hid a lot of my academic failing until it got bad enough that I was starting to get suicidal (the one thing keeping me okay was videogames and I was afraid that would get taken away if I did come clean about the academic struggles)
Fortunately I did receive support and understanding from my family (especially my mom) when I finally broke down about it all, but even then it didn't occur to me I was struggling in large part due to public school being hell for adhd people. Looking back it's really clear, but even now I struggle because I don't have an official diagnosis so I can't take advantage of any of the resources my college allows for adhd people.
@@nicolasnamed the school and my teachers would keep asking me why I was having so much anxiety. But I genuenly didn’t know, I would cry in my room because I couldn’t figure out why I was so sick. When I years later got diagnosed the woman that was helping me just read my mind. She asked me if I had anxiety about school that I couldn’t explain. We had a long talk where I just told her my experience and i found out that the reason I had such bad anxiety was because I had developed genuine trauma from being undiagnosed in a public school. I had real ptsd symptoms during public school because ever since I was a little kid all I knew school to be was a place where I was always scared and anxious, with no one there to take my side. After years my brain just made the connection that school was a genuenly dangerous and threatening place to be. I would puke, have panic attacks, and hide every day for a year just by the thought of trying to go to school that day. I’m totally rambling but school has hurt me in ways nothing else has ever managed to. It crushed my heart and brain to the point where I couldn’t function like a normal person for 4 years of my life.
hey i am 29 and cant get a full diagnosis because i had a lot of anxiety as a kid and wasnt hyperactive cause i was terrified about being the center of attention
@@MrsSankta the diagnostic criteria for adhd/add is literally based on the research done on almost solely outwardly hyperactive, loud little boys. It amazes me how far we have come but they still can’t do proper adhd research on girls outside of surveys about how undiagnosed we are
@@Snoppapa yeah thats true, its really stupid
Its great to see a big RUclipsr make a good video about this! I was diagnosed with autism at 9, yet no one told me for years. A few years ago I self diagnosed with adhd as well, because a lot of my experiences didnt fully fit with autism. I ended up not getting an official diagnosis for adhd cos its very difficult and theres a several year long waiting list for even a first appointment. As someone whos done both paths I respect people who prefer either option, especially people who are under 18, or are struggling with money, who cant get a diagnosis.
im over 18 and its actually sm fucking harder to get diagnosed as autistic after you become an adult. no one takes insurance so your forced to pay 3-5 THOUSAND dollars out of pocket. not to mention all the wait lists and just bureaucracy and red tape.... its exhausting and depressing. the entire system is completely broken.
Yo! I feel like I can relate, when I was little I have been diagnosed with ADHD but I had no idea because my mother kept it a secret for years. I did feel as if I was different or struggled with classes. I had no idea why until my mom told me after YEARS that when I was little I was diagnosed with ADHD.
over 18* theres a lot more pediatric resources
@@NotVille_it doesnt revolve around u either sweetie. i understand you want to hurt other people because you've been hurt and you have no other method of processing your own emotions, but unfortunately this channel has a community of caring people who dont seem to give much of a shit about your whining :)
maybe actually watch the videos and comment on the content itself instead of bullying ppl on the internet by making the same fucking comment multiple times? u REALLY dont have anything better to do homie?
I knew I was autistic since I was 5 but didn't get a diagnosis till I was 9 and didn't find out about it till I was 11. Life is weird and complicated
I understand the stigma against self diagnosis, but In America it costs insane amounts of money. Money I don’t have. Even though I fit the diagnoses in pretty much every way, I have since childhood, every medical provider I’ve had has said I most likely have it, and it literally runs though my family and I have 4 immediate family members who are diagnosed, I still had an abusive partner mock me for thinking I was autistic, and often have to listen to people rage against self diagnosis. As if getting diagnosed is some simple, quick thing. I have lived my whole life with the effects and struggles identical to that of autism, yet somehow a specific piece of paper is the only thing that would make those experiences valid to some people. As if without that piece of paper my life struggles mean nothing.
If you can get diagnosed, please do. But if you can’t, your life experiences and internal awareness of yourself is just as valid. Just make sure you go into it with lots of actual research and understanding, and have an open mind to the idea it could be something different but similar. My mom thought for a while that she might be autistic but it turned out to be cptsd. The name changed but the life experiences were still the same and requires the same amount of respect regardless of what it’s called or if it’s “official”
I watched your Taylor Swift video and now this and tbh when you said “I’m autistic” I started crying. I was diagnosed with bipolar, adhd, anxiety and depression around 17 when my “quirks” finally started to really show that they were affecting my schoolwork. Adhd was something I’d heard tossed around since my childhood. That along with “gifted” and “would be a genius if they applied themselves”. At 11 I had a neighbor who was nonverbal autistic. His mother was one of the first to suggest I was adhd. I searched it up, surely enough, a lot of it matched. I searched autism, a lot more of it matched. I spent some time on addy, focalin, Vyvanse, some time on antipsychotics. I spent a lot of time thinking about life if I didn’t exist. Around my early 20s my best friend and I (who’s obsessed with trains) started thinking we might be autistic. I specifically looked into autism in women. I applied it to what I knew about myself and what I knew about my culture. I am not an average boricua, even if you factor in my queerness. It’s been over 8 years. I don’t take medication. I think I’m okay. I have a job and a relationship with a partner who also believes I’m autistic, sometimes they tell me I remind them of an old friend who was formally diagnosed. My mom, sister, cousins, my entire family and several friends believe me to be autistic. I’ve never got a formal diagnosis. They might’ve been right about the adhd but my meltdowns are less ebb and flow and more “catastrophic the world is falling”, but I get over it quick if not to obsess over it later. I’m not saying I know better but I feel for maybe just once, for over 16 years of praying and wishing people can read my mind because I have such trouble forming the words but such an easier time writing them but my god, writing can be misunderstood even more “JUST READ MY MIND AND DONT HATE ME”. From online support groups of diagnosed and undiagnosed, and hours of RUclips over a decade. To see someone get formally diagnosed and to have been right makes me cry joy and feel lightheaded and a little sick. I don’t think I want a formal diagnosis. I’m hoping they’ll let me into the EU with what I’ve got from 11 years ago. I’m afraid to be even more stigmatized. I’m scared but I think I know myself. I think for once maybe we can be right. My apologies for the long winded comment. For hijacking this space with so many words. I will probably delete this but I want you to know hearing you say that made such a huge impact on my existence. Thank you.
if it makes you feel better, I'm in the UK at the moment and it's much more understanding than the americas, from what I can tell (I'm not sure where you're from, but that's where I can compare it to), and other international students from the EU think it's really beneficial to be diagnosed with autism for accommodations and things back home, so hopefully it will only be helpful when you're going to the EU! I can tell you they definitely treat adhd as if it's both more normal and more serious here in the UK, and it seems to be the same for autism.
it's such a tough journey figuring this stuff out, and I'm impressed with your hanging in there, please don't delete this! I think a lot of us have been through similar things, it's so hard, but there's also hope, especially if we support each other, and keep trying to make our own and our shared worlds better together.
I had to fight at 13 to get autism appointments through the NHS. It took 2 years and me and my dad went in and this guy spent 20 minutes asking my dad about my behaviour. My dad who is convinced I am not autistic because “everyone is a bit on the spectrum”. I wanted a diagnosis because I had panick attacks and meltdowns at school due to overstimulation and needed some accommodation, but I never got a diagnosis and when I got to read what had been written it said I held some autistic traits but I played imaginatively with dolls as a child and had friends. I still start crying thinking about it because my word about my experiences wasn’t listened to. I didn’t get to say one word, I just sat at that young age in a room with two grown men listening while they dismissed all my experiences.
😢
Autistic or not if you had melt-downs it means you had issues which needed to be addressed. Diagnosis shouldn't matter
˗ˏˋ ❤️🩹 ˎˊ˗
That’s awful and I’m so sorry to hear that. My child was very lucky, they didn’t even have me in the room while they assessed her (although I had submitted my parental observations which were also taken into account). She was 16 though so maybe that was why, although she was referred by the school so as a minor. It’s a lottery.
Child autonomy is not an often thought about concern. I'm so sorry you went through that. I hope you're doing better now and have found resources to help you live a fulfilling and stress free as much as possible life.
I had been depressed for my entire life, as long as I can remember. 18 years of a constant brain sludge. I moved out and started living with my girlfriend and this continued, even somewhat worsening. After a year of living with her (she’s autistic) I started treating my symptoms how she did- headphones, more social boundaries, keeping a closer eye on my overstimulation and situations that could trigger me, making sure I had my safe foods and a safe space to try new foods I previously couldn’t stand- and my depression has been gone for almost a full year now. I am not diagnosed, but treating myself as if I AM diagnosed has improved my life immensely. Self diagnosis isn’t done to “steal resources” that autistic people dont really even have to begin with, it’s done so that we can better understand ourselves and so that we have a search term to use to better find coping skills for the symptoms we objectively have. It doesn’t really matter at all if I “”actually have “” autism or not.
I love that pov and I relate to it a lot. I've had depression for over a decade now and learning about overstimulation and stimming has helped me so much.
hm, good take, good idea, glad you are doing at least somewhat better
What resources do autistic adults even have?!
you better work that proactive problem solving.
the first time i remember wishing i'd never been born, i was three or four. i don't know a time when i wasn't depressed, and being informed multiple times a day of ways i'd fucked up 🌸 really helped 🌸🥰
i was diagnosed with adhd when i was in my 20's. it genuinely was a game changer. that weird shit i do is stimming. i work through lunch and obsess with converting an itemized bill to an excel doc for hours because i'm hyperfocusing. i spent like ten months watching clips of to catch a predator and hanging out on a tcap subreddit and then abruptly quit doing it because i'm designed to do this.
my point is, i hear you, and i affirm and validate you. (when i was in high school my friends and i used to do something i called "affirmation monkey," where we would pass a stuffed sock monkey around; and whoever was holding the monkey could share something that was bothering them right then, to which we would all say "i affirm you." you have the monkey, and i affirm you.)
anyway, what? i haven't slept. that's another issue i've had since i turned 1.
Hey, your description of how you treated autism resonated with me a bit but I wanted to know if you can point me to any research on that? I know that the standard understanding of autism is outdated but I dont know where to look for the reliable new stuff
I think a big part of maturity is abandoning the hatred of the "trendy" and giving people the space to be themselves as long as they're not being predatory. If a trend takes away resources from others maybe we should find a way to create more resources
I dont think anyone will read this or if you Alex are going to see this, but as a mexican neurodivergent that's really passionate about neurodiversity and identity, this video really is everything I've been searching for. As an artists and storyteller im currently writing a story about labels, neurodivergency and Identity (with a lot of lesbianism/sapphic relationships, gender identity and expression, body horror and psychological horror!), I almost feel like this video was made for me! I was lost on where to search for the very specific information I needed and then this video appeared and answered a lot of it. I really thank you a lot for going so deep and expressing it in a very comprehensible matter, I literally can't stop yapping about how much I love this video and how much describes my story.
Thank you so much Alex, thank you for inspiring me when I felt stuck, I appreciate it so so much. Muchas gracias por darme lo que necesitaba para continuar con mi historia 💗
I dont have autism, depression, or any other mental illness that I care to find out about, I just have that dawg in me
You have a dog inside you
Me bringing up ADHD to my psych and her saying "No you can't have it you have a degree", that put me off getting diagnosed for a good 5 years. I can access services in Australia for other conditions and now am looking at getting diagnosed with ADHD/Autism but the possible ADHD is a barrier of its own. Oh yes I will do that, a week later on the weekend, also having to ring someone...
That is such a bad take from that doctor. Like, part of my adhd diagnosis (at 32, after completing a masters and starting a career) included asking if I was viewed as being "high-achieving" or "gifted" while growing up. They asked about my experience in college and grad school. Everything I said about my experience, a successful experience, confirmed their diagnosis.
I admittedly struggled with my degree, but that was for a double degree I spent 7 years on. Intellect & adaptability hide so many symptoms.
I’m glad that my GP sent me to a psych specialising in ADHD. He believed me but wanted to make sure there was some documented evidence from my childhood.
If you can find anything reporting on your attention or energy as a child, that can be helpful. I only had one teacher comment on it, but he accepted that report. I found school interesting & fairly easy, so it was rare to not have my attention.
Alternatives are getting a letter of testimony from people that knew you in your childhood. Family history also helps.
Good luck if you do seek one.
What services could you access with an ADHD/autism diagnosis that you couldn’t access with an ADHD diagnosis? I’m a psych student and at least in the US people aren’t often professionally diagnosed with both ADHD and autism because the symptoms overlap so much. But idk how Australian insurance works.
@@Forestfreud an ADHD diagnosis specifically gives access to stimulant medication if there is a childhood history. A month of it only costs 30AUD since it is subsidised by the government. I personally don’t have an autism diagnosis, and I don’t know if it would provide additional resources that I would find helpful - so I haven’t actively sought out one. I think the ADHD diagnosis is actually more helpful resource-wise if you can only get one.
I had the same experience (but in Germany) my psych said she wont refer me bc I have a job (barely, burned out twice in the past 2 years) and have too many degrees...
I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was around 6 years old, my parents didn't want to medicate me, they also didn't really tell me. ADHD wasn't even considered by several psychologists that I saw through my teenage years.
When I was 20 I saw lots of info on tiktok, after talking to a friend that also has ADHD. I knew I had it, I felt that it all clicked. I spent half of my life wondering what was wrong with me. Then I could see there's nothing wrong, I'm just different. All the guilt and shame for my supposed failures became so easy to fight. I started looking for different strategies to get stuff done, from people with ADHD. My self diagnosis at that point made a huge difference, with only a change of paradigm and information.
I decided to get an official diagnosis mainly because I wanted to try medication. I went to a couple professionals, I didn't feel like they listened at all, one said diagnosis are just mean labels and the other one called me hysterical in softer words. I went to a specialist, already afraid of saying something like "I think I have ADHD", but she did listen and did the whole evaluation.
Medication has helped me so much. Besides that, the diagnosis itself just brought some validation, not for myself, but for the people around me. The accomodations I've seen in colleges around here are not really useful and often are ignored by everyone.
I keep watching the last 2-3 mins, it's so haunting and an incredibly real question I ask myself. You put words to something I've been struggling with for the longest time and while it hasn't answered my questions, it's re-framed them in a better way that I can deal with and think about more. Thank you.
I didn't expect to learn about dehumanization, the power of language, and the impermanence and undefinability of the self in a video about self diagnosis. Thank you, Alexander.
I subtly asked my dad about autistic things a few days ago. Social cues, masking, hyperfixations, and every time I incooperated it into a question or life experience he proceeded to explain the literal definition of what the traits are as his perspective of things. I agreed with him because I felt the same. When I left to go to my room his voice echoed from the kitchen over to the hallway as he was saying "wow, you got a lot of my genes!".
yup. I got it from him
Excellent analysis, sir!!!
I was diagonased in hgih school, received accomodations all throgub undergrad. To get accomodations for GRE testing and in grad school I was told I'd need to be diagnosed as an adult. Neurotypes don't change. It would have taken me months and hundreds of dollars I didn't have.
Thank you foe pointing out the negatives of being formerly diagnosed as its important to br aware of how stigmas can morph and how its not only a matter of accomodations, but of potential for further discrimination in certain contexts.
Huge fan of your work. Please never stop sharing your nuanced perspectives and challengng base assumptions!
Since i was 4 it was suspected that i had adhd, but because it didn't "become an issue" i was never diagnosed. Adhd creators on tiktok explaining the symptoms and how it presents made me realize "oh. Maybe i'm not a fuckup of a human being. Maybe i actually have a mental illness" and boy howdy did my psychologist agree cuz i was diagnosed within 15 minutes of talking to them. And as satisfying as that is, and how much the medication helps, it's bittersweet. Because up until that point i had people mad at me, yelling at me, for behavior i could not help and was told i was "choosing" to be this way. I'm a lot happier of a human being, and it's really thanks to those creators that i understand myself better now. I just wish it didn't take 29 years for that to finally happen. And from social media of all things.
I really appreciate this video. I’m a trainee psychologist, and I have also strongly suspected that I have autism since grade 7. I’ve often thought, and communicated to my colleagues, that the medical model of autism (and most mental health disorders) is reductionistic and fails to recognise that often these diagnostic categories are just ways to cluster symptoms/experiences that commonly occur together. I think that the DSM has its place, and that building shared language and shared understanding is important and necessary, but the DSM itself is not the arbiter of human truth. I hope that psychology (and psychiatry, though that’s not my area) continue to move away from the medical/deficit model, and instead focus on individuals and providing appropriate care and support to each individual person based upon their unique presentation and circumstances.
For me personally, I feel like my autism symptoms are what are keeping me from getting an autism diagnosis. It feels ironic. I just seem to happen to have that sort of experience where I don't show the stereotypical symptoms, but I have such a difference in language processing and understandig that I just cannot relate to the words and terms used to describe autism. I just keep getting into situations where my needs for accomodations or the misunderstandings seem to be explainable by autism to other people. It's such an alienating experience. I often struggle with labels, as they can never perfectly encapture my experience, I prefer vague ones like neurodivergent. But in contact with most people, I constantly find myself having to explain my difference.
At the risk of asking for too much self-disclosure, can you give some examples of where you have found yourself having to explain your difference?
So as a person who has been diagnosed autistic as an adult. I think I may relate to this inadvertently because well my diagnosis came about from adhd treatment. Stimulants heavily pushed some of my autism symptoms. I also was already diagnosed with general anxiety disorder which also overlaps with the negative experiences of autism. Point is, I either had adapted or self deprecated enough to not be concerned with whether I was on the spectrum or not.
Hope my experience helps. Not a professional. Actually a machine learning nerd but besides the point. Good luck.
Love how you play with the background as backup to the context! True work of art
This video was phenomenally well written. It’s thoughtful, well researched, and eloquently said. Thank you for making it!
Ugh I literally said that opening thing about scripts to my therapist (a couple sessions after we discussed how conceptualizing myself as autistic has massively helped my self-love and self-respect journey) and he said “Yeah a lot of my autistic clients have that experience”
Yes, me too. Somehow I didn't get the same feeling from my mental health diagnoses.
As a high masking adult woman, i still struggle with calling myself nuerodivergent even tho im formally diagnosed. Even tho as a kid i tip toe walked, stimmed, had horrible sensory issues, lined up my toys, struggled HARD with social skills, etc etc, i still sometimes doubt myself because of how deeply engrained the stereotypes for people with autism are for me. It all began with "funny haha this adhd/autism video is just like me" until i started to bring it up with my therapist and she actually told me she was thinking of suggesting i get tested for adhd. For me, it wasnt about seeking a diagnosis to excuse my behaviors, it was so important because it explained WHY i acted/felt how i did and made me realize i wasnt weird or bad, that i just had different interactions with the world. Now that i have medication, a job that works better with my skills, and a routine that keeps my life in balance, i am THRIVING. Thanks for this video, it was great!
@@NotVille_DELETE THIS HELP
Wait a minute. Tiptoe walking is a sign of neurodivergence?
@@NotVille_ GET A LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!
i imagine overdoing it is a sign of neurodivergence. everybody tip toes as a kid because they're playing around and learning how to move, and you see tip toeing in movies/TV as a 'sneaky' move in kids media. But it's different when it becomes something a kid does regularly instead of a playtime thing. Then it becomes a sign of something else being at play. Apparently it's related to the vestibular system being different for some people with autism. @@emsmith.
Ah yes, because unknown aliens of an unknown threat level are comparable to neurodivergent people
I personally don't think it's a trend of people self diagnosing themselves but a trend of people coming into a new understanding what autism and other stigmatized mental conditions are and realizing maybe they fall into that category
I had sort of the opposite thing happen to me just today. A (teen) retail worker asked me if I had ADHD because I looked like I spaced out for a moment. Which... I hadn't, I just have hearing problems. It felt invasive, like being asked if I'm pregnant when I'm not.
I don't think I have ADHD, but have I been tested? No. I get to make that decision for myself.
This same thing happened to my teacher. She was asked VERY loudly in front of the entire class if she has ADHD because she seemed "hyperactive". It felt very intrusive and disrespectful.
100 times this. In their joy of finding a label and a community that helps them they want to spread the joy.
But they don't realize all they are doing is becoming the subjectifiers. Intruding on other people's space to try to pin yet another label on people who didn't want or ask for them.
Some also tend to forget some people are private and not comfortable sharing the inner workings of their minds with people they aren't close to. For various reasons. They are interested in expanding their community and just... forget that other people might be different and not want to discuss their ADHD at work or in school.
As a child I was told by TWO professionals that “girls can’t be autistic”, I then suffered 24/7 for the next 20 years, until finally self diagnosing several years back. It was an absolutely life saving decision, one that I face so much bullshit for, but at this point I just lie. I don’t have the energy to debate facts with grown adults who don’t even realize a formal diagnosis would cost me $5k, that I can’t earn! Because employers don’t accommodate without a formal diagnosis! Lolol
The accusations of "too many" claiming to be neurodivergent honestly reminds me of being in middle school, and genuinely thinking that "too many" people were "claiming" to be gay. I was a kid and under the impression that being gay was really rare, and my friends that were coming out did seem to me to be in a "phase" of trying to be #different. Now, nearly 15 years later, not only am I sure everyone was definetely gay the whole time, but I'm gay. As gen Z grows up, it's clear that a much higher percentage of the population will identify as queer in some way if they are allowed to in society and grow up with a greater awareness. So while I might be off base, I wonder if something similar is happening. With a greater awareness of conditions like autism and ADHD, etc, or what we are currently calling those behaviors, maybe a lot of people have those conditions and our elders just didn't have the words or ability to identify as such. And now there is a social tension of "why are the kids all claiming to be x? back in my day, we weren't x, and being x is really rare, so you MUST be lying"
But, of course, my biggest regret when I did doubt my gay friends, is that I thought I had any right to make that call. The only person that knows someone is that person, and in life, I find it most rewarding to take people at their word when they are sharing something about themselves. That is who they are in that moment, and that's pretty neat.
That’s true but also, I am gen X and have always been pansexual demisexual. Now I have words to explain it.
@@CrazyCoon100so you're... pandemi?
This is exactly what i've been thinking tbh. Had a job interview and mentioned my ASD (Never do that, im stupid) and the guy wanted me to explain what it was and while i was describing it he'd very often go "Oh i have that, thats normal!". It was an older dude in his 60s. He was sure i was just "oversensitive" even though he had the same problems as me lol. I really think theres a huge amount of undiagnosed autistic people in the older generations. Hell I, myself, didnt know i was autistic till last year. I always knew i was "different" but i just thought i was nuts and masked more or less sub-conciously. I think thats the case for ALOT of people, they just think they're "Crazy" and can never talk about that. Probaly because of negative childhood experiences, thats what it was in my case at least. They just don't know enough about the topic to realize that they're not crazy, they're just different, and theres nothing bad about that. Getting diagnosed and learning more about the topic was a huge weight off my shoulders, for the first time in 10 years i felt actually valid and taken serious and didnt get laughed at just because i had trouble with things people consider "normal". I get depressed when i think about the fact that some people will never get that validation. I think the world needs a lot more awareness about Autism honestly. I dont think that would fix the problem completly but it would definetly help.
i did somehow get the job tho! :)
@@CrazyCoon100 that isn't unusual. What's weird is the need to label. Homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, asexual makes sense. But demisexual is just not even..
It's true though. I've seen forums where people put up lists of the symptoms and say "this is what you need to present" because they are so sure of their diagnosis.
I have MDD and OCD (diagnosed) and tics, anxiety, and show autism symptoms but i don't get myself checked for a diagnosis because it won't change anything
People forget that everyone has to self diagnose themself with something before getting checked and going through the process of actually being diagnosed. If you actually have a disorder you aren't just informed at birth, you or somebody around you has to say 'hey I think you have autism' or whatever else it is.
I think maybe there is a misunderstanding or difference in semantics. You don't need to self-diagnose to be seen for an issue. I can notice that I have sleep disturbance, lack of appetite, fatigue, and feelings of apathy but I don't need to insist that I have depression in order see a provider (these same symptoms could also be anxiety or some medical issue). I can just go in with list of my symptoms and see what they think. Issues can come up when I go in and having already decided that "I definitely have X".
@@Jacob-gm4hq I think I might have been lacking in braincells when I wrote that. Not too sure what I was thinking, I got diagnosed with autism after going to my GP about maybe having ADHD. Sometimes I think I just comment things to comment things that didnt even apply to me. Oops..
You’re such an incredible mind, i’m glad you’re here to share this information and help others visualize these concepts
Therapist here with diagnosed ADHD and undiagnosed/kind of diagnosed/maybekindasorta autism. Great video! Any kind of diagnosis, whether it’s self or professional can lead to overidentification and self victimizing from that diagnosis, the key is using that knowledge about yourself to make your life suit you better and stop living in hopeless cycles. If more people can do that I truly believe the world can be better for all marginalized groups. Unfortunately capitalism frames everything with scarcity and competition and if only the most privileged voices become the voice of neurodivergence we will just run into the same problems we always do with whiteness. Intersectionality is always imperative to any social movement
Also, there is literally a crisis going on among mental health research where we haven’t been able to replicate anything and it’s calling literally everything into question
Love this comment
@@hannahwankier7459 Thats worrisome!
edit: the research replication part not the part about you having ADHD just to clarify
I have never heard of this “replication crisis” before, but there’s a Wikipedia page on it and oh no….
Great comment 👏
Here fresh off hbomberguy's recommendation - oh my god, this is insanely good. My entire struggle with labels and identity feels so incredibly seen and validated. How did you put things into words this well, I can't even
The algorithm brought me here and I’m glad that it did. What a fantastic video. I also really love the production of it. The lighting is so so so sooooo cool.
I always put on this channel's video while doing a sewing project because i know i'll be sitting for a long while. I really appreciate the way Alex goes over a topic in different layers, getting into the epistemology and sociology of it, with knowledgeable research. This video made me especially pensive as someone who believes themself to be autistic but is not planning on seeking a formal diagnosis. So this was a really good deep dive into a relevant topic that has been emerging as a central cultural discourse. Thank you Alex!
I'm still in a really conflicted place when it comes to my relationship with autism. Explaining will inevitably turn into a novel, so I don't expect anyone to read all or even part of this, but... this is how it's gone for me:
When I was in the process of self-diagnosing, I became more and more sure of my autism. I went through all the stages and steps, the intense introspection and list-making, the memorizing of diagnostic criteria and the huge bursts of research into testimonials and blogs and videos, the tentative immersion into the culture/community, and I *certainly* took all the unofficial assessments available online.
After more false starts than I care to mention, I found (1) the type of professional ~qualified to diagnose me (no one told me it had to be a neuropsychologist until at least a year after I started looking), (2) a neuropsychologist who actually took my insurance, and (3) an opening in the doctor's schedule to finally, finally, *FINALLY* book an assessment.
And then......... I was diagnosed. Like, less than a week after the assessment. I was handed a paper that said "Yep, sure is Autism, congrats".
And that's when I started feeling less and less sure of my autism.
WHICH MAKES NO SENSE, LIKE C'MON, I JUMPED THROUGH ALL THE APPROPRIATE/NECESSARY HOOPS AND GOT THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST'S INK TO COALESCE INTO THE VALIDATING WORDS ON A PIECE OF PAPER SO IT MUST BE TRUE IT MUST BE TRUE IT MUST BE TRUE
RIGHT???
The little self-doubting gremlin sh-tf-ck who lives at the very bottom of my consciousness started telling me I had seriously overblown my very garden-variety and definitely not neurodivergent weirdness. It told me, whenever I didn't relate to particular lived experiences of other autistic people, that I must be an impostor. It told me that the doctor I saw was full of crap or didn't pay close enough attention or maybe super sucks at his job.
It's been over a year since my ~official diagnosis, and I still live in the dichotomy of absolutely loathing that I would go to such lengths to doubt myself after spending so much time and energy learning to understand myself, AND completely agreeing with the gremlin in my brain.
I still struggle to even say "I am autistic" with real conviction. And I kind of hate myself for it.
I'm only half joking when I say that impostor syndrome should be in the DSM criteria for autism. A fair number of autistic youtubers have talked about impostor syndrome in the context of "am I really autistic?", but impostor syndrome in *general* is a huge issue for us. We value truth and we like to see things done right, and we live in a society where "fake it till you make it" is a core cultural value. Having very high standards for others, we see liars and fakes around us everywhere, and with even higher standards for ourselves, in any career we choose, we're never sure that we aren't fakes ourselves, and if societal dishonesty rubs off on us in the slightest, we feel like liars too.
Is it any wonder we should feel imposter syndrome with regards to our autism?
Correct me if i'm wrong, but this feels to me more like you wanted an autism diagnosis to do something for you, somehow. like it would fix things, or give you a new path to improve yourself, and/or you wanted the world to acknowledge the part of you that was "different" by being able to give it a label.
And then you get the diagnosis, and come to terms with the fact that you've got a piece of paper and that's almost all it is. yay! a doctor signed something and your life remains the same.
It's certianly not like you're alone in that boat. Basically every autistic person I know is very guarded about it: they find it embarassing, or uncomfortable, not necessarily because of who they are but because of the fact that autism is still largely seen as an "illness" that's "uncurable" and as such they don't bring it up unless someone else mentions it first in a neutral/positive way. People who have autism but can pass as relatively (or completely) normal in social interactions don't want their behaviors forcefully attributed to autism, because it basically robs them of individuality all over again. "it's not their personality, it's autism's personality " type response.
I think people tend to misunderstand how powerful the word "spectrum" is in autism spectrum disorder. To be honest, even to the medical professionals, ASD isn't a disorder: it's everything left over when other, more well known disorders have been taken out. The criteria are basically "doesn't have a different developmental disorder but has social related developmental delays." People have spent almost 20 years trying to figure out the genetics of autism, and all they've really gotten is that nearly every person with autism is completely different from the rest, and yet somehow they share several similar behavioral patterns, and we don't have any idea why. If you don't realize this, an autism diagnosis seems like a step forward, like it would be if you got diagnosed with anxiety or depression, but it isn't because we just don't have that level of knowledge about ASD. So the diagnosis is more confirming something different is happening in your head in a pattern we recognize, but we don't understand the cause or the process or really even the pattern. The best anyone can do is help other things: treat any related mental illness someone might have, and therapy to improve social skills through brute force.
@@micah3807 I'm here to correct you. 👋🏻 I told multiple people in my life before the assessment and diagnosis that I was trying to understand myself to the best of my ability, and that was it. I'd arrived at what I saw as a reasonable conclusion, & wanted a professional to either confirm my conclusion, or explain how it didn't fit as well as [alternate explanation &/or diagnosis here].
Being labeled autistic doesn't fix anything for me (like Alexander said, it honestly creates several problems and barriers I didn't have before), doesn't illuminate a path to "improvement" (I'm not even sure what that means), and certainly doesn't give me the confidence needed to announce to the world that I have this "official" label. I never expected those things. I knew my life would remain the same. I wasn't seeking supports or accommodations, or therapy to "normalize" me. Just an answer.
I'm very loud about autism not being an ailment requiring a cure, and it doesn't rob me of individuality any more than my other diagnoses do. As for your personal musings on what autism is, or rather how *little* medical professionals actually understand about it, well. That's not something I can correct. It's your perspective. Correct yourself if feel you might be wrong, or simply carry on if you feel you're right.
Hmmm that sounds like good ol fashioned internalized ableism!
Disguised as imposter syndrome.
Have you read Autism Unmasked by Dr. Devon Price?
It really helped me see myself and validate my experience.
Helped a lot after the initial diagnosis.
@@margicates553 I don't *think* it's internalized ableism, but I can't claim to be immune to other forms if internalized ableism worming their way into my head despite my knowing on an intellectual level that they're wrong/harmful; for example, the idea that self-worth is tied to productivity. Like, if I'm not capable of producing goods, providing services, or selling my labor because I'm disabled (and I am disabled in multiple ways), then I feel like sh-t for being """useless""" even though I *know* the intrinsic value of any human life is not inextricably bound to utility, and I don't see others as """useless""" when they're in basically the same position as me.
I have that book! My roommate bought it for me after my diagnosis. My roommate's actually been the biggest advocate for my own self-acceptance through all of this.
When you said big changes were coming to the channel a while back, I wasn't expecting a complete anime-style transformation into Contrapoints-esque levels of style, substance, and nuance. Goddamn, man. You make it look effortless to be an effeminate bisexual trans guy (and I say that as an effeminate bisexual trans masc).
Great video! I like the careful line you draw between being socially constructed and not real, and how things like psychiatry have been used to dehumanize people. I also appreciate how many different angles you approach things from, including the philosophy of selfhood.
Been going through a diagnostic process for adhd where the therapist hit me with such bangers as "maybe the reason you're depressed is because you're single" (30 mins into our first session, when literally all I'd said on the topic was answering a question abt my marital status) and "but you can't have adhd, you got good grades in school." Met more than enough DSM criteria according to her own assessment, but she still didn't want to actually give me the dx. But yeah, no idea why people would feel the need to self diagnose.