Aspies For Freedom

I'm all for a peer review system. I don't know if it is feasible though. We'd have to figure out what being an aspie really means in order to begin to come up with a system for it.

I hadn't thought about AS being used as an insanity defense. I don't think that would be reasonable, to me it would be on the same level as: "I'm an angsty artist, and no one liked my work. I just wasn't with it when I killed my publicist". However, I don't agree with insanity defenses anyway.

I find it odd that the other thread didn't ever explain why self-diagnosis was bad. Rather they seemed to assume it was obvious. I agree that an incorrect self-diagnosis could be detrimental to the individual. But I don't see how that pollutes the forum or causes difficulties for activism.

I call myself 'self diagnosed AS'
I was told by my mother that I didn't speak until I was three years old & then spoke in complete sentences, so I suppose it should be Kanner's.
I could not relate to / understand other people from a very young age & in real life still can't.
I still do not understand innuendo, unless it is VERY obvious.
I did have social anxiety, but they never managed to cure it.
I became agoraphobic along with the social anxiety.
I am so many things that fit the spectrum, that it would take pages to list them all.
I can't understand why there should be a problem with self diagnosis.

For me the only benefits are that at last life makes sense.
I have found a place where I can be me ( here ) & be accepted ( even if I do say daft things sometimes ), I have NEVER had that & words can't explain how happy I am to feel a part of a community.

Tigger says it as it is & I DO know more about my illness than any GP & most specialists, because I'm the first one that they have ever come across.

Most GP's in my area know very little about Autism  & don't want to.
When the Educational psychologist said that my son had AS, I had to go through the GP to obtain the official diagnosis.....the GP's response "I can't see how him having a label will help."

I can be incredibly thick at times.

Are you saying that the understanding that you have gained is more important than the diagnosis?
If so I agree, & it must be the understanding which often helps us to manage some of our difficulties.

I think that it's highly likely that you are right & I identify fully with this.

Also many self diagnosed are older,( some very much older ) than the officially diagnosed, have puzzled about things & likely thought that there was something wrong for many years.

To finally find an answer... that we just have different wiring often comes as huge relief.

In the United States (and in other English-speaking countries), there are excellent government resources to help get training for a excellent job with benefits, job searching, unemployment benefits, and mental health treatment.

But I know that the United States is going to demand a reason to spend money on anyone's behalf.

Bingo, a diagnosis.  Sorry.

Otherwise you'll be on a list of kinds of people a lot of conservatives hate: illegal aliens who steal public resources, welfare cheats who steal government resources, people claiming to have a disability.....

They will say their taxes are too high or that taxes punish the desire to invest or that we have a national debt or this year's budget deficit or God forbid we accidentally helped someone who didn't really need help.  Tounge in cheek.

It is bad enough as it is: Make sure people really need help, and maybe we will help most of them, and a few will fall through the cracks already.

Yes, we are different, even gifted in many cases.  My extended family, paternal extended family, follows the Wired Magazine Geek Syndrome article genotype: the family type with Asperger symptoms and excellent abilities in math science and computer programming, but also difficulties attracting women for relationships.   I emphasize the gifted and really gloss over the challenges.

Gifted:

     Uncle 1: chemist.  Masters or near-Masters.

     Uncle 2: math instructor, middle or high school.  Masters.

     Dad: writer/editor, history enthusiast, unusual degree of honesty, loyalty, patriotism, and good citizenship.  Near Masters.

     Brother: First a computer programmer (C++,COBOL,Oracle,SQL,Pascal,C) recently a server side Web developer (PHP, ColdFusion).  Between 1 and 2 semesters of college, essentially self-taught and then learned on the job.

     Myself:  Server side Web developer with rare computer programming (usually Visual BASIC on Access or Excel).  Masters in social science research (a goal-oriented methodological occupation like computer programming), rescued by Maryland vocational rehabilitation in computer programming (22 credit hours undergraduate certificate)

Challenges (glossed over)

We all see the world differently than NTs do.  There is nothing wrong with that.  We pay more attention to the central and direct meaning of something rather than its hidden or indirect (nonverbal) meaning and take it seriously.

In my family's case, only my dad married on schedule (within cultural norms, about age 26.  The only other male family member listed to marry at all was the math teacher, and he married in his early 60s.  The other uncle, age 64, and my brother and I, ages 37 and 35, are all never married)

I am simply willing to say that our kind of gifted is unacceptable to so many NTs that we are single for such a long time.  Whether or not weight makes a difference I do not know.

If I was 168 pounds, would I still be invisible to women?  God, I wish I knew.

I think people are entitled to be skeptical of self diagnoses (it's a simple fact that most people will not be qualified to make diagnoses), but that's not any good reason to exclude them from sites like this.

Welcome to the boards, pop. :3

Heh.  My teacher just tied me into the chair to "remind" me not to get up. I don't suppose public school teachers would get away with bondage these days.

...

*has been advoiding this thread*

My 2 cents.

First of.. I was given the "diagnosis" not the autism myself. In all honestly I didn't want it. I hate the lable. But I've learn to accept it. If you guys want a reason, fine. I want don't fight with all the self-dx'ers because thats whats the primary pop is here.

You guys happy with your own "self-DX" fine.

I rather have the opinion of a professional then my own biase. Or a stranger really.

I don't want to fight don't turn my words into a argument.

I just gave my reason.

I'm so glad the "psychologist" who told me all my social problems were caused by me being fat and ugly "went to school for years"... nobody can be that big a ****wit WITHOUT training.

And my point, which you have ignored, is that I've visited a few "highly trained professionals" who completely missed that I was autistic.  These "highly trained professionals" were incapbable of diagnosing me.

Some people don't NEED a diagnosis on a bit of paper to justify their existence.  It's nobody's business but theirs.

Agreed, Ethel.
Also, I just read this (quote below) from another thread. Am I allowed to connect thready ideas-it seemed so fitting after reading through the posts in this particular thread.
( er.. I often don't overly care what's 'allowed' but thought I'd ask anyway)

I also like DW_a_mom's post (184)  

Bureaucratic help does require an official dx, especially with this President.  G-d forbid they accidentally help someone who didn't need help.  Is better to deny help to 9 people than accidentally help 1.

What really IS S.T.U.P.I.D is protracting this endless *** debate.  It's just going round and round in circles.  If Aspie can't even agree with Aspie, what hope do we have of presenting a united front to the rest of the world?

OK, so some random guy on the internet is a self diagnosed Aspie.  That's his choice, and it doesn't affect anyone else.   If someone with an offical diagnosis thinks that makes them righteous, feel as righteous as you want, but respect others' decisions to live their life the way they want.