Masha du Toit

Autistic self diagnosis is valid.

That’s not just a polite way to say “we will hesitantly accept self diagnosis while holding our noses” it means that you can accurately diagnose yourself as autistic.

The autistic diagnosis process is highly subjective and the reason why it requires a trained and experienced professional, is because the things that differentiate autistic traits from the traits of mental health conditions are very difficult to determine from the outside.

It’s the internal experience of these traits that determines what they are, and it’s difficult for a person to accurately judge another person’s internal experience.

You don’t have that problem. You have direct access to your own internal experience.

Getting an official diagnosis can be useful if you need accommodations for work or school, or if you won’t feel confident that you really are autistic without the validation of an official diagnosis.

Some people find an official diagnosis reassuring, some carry on doubting that they are “really autistic” even with an official diagnosis, so it really depends on your needs.

Some people hope a diagnosis will convince their family to take them seriously and believe that they are autistic. That doesn’t always work out, as people have an apparently infinite capacity to resist believing uncomfortable truths.

It’s also possible that you may be autistic, and still not get an accurate autism diagnosis because the diagnostic process is deeply flawed, especially for adults, people who were assigned female at birth, people who were assigned male at birth but don’t fit the masculine stereotype, and people who are not white.

If you just need to know whether or not you are autistic, the alternative to an official diagnosis, is informed self diagnosis. That is, doing your own research, and if you feel you need an outside perspective, consulting a therapist who is knowledgeable about neurodivergent people.

The University of Washington Autism Center says:

In our experience at the University of Washington Autism Center, many professionals are not informed about the variety of ways that autism can appear, and often doubt an autistic person’s accurate self diagnosis.

In contrast, inaccurate self-diagnosis of autism appears to be uncommon. We believe that if you have carefully researched the topic and strongly resonate with the experience of the autistic community, you are probably autistic.

If you want to learn more, here is an article that explains different aspects of self-diagnosis.

And to end with, a quote from Embrace Autism about Autistic self doubt and Autistic Imposter Syndrome:

We are lateral thinkers. Our superior lateral abilities generate multiple relevant possibilities for any problem. So we hypothesize what we might actually be and come up with many alternatives. Even if autism perfectly describes us, we may still have doubts because some of our behaviors can be attributed to other conditions.