I cannot stress enough that if you are an adult and you think you have autism, do not get an on the record diagnosis.
It is only filled with negatives. Not only will you likely NOT receive help, but that diagnosis can be used against you for pretty much anything besides getting a job, INCLUDING YOUR POTENTIAL CHILDREN.
That’s how I felt when I got diagnosed with severe anxiety.
“Well that explains it…FUCK! Now I have that to deal with. What do I do?”
Turns out being diagnosed with anxiety is anxiety fuel. There’s no help because it’s so personal. just someone adding on more shit to deal with and some generic advice that doesn’t really help.
Rejecting the diagnosis was a big part of overcoming it.
I don’t know about your experience, but anxiety is something every therapist is trained for. It’s extremely common and there are specific courses and school of thought for it. You can take dialectical behavior therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, and a lot more. There is help for people with anxiety.
It’s possible you may not be able to find affordable help. I was in that situation and couldn’t get help for years. All I know is that ignoring doesn’t help in the long run. My therapist taught me that the body remembers, which means the anxiety you feel will build up in the form of body stress and tension.
I know this post may cause more anxiety but i feel like i needed to make it because i don’t want people with anxiety to feel like they won’t have support to the extent of those with autism. The difference in support isn’t comparable. There are so many more resources for anxiety than autism.
Or the many people who have experienced doctors that’ll just prescribe some tablets that are very addictive/not for long-term use (benzodiazepines for example), or something that’s less effective at stopping anxiety symptoms such as hydroxyzine.
Good therapy is hard to come by, and even harder when you’re too anxious to seek it out, but it’s one of the only ways to get better, sadly there’s no magic pills for GAD yet.
From what i got to know, many people are now using some well-known but mostly criminalised (but now again put to clinical research) substances, in miniscule doses, successfully for anxiety relief. Of course, i can not directly recommend trying them as reactions, at least in large psychedelic doses, are widely unpredictable and i do not know about their use in general anxiety (although i’d love to know). Procurement will likely be illegal too, so one has to find a trusted source and should make use of test kits for purity testing. All i can say is that they are generally seen as non-addictive. We are adviced to do our own research, not least on their usefulness together with other medications (ie. neuroleptice, benzodiazepines, barbiturates).
Ah yes, the global mental health stigma that is very real and will not go away.
(ADHD here)
If I may ask, what sort of negatives could happen? How would the diagnosis be used against you in various situations? How would it be used against your children?
There are countries like New Zealand that won’t allow you to immigrate to their country if you have Autism. Now, while one might not particularly want to migrate to that specific country, that just displays what kind of stigma there is in the world against auts.
Ouch that’s ableist af… probably better not to move there anyway then IMO
Can’t speak for NZ. In Australia because we have healthcare and other benefits, the fear is that permitting non-working immigrants to become citizens will mean they are a net burden on the economy. Can’t let everyone in. Got to draw the line somewhere. It sucks for those that don’t pass the bar but if I were gatekeeping immigration I’d choose the subset most likely to make the country better; net contributors. Let me just say I’m not sure what our official policy is. I am just providing an opinion. I guess autism would be a red flag to an immigration official. If someone was autistic and contributing to the nation I personally wouldn’t have an issue. You can come hang.
I’m so sick of seeing this particular piece of misinformation, you absolutely can immigrate to New Zealand with diagnosed Autism.
Those restrictions essentially only apply to people who require full time carers (i.e. who need a large dollar amount of support needs, who can’t pay for it themselves).
Misinformation lol. It has nothing to do with whether they need full time care but how much monetary cost there is. $41k over a few years is the limit.
Your country denies entry to disabled people on the basis that they supposedly can’t bring in any value of their own. It’s a disgusting policy.
I think it’s more like, if you’re ever in a custody dispute your diagnosis can be used against you.
Sometimes I wonder if all the world’s medical books have a typo that says autistics turn normal or die at the age of 18.
More that our capitalist masters want us to be useful to them or not a burden, even if that means dying of starvation or exposure to the elements.
It’s not personal, since they dont care why you aren’t useful. If you were paraplegic or blind they’d want to toss you into a composting machine just as bad.
This is why I don’t bother. I put together a list of things that are typical signs that I have, just to convince myself. It’s actually a negative to get it officially diagnosed since then I’d be considered disabled for all the things that exclude disabled people, but not have any benefit since there’s pretty much nothing positive that is for autistic adults. Better to just keep masked in my public life. Other than social media, I’m not desperate to hide it or anything either.
Probably in the US there is no help, but in other countries, especially in Europe, there definitely is.
Well, it’s not much better in Germany tbh. Even getting diagnosed included enormous waiting times and most help afterwards is dedicated to make you able to be part of the workforce.
For most things, but ASD is still a work in progress.
Europe, specifically EU and the EEC, follow the World Health Organization. The medical sources for ASD will then be the ICD (International Classification of Diseases). This thing. It’s still basically on ICD version 10, which was written in the 1980s and first official version was released in May 1990. This classifies Autism as a disorder with “bizarre motor behavior and social coldness in children age 3 or below” and recommending “behavioral therapy” as a treatment. source. It also has Aspberger as “A childhood disorder predominately affecting boys and similar to autism”.
Anyway, WHO finally managed to move on up to officially adopt ICD 11 in 2022. This has a description of ASD that is more on the level of DSM-V and basic human fucking decency. Does that mean we are on ICD 11 now? Not really. Rollout takes time. National medical services have started making the localized versions needed for the ICD 11 to work in each country, along with translations etc. This is not in place everywhere yet.
Then there is doctors and psychiatrists who need to catch up to the changes. Specialits are very on the ball, fortunately, but General Practicioner doctors are not. Understandably so as they have “everything” they need to deal with and stay up to date on. It’ll take many years before a general doctor, general psychiatrist, or school nurse can be expected to understand ASD on a modern level.
What would exclude you by being diagnosed? Honest question.
In Norway, military service.
Is military service mandatory in Norway or is it voluntary?
It’s a weird mix of both. It’s mandatory conscription for 12 months after secondary high school, butttt the military haven’t been able to take in that amount of people since the 90s. So now they are so selective it’s effectively voluntary. People who want to go can’t if they don’t pass a bunch of tests.
I’m not autistic, do what services would you like to see?
You guys know that a lot of medications that target severe mental health issues are also used off label for autism right?
There are also therapists that specialize in adult autism. They are just less common.
This entire thread is just a shitty justification for not taking meaningful steps to treat your mental health issues.
EDIT: Honestly I think the real issue is that the vast majority of you are self diagnosed and looking for reasons to not see a doctor.
Or it could be that some folks live in areas with no access to mental health treatment. Even a diagnosis is a year long waitlist, costs a K and isn’t covered by insurance. Some us have also been seriously traumatized by therapists (conversion therapy for queer folks, ABA, being medicated inappropriately as a child…) Some states also maintain registries of folks with ASD and it can interfere with the ability to emigrate for example.
“Just go get mental health treatment!” Sounds great on paper, but for some of us it’s months of waiting to see the bottom of the barrel - brain drain is real in red states. My state is simultaneously trying to force therapists/mental health professionals to upload client notes to a government portal, while also attempting to put together lists of trans people.
Stop downvoting this dude - Yeah, they’re being offputting and shitty, and the tone seems to suggest the dysfunction in those who suffer from autism is somehow their own fault, but this is a valid opinion.
Shitty opinion to keep, but we should practice using our words to express displeasure instead of just downvoting - the votes mean nothing. Or atleast downvote and ALSO leave a reply. That way, someone reading this will see that there are people who cared enough to leave a comment.
You are correct that downvoting is kind of pointless.
On the other hand, there has been a bunch of accounts attending this forum lately which appear to act in bad faith (e.g. pathologising and not being interested in the ND point of view, stirring up emotions, sealioning). Interacting with such people will likely lead to a fruitless discussion that just draws energy. These people could look up the non-pathologising resources which were posted already if they were interested.We probably should be aware that there are indeed people who are really scared of any changes to their pathologic-normative competitive model of society. Scared so much that they will get to aggressive efforts to counteract any healing efforts. It probably boils down to the question, “what to do with cognitive dissonance?”
I’m now inclined to not argue/compete but just check someone’s sincerety by asking like, “what is your function in society and what would perhaps be your natural function according to your set of traits, and how can this serve a cure and sustainable future for human civilisation?” (thanks @BackOnMyBS@lemmy.world for originally posting this link)
Re-posting and amending this with my other account, as this is supposed to be the more lucid one.
… And yeah, i am aware that the OP account we are responding to has to date only made this single comment in this forum.
