I used to believe that if i couldn’t understand my-self, perhaps someone more familiar with my experiences could. I still do (to a degree), but now i put more belief in my ability to gain self-awareness and the power that that self-awareness has in helping me find the support i need.

Although it may also come from a place of ignorance and/or misguidance, i believe the field of psychology wields diagnostic authority as a means of harnessing and maintaining control of power (or, fighting for its image of “scientific legitimacy”). Ever since i can recall, the field has taught me to refrain from self-diagnosis, insinuating that licensed clinicians can not only better diagnose me but do so without any personal experience of my challenges.

I now see how wrong (and dangerous) that rhetoric is.

Self-diagnosis has become prevalent among autists, largely (i think) due to the prevalence of under/misdiagnosis. The lack of autists diagnosing autists, coupled with the prevalence of under/misdiagnosis, seems to me to demonstrate the dangerous, concrete impacts that wielding diagnostic authority results in.

Further to this point, autism is becoming viewed by the newest wave within the neurodiversity-movement as an identity rather than a dis-order, suggesting that self-diagnosis can be a positive, novel way to identify as autistic without the pathological stigma that too often accompanies allistic (mis)diagnoses.

As a White, verbal, middle-class, diagnosed autist (and skeptic) navigating the neurodiversity-movement and autist-held concepts of self-diagnosis for the first time, i wondered whose perspectives were being considered when it comes to who is “allowed” to identify as neurodiverse. Could any of my actions in identifying with this movement be upholding institutions of White supremacy?

In my research, i did find that a decent amount of people (autistic and non) disagree with the implications of the neurodiversity-movement’s paradigm, arguing that the movement’s decision to de-identify with dis-order over-looks others on the spectrum and revokes any freedom to identify with autism as a dis-order.

The critiques i found misunderstand (from my perspective) the rhetoric coming from the movement, however, which as i understand it positions disability as the direct object of identity in de-identifying with the much-stigmatized word dis-order, originating from the medical-model. These critiques also seem to only come from perspectives of more-privileged, less-marginalized autists such as my-self (i.e. White, verbal, cis- and straight-passed, diagnosed, etc.) or non-autists (i.e. parents with autistic children).

Having a relative understanding now of these perspectives and the ways in which they agree and disagree in theory, it seems (to me) that their sentiments are actually more-or-less the same: all autists should have the right to self-diagnose, all autists should have the right to identify as disabled, and all autists should be accommodated equitably. The neurodiversity-movement seems to be the only side in the debate acknowledging these similarities, however.

Those opposed to this movement appear to have (incidentally or not) created a false-dilemma wherein to celebrate “different-ability” is to leave no space for those who identify as disabled. As a privileged, White person, it is disappointing and saddening to see that privilege and Whiteness are (from what i’ve read) the only forces preventing (via fallacy, no-less!) a greater social paradigm shift regarding autism, neurodiversity, and disability from taking place.

Of course it is non-sense to believe that disability cannot be both celebrated and accommodated! This fallacy must be extinguished and forgotten.

It also highlights what i like to call the paradox of pathology as it pertains to autism: that to celebrate autism as a (self) diagnosable identity is to uphold the medical-model’s pathologization and misguided (mis)conceptions of autism. In other words: if you want to self-diagnose, you implicitly agree your behavior is pathological by relying on the medical-model’s definition of autism.

Clearly this is incorrect, as there are many people who publicly identify as autistic and not dis-ordered; the paradox is maintained, however, by the power rooted in psychology’s alarmist rhetoric that self-diagnosis is irresponsible because it “opens the flood-gates”, expanding symptom criteria to the point that something can no longer be considered pathological by definition.

This rhetoric fears the idea of autist-defined autism; it fears the idea of losing unilateral control to define and pathologize human beings. It also hints at psychology’s biggest (in my opinion) flaw: that it is possible many criteria sets viewed as “dis-ordered” today may in fact be more prevalent, natural, and/or broadly defined than we currently understand.

I, for one in a position of great privilege, am choosing to be on the right side of history here, which is to say that i am partial to the message of the contemporary neurodiversity-movement, that i recognize the ableism inherent to the view of self-diagnosis being “irresponsible”, and that only when every autist is viewed as having the right to self-diagnose will we all truly have that right.

The message of the neurodiversity-movement seems (to me) to be to appreciate, identify with, and de-stigmatize disability (as opposed to dis-order); that, by “framing autism as a disability that deserves support and reasonable accommodations“, everyone on the spectrum benefits.

Because diagnoses are more accessible to wealthy, White autists, accommodations are more accessible to them as well. If we reduced the stigma (i.e. lift the psychological facade) behind self-diagnosis, we would allow more autists access to accommodations, while those with the privilege to receive diagnoses would still be just as well-off.

I am grateful for my diagnosis and the positivity it has afforded me, both in terms of mental improvement and in accommodations, and i also recognize that, in this society, having access to such a diagnosis is a privilege when it should be a right.

In conclusion: self-diagnose! I think we all deserve to self-diagnose in avoiding allistic/pathological influence, but those without access to an “official” diagnosis especially deserve to, and they deserve to be accommodated and respected for their disability.

As an “officially”-diagnosed autist who believes in the legitimacy of self-diagnosis, i intend to wield my privilege to fight for an end to ableism in psychology, an end to accommodations gate-keeping, and an end to the disproportionate marginalization of poor autists and Autists of Color.

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Thoughts? Leave a comment; start a conversation! Thank you for reading.