I’m asking because I’m suspicious I might have autism but I cannot access a psychiatrist.
If I do self diagnose and no matter how much evidence I find that I have autism at the end of the day I don’t know that for a fact.
So if I go around claiming I’m autistic when I don’t even know for a fact I am, it feels extremely disrespectful to people with autism right?
It’ll be even worse if I do get access to a psychiatrist and they tell me no I’m not and I’m just weird or something.
EDIT: I don’t want to reply to everyone one by one but I do wanna say thank you for everyone’s kind and helpful answers. I appreciate it.
Depends, self diagnosing seems extremely challenging and introduces doubts and bias so it can’t be 100% accurate. Which an outside perspective can help with.
I’ve done [insert] my whole life so it’s normal.
I found out [insert] isn’t normal and common in autism.
I look into autism. Oh but I don’t do all those other things.
Maybe me doing [Insert] is just me being weird but I don’t have autism!
After a few weeks I find out another [insert] that I do is also common in autism. Cycle repeats.