= So at the end of the day, the clear answer
(ball thuds) to whether a self-diagnosed aspie should seek an official
diagnosis is, maybe. Hi everyone, welcome to this
month's Patrons Choice video and the topic you have
chosen this month is the pros and cons of
seeking an adult diagnosis. It's quite a hotly debated
topic precisely because there are so many adults on the spectrum who are self-diagnosed and therefore don't see a need to have or even seek out an official diagnosis, and so, while a lot of people would say, yeah, a diagnosis is great;
you should definitely do it, there's also quite a lot who would say, why would you bother? It's a complete waste of time. So if you think you're on the spectrum and you're not very sure,
or maybe you are sure of your own self-diagnosis but you're thinking
of, is it worth looking to get an official diagnosis? Then this video should answer some of those questions for you. So I've never heard a
consensus on this issue so what that tells me is that the answer as to whether you should seek
an official diagnosis or not is completely dependent on
your own personal situation. So hopefully this video
will give you some idea of the things to think about and consider when making that decision 'cause
there are a lot of things. I jotted some of them down
before but it wasn't possible even to list all of
them so I'll go through as many as I can today and we'll cover the main ones, at least. So if I had to summarize
this particular issue, I'd say that there are
many benefits in getting an official diagnosis; however, there are also a lot of
costs to you as a person in terms of time and money,
and all of that kind of stuff. So what you're trying to do is weigh up, is it worth the time and
money for you personally? So I've written up a
couple of points here, and I might go through the cons first and then show what the benefits are that offset these kind of costs. And then finally, I'll
talk a little bit about how self-diagnosis is an option and you get some of these pros but not all of them, and
anyway, so we'll get there. So some of the costs involved
that can be quite significant are time, could be
months, generally months, can be years sometimes,
depending on the situation. Money, we're talking of the order of thousands of dollars;
that's obviously depending on your personal situation and it might vary a lot
between different countries and things like that. And I've also mentioned energy, stress, and emotions.
(ball thuds) And the reason I put that there is because this is a significant process and the whole thing can take quite a toll in terms of energy and personal resources, so just thinking about, how
do I find a psychologist? When do I find time to do this? How much do I wanna research? How do I know if the
psychologist is good or not? Am I going to trust their diagnosis? How many times do I need to see them? How much do I need to pay? Can I even afford to see them, 15 times? I was only budgeting
to see them five times. I was hoping to get a diagnosis this year; it turns out it's gonna
be more than six months, maybe more than 12 months.
(ball thuds) So there can be quite a
big cost involved there, so that's one significant
thing to consider. I've also mentioned mandatory disclosure, and what I mean by that is, if there's something on my medical record, there could be times when I'm
required to disclose that, which might not necessarily
be in my interests. And going along with that, if I had something on my medical record and I did not tell someone, I would feel like I was hiding something and I personally wouldn't
be okay with that, so that's another thing to consider. How having an official
diagnosis will affect when and how you disclose to other people. I've got risk of misdiagnosis,
so that is because psychologists are human
and not everyone has a lot of experience with
autism, especially with adults, and especially, especially
with women on the spectrum so if someone is not
particularly experienced or just doesn't get you personally, then there is the chance
of a misdiagnosis there and unfortunately, I've
heard lots of stories of people going sort of round and round from psychologists to other people, to sort of getting
bounced back and forward until they finally, finally
get the diagnosis that really lands and you say, right, everything makes sense now. But it can take a while. So the last one I've mentioned is kind of a catch-all
for a bunch of things and I'm gonna explain this
that the diagnosis itself doesn't actually change anything, right? You're still the same person the split second before
and the split second after. So if you are hoping that a diagnosis is going to solve a
particular problem for you maybe it will, but maybe it won't. So there is a risk that
if there's not enough support around a diagnosis, then, great, I've got this piece of paper and now what? And there can be a fallout there if there's not much followup. And that can be dangerous
because there is still quite a stigma attached to autism so especially if this is
the whole idea of autism and the idea that you are
on the autism spectrum is really new for you, that can be a lot going on and it's
really important to have the support of others who
can adequately understand what you're going through. So I'll give you an example
of the kind of problem that an official diagnosis might not solve and that could be acceptance
from friends or family for example, so if I am self-diagnosed and I say to my family, I have Asperger's they might say, well, do you
really or are you just crazy? Whereas I have a piece of paper and I say, hey, family, I have Asperger's; look, this psychologist did six
months' worth of testing and I paid thousands
and thousands of dollars and now I've got this piece of paper, (ball thuds) that might not necessarily
solve the problem because it's still possible
for people to dismiss it. So what I'm saying with this is that there are other things
that are also important that need to go along with the diagnosis because a diagnosis in itself is not gonna magically fix everything. Okay, so, that said,
there are a lot of things that a diagnosis can help with so some of the advantages
that you can only get with an official diagnosis are things like it makes advocacy easier if you're working with a company or the
government or something and you are saying, no, seriously, I am actually autistic;
look, piece of paper, you can't ignore me, that kind of thing. It can also be helpful to go through an official diagnosis process to identify if there are any other psychological or mental health conditions that you might have along
with Asperger's or autism and that could significantly
improve the quality of mental health care that might be available to you in that case compared to if you didn't realize that there was more to the story than just Asperger's, for example. It can give you, yourself,
a sense of certainty that you're not crazy, you're not alone, finding other community members, knowing that, yes, I am
definitely on the spectrum. For me, the certainty
that I was on the spectrum allowed me to focus my energies a lot more and to be confident
identifying as an aspie and confident talking to
others from my own experience without that fear that, well, maybe I am, maybe I'm not, maybe I should
say this, maybe I shouldn't. So an official diagnosis
could help confirm that within yourself so that you are able to access those kind of
communities and support groups. Having an official diagnosis can give you a clearer path forward in terms of, great, I'm on the spectrum, what next? Or, alternatively, maybe
you don't need that. I was the kind of person
who didn't need permission to go to the next step. I was attending support group meetings. I was reading up everything
that I could possibly get my hands on well before I finally made an appointment to see my doctor. (ball thuds) Another advantage could be that while there's typically not a lot of help in terms of government
funding and assistance, and things like that for
adults on the spectrum, there might be some and
depending on your situation there might be something
that's significant for you that's worth doing. Often getting a final decision helps with the acceptance process so regardless of whether you see yourself being on the spectrum as
a positive thing or not coming to terms with that reality can be made a lot easier if
there is a final decision. It's reasonably common
for there to be a bit of a denial period and if you've got a firm
answer that you can't ignore then that can make that process go through a bit quicker sometimes. I found that just having
a label that explained so much about my life was really helpful. It meant two things. It meant I wasn't crazy and
it meant I wasn't alone. So that allowed me to find other people who've had similar experiences for me. It allowed me to join online communities and meet people in real life and get those kind of supports that I would never have had access to if I wasn't sure I was on the spectrum. So if it takes an official diagnosis for you to be sure you're on the spectrum then maybe that's what you need. So at the end of the day, the
answer to the question of, should a self-diagnosed aspie seek an official diagnosis,
answer is a clear, maybe because there are some things that an official diagnosis can help you with but at the same time,
depending on who you are and depending on what you want out of having a diagnosis and knowing that you're on the spectrum, then (ball thuds) maybe it wouldn't give
you very much at all. So I guess my final message is that a diagnosis is not the be-all-and-end-all, which means that, regardless of whether you have one or not,
there's lots of other stuff you can be doing in terms of learning about yourself, learning about autism, learning about others, seeking support from family or friends, or psychologists or all of that kind of stuff doesn't hinge on whether you have a diagnosis or not. So I would definitely recommend that if you are looking to do
some self-improvement, if you are looking to
learn more about yourself or just keep going down this path of asking yourself the
question, am I on the spectrum? Then keep going with that path and maybe one day it
will lead to a diagnosis but if it doesn't, then that's okay, too. So hopefully this little discussion has been helpful for you in considering whether an official diagnosis is right for you.
(ball thuds) And if you'd like to choose the topic of next month's Patrons Choice video you can become a Cup of Coffee supporter of this channel for less
than a dollar a week. So that's a great way to get involved if you'd like to support
(ball thuds) the creation of more
free videos like this. Thanks for watching.
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