• she/her

healthcare bureaucrat in philly, v adhd, orthodox jew, ect ect, im love my wife



numberonebug
@numberonebug

A podcast I like is Oh No Ross and Carie, where they go and actually try out esoteric or outlandish things (joining scientology or Mormonism, drinking their own pee or taking homeopathy, looking for aliens or ghosts, ect) to give it a fair shake. Really interesting stuff

Their most recent episode involved trying the Autism Quotient Test and discussing in general different self assessments and the role that self assessments play in getting help and oh! turns out one of the hosts actually scores weirdly high on the test! they then went and got formally diagnosed and are recording the episode some four months later after piecing everything back together

It all has me really second guessing the assessment I got. That process involved being on a wait list for a year, then tested over six months, just to be told "you have autistic traits, but you also have adhd traits and that's more treatable so that's what I'm diagnosing you with". At the time I more or less shrugged and was like alright you're the expert here

But learning that the AQT is actually pretty well validated, isn't just some random internet test, and learning more about the subject and that hosts experience, has me very hm. Considering that I reliably, every time I take the test, years ago and several times today, score between 32-36, it's a hm

The thing that has me HMMM is when the host said "yeah at first I'd been told I had ADHD, so I tried adding variety and novelty to my life, tried doing all these things I was told would help, and I ended up just exhausted and confused instead" like! That's such a gut punch it's so relatable

Idk idk. There is no way to get a second opinion in my city so a formal diagnosis would have to wait until after we move, but maybe I can start trying to go off the working theory that I'm autistic and see if any of the adjustments help. probably wouldn't hurt


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in reply to @numberonebug's post:

hell yeah hell yeah. fwiw, in the experience of most people ive talked to trying to get a formal dx has been worse than useless, either bc the testers out and out refuse to follow the results if you don't "seem autistic" to them, or are using outdated criteria. ppl read over their report and are like 'this is completely inaccurate, i did not say that, i said the opposite' etc etc. even ppl who have gotten a dx were not offerred any useful supports afterwards, and everything they learn that is actually helpful came from other Autistic ppl.

i like Dr. Devon Price's reframing replacing the word "self-diagnose" with the word "self-realize". you really really supremely do not need a formal diagnosis to validate something you can figure out about yourself. sry if this is rambly, i just woke up from a nap and i feel v strongly abt this

I hope your nap was good and I'm super grateful to hear what you feel strongly about! Thanks for writing so much. I'll keep that in mind, there's so much to learn. For me a diagnosis would be a reassurance, I certainly don't think I could wear this on my sleeve without one, and the ability for getting systemic support if things ever got bad would, idk, it'd be nice to know I could. But I do recognize that currently it wouldn't be worth much

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