ASD runs - or stampedes - in my family, but it never occured to my parents to have me tested, and my country is 25 years behind the curve on ASD anyway, so as long as I’m somewhat functional, it wouldn’t have registered.
Every single test I’ve grabbed out of DSM-5, ICD 10, ICD 11, or any of the online resources I can find, score “autistic af”.
And listening to autistic people, be it talks or youtube channels, always felt more like “yeah these are from my home planet”.
So on a personal level, I’m pretty much settled. It makes sense of my life, and gives me easier access to ways to cope with the world.
But I still want to have it clinically diagnosed. Largely for peace of mind - it would help me a lot to know for sure-sure - but also out of frustration, where I feel it would help others. There is too much stigma on ASD making people “big babies” who can’t adult and it makes me angry. As a functioning parent who handled being a ranger in the royal guard, held several different jobs, and have been a well-regarded manager, I want to show that fuck off you don’t get to infantilize ASD.
Hello and thank you for reading so far.
Due to a psychiatric health crisis, I’ve not been able to get any national health service to try to diagnose me. Basically since I am not a child, I am only eligible if my life is falling apart, no joke. Since I function, even sometimes just out of spite and alcohol, there is no help.
Is there any online service that does diagnosis, or similar? Doesn’t have to be free, just freaking available.
The answer is going to vary from country to country, as well as your spoken languages and what you want the evaluation for. You could reach out to a foreign professional to receive evaluation online, which would be medically legitimate, but might not be legally adequate in your country, depending on legislation. If you only want the evaluation to solve an existential question, and the issue you’re facing is that your local healthcare services are almost collapsed, this option would make sense for you.
Issues you might face: there are a lot of professionals who are supposed to diagnose ASD, but their training is insufficient or outdated. If you have been masking for your whole life up until now, chances are that many professionals will not identify you as autistic even if you actually are. If you’re looking for a psychologist or a psychiatrist in general, a lot of them will be mediocre, even moreso when dealing with anything statistically rare that they’re not specialized in. As if this wasn’t enough, many will have no issues lying to you about their experience.
My suggestion is that you seek recommendations from third parties who are likely to understand what you’re looking for and have no corporative interests. My initial option would be the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, but since it is a US-based organization, they will likely recommend you a US professional with US rates. If you’re fluent in Spanish, I could try and find a different option.
Thanks! I’m in Europe, so it’s probably a bit tricky to use US professionals aimed at US citizens. I do have some available here, they just didn’t give a strong first impression. Maybe I’ll have to get in touch with them and see if they are better than they make themselves look on their website.