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Autism's confusing cousins

(www.psychiatrymargins.com)
350 points Anon84 | 5 comments | 06 Dec 25 11:18 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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ryukoposting ◴[06 Dec 25 13:22 UTC] No.46173160[source]▶
If you think you (or a loved one) may have a psychological condition, go to a psychologist and get a screening. The diagnosis isn't the important part. The value is in the 20-something pages of detailed analysis by a professional.

At a bare minimum, it will give you a fresh perspective on things you already knew. In my experiences, there will be things you didn't realize about yourself.

They aren't going to tell you what the solution is to all your problems; that's for you and your doctor to figure out. They will give you everything you need to make well-informed decisions, and that's priceless.

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thayne ◴[06 Dec 25 20:29 UTC] No.46176359[source]▶
The problem is such screenings are incredibly expensive (at least in the US), and for things like ADHD or Autism, you need a specific screening that is often even more expensive.
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1. xgulfie ◴[06 Dec 25 22:03 UTC] No.46176972[source]▶
And even then if you get an autism diagnosis as an adult, this report is effectively all you get, there are no medicines or treatment options that this opens up afaict.
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2. thayne ◴[07 Dec 25 00:22 UTC] No.46178003[source]▶
You may be able to get accommodations from your employer. Maybe.
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3. joquarky ◴[07 Dec 25 01:33 UTC] No.46178418[source]▶
Nope, I've been architecting, creating, and maintaining web apps since 1996 (most recently 12 years at an S&P 500 company), but I can't do live coding interviews to save my life.

Nobody will accommodate me in two years of job searching. They don't deny me outright, they just ghost me if I ask to do a "take home" or any other alternative.

4. ryukoposting ◴[07 Dec 25 02:59 UTC] No.46178777[source]▶
Here are a few ideas to get you started: My spouse's paperwork has helped us change habits around the home to better fit their needs. They're getting better at self-advocacy, in part because it's easier to articulate what exactly feels wrong. Their quality of life was directly improved because we read the paperwork together, and took action based on it.
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5. Telaneo ◴[07 Dec 25 03:56 UTC] No.46179033[source]▶
This is something you can do with a self-diagnosis. If reading the literature on autism gives you processes that improve your life, you don't need the diagnosis to confirm that. The life improvements were the end-goal in the first place.

This kind of presupposes that you have suspicions about autism rather than just something in general. If you think you have autism, you're can target that literature anyway regardless of the diagnosis, while if you have no concrete suspicions, you'll be firing blind, and probably miss a lot more than if you could nail it down to one diagnosis.

By the time I got mine, I didn't need the processes, since I'd figured those out by myself, so the diagnosis is just a nice piece of paper pointing to a road I've already walked.

For ADHD though, that story is very different, since step zero there really should be medication,[1][2] and that is locked behind a diagnosis.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2515906/

[2] https://borretti.me/article/notes-on-managing-adhd