Is Autism Self-Diagnosis Valid? A Very Long Thread

TL, DR: Yes. It’s valid.

Now for the long version: there are some folks on Twitter that say that some of us have no right to claim we are #ActuallyAutistic without an official diagnosis by a medical authority of some kind.

There are some problems with this mentality. One of the biggest is that some of us simply do not have adequate access to the formal diagnostic process. There are many things that can affect access:
lack of financial resources, social anxieties or phobias —

— which may make it difficult to persist in going to offices and clinics that may be frightening, some of us may have trauma that makes it difficult to approach these places at all.

Some of us may have had specific negative experiences with the medical community already, we may have lost valuable trust, & we might feel discouraged from even trying to obtain a diagnosis for this reason.

Not to mention there might also be sensory issues associated with medical facilities and government institutions (waiting rooms can be an ordeal in themselves, sensory-wise!)