Every single thing I've read about getting an official autistic dx (from other autistic people who have gone thru that process) has me feeling incredibly lucky.
And I wanna talk about it!
#ActuallyAutistic 1/

So! Listed in this thread are the various things that make it difficult for #ActuallyAutistic to get an official diagnosis, that I have somehow miraculously gotten past. 2/

1) I'm AFAB. AFAB - Assigned Female At Birth - people (and trans women!) are far less likely to be diagnosed than AMAB people and trans men. Largely because the diagnoses criteria has been based on traits that the latter expresses.
3/

2) The psychologist who evaluated me is autistic, herself.
4/

3) I was able to afford the diagnosis on my own with no outside help, without health insurance. In the US, of all places. It was expensive!! (And the circumstances that allowed me to afford it were not what I would call normal. No, I don't want to talk about it.)
5/

4) I was able to get a diagnosis on my first try. Many, many officially diagnosed autistic people do not get that luxury, and it may take multiple evaluations from different psychologists to get that dx.
I shudder to think how much more $$ I would've spent otherwise
6/

5) In line with the previous tweet, it only took me about 7 months to get a dx. Most of that was spent waiting for the first appointment to come around. There are so many people who get put on waiting lists for MUCH longer than that.
7/

So to those officially diagnosed autistic people - and especially allistic people who claim to be allies - who look down on self-diagnosed autists: please keep these things in mind before judging. Please just give people the benefit of the doubt. 8/8