Somtimes I wonder if this situation is becoming more common and therefore turning the entire diagnostic process and diagnosis into a joke.
It's probably also why plenty of people think that AS is a fad, and how it's something of this age. I'm not going disupte that AS is a thing, but I've read plenty of (angry) rants on how AS seems to reflect pretty much "counter-behaviour" to what society wants. And with that you can wonder who has and doesn't have autism and if the ones who don't have it, should be diagnosed by another doctor (since the first one might not recognize it) or if the autistic person actually is autistic at all and not just full of this behaviour that goes against society in general.
Yes, that's a tricky one... if diagnosis is made on the basis of examining behaviour patterns and there is no autism test as such, then any diagnosis is almost entirely a matter of the opinion of the clinician, and very subjective, some misdiagnoses are bound to occur. Unless they find some more concrete means of testing such as by examining MRI brain scan patterns, there will always be an element of doubt.
Yes, I feel this way about psychology in general. It's so subjective.
I mean, homosexuality was once in the DSM. Homosexuality is a behavior that went against past societal expectations, which made it considered to be abnormal. Plus, it could easily be argued that the defining traits of all illnesses and disorders in the DSM already exist within the general population to varying degrees. None of these traits are unique. What certain powerful people have decided to be considered unique are certain combinations of certain traits and certain patterns of traits.
I am distrusting of psychology for the very reasons I put in bold. It's just so subjective. And the way the clinician perceives your behavior could depend on a variety of uncontrollable factors. Human beings are too unpredictable and too contrary. People are like the weather. Meteorology, though fascinating, consists of mostly educated guesses. (Edit to clarify previous sentence) I think psychology is similar. Also, I have found, through research, that there are some clinicians who seem much too eager to give AS diagnoses while others hold very outdated, sexist, racist ideas about what kinds of individuals can even have AS (though this problem is not at all unique to AS diagnoses, but to the mental health field in general and possibly the medical field when we enter into problems regarding the diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, etc.)
What is given a diagnosis now (any diagnosis, not specifically AS-related) would have been perceived as "quirky," "head in the clouds", "melancholic", etc in the past. But, now, there are all these labels and boxes and thus limitations regarding what one can and can't become and experience. Yet, these labels can also help people have a socially acceptable explanation for not fitting into the standard boxes of society. The benefits neutralise the negatives and vice versa. I don't know. My thoughts on this are not very clear. I think unfortunately, one will always need a set of socially-acceptable excuses for not conforming to societal expectations. Even becoming a hermit is a socially-acceptable excuse. I think that is why there is a name for it.
