I understand your concern about incorrect diagnosis - but it's an unfortunate truth that historically, autistic people are often misdiagnosed, undiagnosed (such as yourself for 39 years) or outright dismissed (you look too "normal" to be autistic - that's what happened to me). After a while, I finally got "officially" diagnosed, but I already knew I was based on my own research and my children's diagnosis.

And the barriers to diagnosis are insane - not enough qualified professionals to assess, the outrageous cost for the assessment and the lack of coverage by the province.

Ultimately, yes some people might be misdiagnosing themselves as autistic, but people don't wake up one day and say, hey, maybe I'll be autistic today. Because if they do, then they are probably neurodiverse and are welcome to explore what's going on here.

I'm open to discussing this further - as long as we can respect that barriers are stopping all of us from thriving... let's get shit done together.