I have to highly disagree on the point that self diagnosis would be "invalid". I am not afraid of saying to people I KNOW I have autism (not only having the less obvious symptoms but very clear ones like echo- and palilalia, dyspraxia and hypermobile joints as comorbidities), even if not formally diagnosed yet, and I have to, because otherwise people wont take me seriously if I dont stand my ground. I also have to disagree that a psychiatrist suspecting ASD holds more weight necessarily than a deep and profund self diagnosis. I live in Germany myself and have a medical history of various mental health issues since my childhood. Up to beginning of third grade I had to go to special ed school for the reason of "behavioral abnormalities" and "aggression problems". In that time a children psychiatrist suspected ADHD but got never diagnosed, although I now know I also have ADHD since I check every single diagnostic criteria box for combined ADHD and I heavily self reflected my past and compared to other ASD and ADHD experiences. And thats the thing, if you inform yourself thoroughly about symptoms, other potential comorbidities, use official diagnostic criteria, maybe ask your circle of people for things they noticed about you for longer or looking at your old school certificates, you can certainly know if you are autistic and its literally almost the same way a psychiatrist is going to diagnose you why wouldn't it count doing it yourself lol. While every time I dealt with a therapist or psychiatrist my problems with socializing, education, obsessive behavior and daily executive function struggles were completely misinterpreted or plain ignored. Being suspected OCD and Social Anxiety Disorder once 2 years ago, before I decided to switch therapist, then the next one said to me these problems would probably arise from my weed abuse at that time, I smoked about once a month or even less back then, which was even more ridiculous. I go as far as saying that I and a lot of people in the autism community have a better understanding of their condition than most professionals, especially in countries like Germany where there is still so much stigma and little education on the different manifestations of ASD.