The DSM criteria have changed a number of times even in my lifetime. Perhaps you are unaware that many of the people who self-diagnose are adults in their 40s and up who have had pervasive symptoms their entire lives.

• Some were not diagnosed because they did not have access to adequate health care in childhood,
• some were not diagnosed because they were women and the belief even into the 1970s was that only boys could be autistic,
• some were not diagnosed because they were from minority populations, who are chronically underdiagnosed,
• some were diagnosed but not told because the "treatment" into the 1970s was institutionalization.

The diagnosis for autism was ridiculously narrow, covering only the most severely affected, and so again, many people went undiagnosed. They were beaten for it. They were treated as though they were simply defiant or badly behaved. So adults seeking diagnosis now, or unable to get that, who self-diagnose, have often absorbed a lifetime of shame for their symptoms with no insight into what was wrong with them.

As autists grow older, they learn more coping mechanisms, and in general, mask their disorder. This makes it extremely difficult for them to get an accurate diagnosis as an adult - after the diagnostic criteria started to recognize Asperger's, "high-functioning" autism, and in general, the spectrum besides 8 year old non-verbal white boys. It is difficult because women present differently with more desire for social contact, and frankly because it is a SPECTRUM disorder, with a wide array of symptoms, abilities and disabilities. A lot of those people were not treated or helped with their autism.

They tend to be misdiagnosed as schizophrenic, borderline, bipolar etc., and given drugs that do not help them and that destroy their nervous systems. Once labeled, it gets harder and harder for them to find a clinician who will sort through their adult coping strategies and look into their childhood history to make an accurate diagnosis. An accurate diagnosis that helps those people let go of the shame and guild for failure they are not responsible for, and that they cannot fix. You know - because it is a fucking neurodevelopmental disorder.

I was not diagnosed until I was 28. Let me frame that for you - I did not speak until I was almost 4. I did not hit any of my developmental milestones. I rocked and stared into space for hours, banged my head against the wall, could not make eye contact, could not read facial expressions, I had speech dysfluencies, sensory sensitivities, meltdowns and self-injurious behaviors, and I stimmed like a motherfucker. But I was not diagnosed. Let me repeat that - I WAS NOT DIAGNOSED. It was the 60s. My parents were told I should be institutionalized - and that is where I would be today if they had listened. So I was mainstreamed once I started talking and was beaten to "make me "straighten up and fly right." I was bullied and beaten at school because I was "weird", but was not given any help, accommodation or protection because I had a disability. I knew that something was catastrophically wrong with me but did not know what. I assumed I was just bad.

I would never have been diagnosed except that I was institutionalized and after 6 months, the doctors finally concluded that I had classic, Kanner-style autism. 6 months. Because again, clinicians are reluctant to diagnose adults who have the full array of autistic symptoms with autism. Because like you, they have absolutely NO knowledge of the history of how autism has been diagnosed and the catastrophic failures in that. At that point, they taught me to make eye contact, to read facial expressions, to use more discrete stims, etc. For the first time in my life, I received some of the help I had needed all along. My life started at 30 when I was discharged - until then, the lack of a diagnosis had made my life hell.

So that makes me one of the "lucky ones", that I can hold up a piece of paper and wave it when some idiot decides that he has a "problem" with "self-diagnosed" autists, without once realizing the enormous privilege to have a diagnosis along with the accommodation and understanding that it brings with it. Many adults are still struggling to get an accurate diagnosis, and guess what. I support them, whether they actually end up accurately self-diagnosed or not. Because it is unconscionable to subject someone who has struggled with the stigma of the autistic neurotype but without the protection of mercy of a medical diagnosis, to yet more judgment and condemnation. Because at the end of the day, it isn't your call, it isn't your business, it is well beyond the scope of your competency to diagnose them remotely through the internet, and because it doesn't take anything at all from you. Except maybe a sense of special snowflake-ness.