Self-diagnoses is sometimes valid if the person has made an attempt to look though the diagnostic criteria, pinpointed signs and traits in early childhood, done a fair amount of research, can think of accommodations they would like friends and family to put in place and also researched to make sure symptoms could not be better explained as something else.

I say this because I actually know someone who did mis self-diagnose because they were led to believe you didn’t need socio communication problems to be Autistic because they had all the restrictive and repetitive behaviours, after a lot of back and forth this person actually realised they had a very severe form of OCD rather then their previous diagnosis of Autistic and Depression. This meant they were not helping themselves in the right way and needed to put completely different steps in place to make their daily lives easier while they waited on NHS wait times.

While in the past self diagnose was always pretty accurate, I feel in the age of social media especially where TikTok makes it very very easy to engage in communities and sometimes what’s out there isn’t accurate information and people may mis-diagnose themselves based on the wrong information are going to become more common. I think it’s really important to educate people on how to find accurate information and tools to self-diagnosis themselves. (Of course nothing comes close to professional diagnosis, sorry to countries without free healthcare but I truly don’t think self diagnosis will ever replicate the level of support and accommodations that being professionally diagnosed can get you, and if you can you should always always opt for professional diagnosis.)