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You know one of the things I hate most about being self-realized (aka self-diagnosed) autistic/ADHD? It's that it essentially puts me (us) in the same category as the "I did my own research" crowd. Don't trust the experts, the science is wrong, etc. I feel dirty.

I love science. I love what it has done for humanity. I think we need to appreciate and support it far more than we do now. I much prefer to defer to experts who know more than me on any particular subject. I do keep in mind that anyone can be wrong about any particular thing, but the majority of the time they are more likely to be right than me.

So I'm left having to justify to people why my research is right and the "experts" are wrong in this particular case and not others. I sound like "I'm right and the everyone else is wrong." Ugh.

I know that there are good reasons why self diagnosis for us NDs is valid, if you take the time to go through them and understand them*. But getting other people to listen to it all is hard. Plus, like I said, it just goes against the grain for me. It makes me feel like a hypocrite. It just sucks that this one branch of science is lagging so far behind where it should be. So aside from reading over the reasons yet again, I can only take small comfort in this one quote I've posted on here a few times already:

"There is probably no field of scientific investigation in which more resistance has been encountered than in those domains which have affected the superstitions men have entertained about themselves."
-Technocracy Study Course, 1933

* https://codeberg.org/alicewatson/asd-self-dx/src/branch/main

#ActuallyAutistic @autistics #neurodivergent

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