DIVERGENT THINKING
Collective

Why do we seek a diagnosis

The first reason why people seek diagnosis of anything, is to understand what's going on within themselves, whether it's about a physical or mental illness or condition.
Knowing what's up with us is helpful in the way that we can look for either treatments or changes in life that would increase our quality of life.
Yes, we can change our life and try stuff to minimise our symptoms without a diagnosis, but knowing what is going on allows us to make the proper changes and actions.
The best example I can give is : If your nose is runny and you sneeze... you can take a cold medicine to stop the symptoms. BUT! If those symptoms are caused by allergies, the cold medicine won't do much or as much as allergy medicine.
It is thus important not only to look at traits and symptoms, but at the CAUSE under them.
Knowing what's up inside of us allows us to make the RIGHT choices for our illness or condition.

Another reason is that by understanding what's up, we can understand that our struggles were not because we were weak, lazy, or any other words created to shame people of not doing what is expected by society.
We can start to heal of all these criticisms, all these time we were not believed and we can start being more gentle with ourselves.
Knowing we were not the problem, knowing there is nothing wrong with us, realising that it's society's expectations that are unrealistic for us, is such a relief.

And lastly, and this one is specifically about ADHD/Autism diagnoses, is that having a professional diagnosis gives us access to accommodations or at least... understanding.
Okay.. this one is maybe an illusion.. at least, once we're adults. In school, yeah we have understanding and accommodations, but once we reach adulthood and the job market, we don't have those anymore.
As if, once we're adults, our brain magically changes and we're neurotypical now. But no. We are neurodivergent for life. We need understanding and accommodations for life.

HOW IS A ADHD/Autism DIAGNOSIS MADE?


Heard of the DSM-5? This "bible" of classification of mental disorders that is used by mental health professionals to diagnose people.
The problem when we're talking about ADHD/Autism diagnoses is that those professionals are usually NOT ADHDer or Autistic, thus only have the knowledge that other neurotypical experts and scientists wrote on the subject.
Which includes the traits used to diagnose. The 8 to 10 "main" abnormal manifestations that can be OBSERVED through a neurotypical eye.
Which is very wrong and concerning. As you could see from the ADHD and Autism pages, there are way more than 8 to 10 traits.
Also, they only look at manifestation, and not the "why". Which is the reason why so many girls and women are misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder or BPD or OCD or any anxious disorder, instead of what they truly are, which is autistic.
A lot of traits are shared between these disorders (which are often developed as a survival mechanism) and autism (which we are BORN as), but the causes, the reason under the traits is what makes us determine if it's how your brain is or if it's trauma related.
What makes it even more tricky is that most, if not all, autistic people arrive in adulthood with lots of social trauma, BECAUSE of the lack of education, because we don't LISTEN to the voice of autistic people, because we only listen to neurotypical "experts".
But you see, no one can be a true expert on something they not only have never experienced, but that their brain has not even developed to understand.


Whether you're a professional or someone seeking self-diagnosis, remember this : It is not only the traits that counts, but the reason for the traits.
For this reason, we are currently working on writing about autism traits and the whys, to help professionals and others to truly understand the traits and what autism is.

WHAT ABOUT SELF-DIAGNOSIS?

We, at Divergent Thinking, recognize that getting a professional diagnosis is a privilege (not everyone has the money and resources to do so) and that in this context, self-diagnosis is beneficial.
Self-diagnosis helps people understand themselves and seek for a community of people that also, understand them (something they most likely never had in their life).
It helps starting a healing process and changing one's life to increase their quality of life based on their needs.

Yeah, but what if they are NOT actually autistic?

Yeah it can happen, of course! The same way we can misdiagnose someone with BPD when they are simply autistic.
Because we have to understand the causes under the traits and most people don't really remember clearly their early childhood to see if they had traits back then.
BUT!!... What if this "mis-self-diagnosis" helps someone make peace with themselves? What if it helps them build a life more to their image? What if it makes them have so much support?

Because of the second reason people seek diagnoses AND the fact that "experts" are not really experts, turns out, self-diagnoses are valid, helpful and beneficial.
And we hope, with our website, social media and incoming books, to give people more and more information about autism and ADHD that will make it easier to understand ourselves and yes, self-diagnose better.
DIVERGENT THINKING
Collective

Why do we seek a diagnosis

The first reason why people seek diagnosis of anything, is to understand what's going on within themselves, whether it's about a physical or mental illness or condition.
Knowing what's up with us is helpful in the way that we can look for either treatments or changes in life that would increase our quality of life.
Yes, we can change our life and try stuff to minimise our symptoms without a diagnosis, but knowing what is going on allows us to make the proper changes and actions.
The best example I can give is : If your nose is runny and you sneeze... you can take a cold medicine to stop the symptoms. BUT! If those symptoms are caused by allergies, the cold medicine won't do much or as much as allergy medicine.
It is thus important not only to look at traits and symptoms, but at the CAUSE under them.
Knowing what's up inside of us allows us to make the RIGHT choices for our illness or condition.

Another reason is that by understanding what's up, we can understand that our struggles were not because we were weak, lazy, or any other words created to shame people of not doing what is expected by society.
We can start to heal of all these criticisms, all these time we were not believed and we can start being more gentle with ourselves.
Knowing we were not the problem, knowing there is nothing wrong with us, realising that it's society's expectations that are unrealistic for us, is such a relief.

And lastly, and this one is specifically about ADHD/Autism diagnoses, is that having a professional diagnosis gives us access to accommodations or at least... understanding.
Okay.. this one is maybe an illusion.. at least, once we're adults. In school, yeah we have understanding and accommodations, but once we reach adulthood and the job market, we don't have those anymore.
As if, once we're adults, our brain magically changes and we're neurotypical now. But no. We are neurodivergent for life. We need understanding and accommodations for life.

HOW IS A ADHD/Autism DIAGNOSIS MADE?


Heard of the DSM-5? This "bible" of classification of mental disorders that is used by mental health professionals to diagnose people.
The problem when we're talking about ADHD/Autism diagnoses is that those professionals are usually NOT ADHDer or Autistic, thus only have the knowledge that other neurotypical experts and scientists wrote on the subject.

Which includes the traits used to diagnose. The 8 to 10 "main" abnormal manifestations that can be OBSERVED through a neurotypical eye.
Which is very wrong and concerning. As you could see from the ADHD and Autism pages, there are way more than 8 to 10 traits.

Also, they only look at manifestation, and not the "why". Which is the reason why so many girls and women are misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder or BPD or OCD or any anxious disorder, instead of what they truly are, which is autistic.

A lot of traits are shared between these disorders (which are often developed as a survival mechanism) and autism (which we are BORN as), but the causes, the reason under the traits is what makes us determine if it's how your brain is or if it's trauma related.

What makes it even more tricky is that most, if not all, autistic people arrive in adulthood with lots of social trauma, BECAUSE of the lack of education, because we don't LISTEN to the voice of autistic people, because we only listen to neurotypical "experts".

But you see, no one can be a true expert on something they not only have never experienced, but that their brain has not even developed to understand.


Whether you're a professional or someone seeking self-diagnosis, remember this : It is not only the traits that counts, but the reason for the traits.
For this reason, we are currently working on writing about autism traits and the whys, to help professionals and others to truly understand the traits and what autism is.

WHAT ABOUT SELF-DIAGNOSIS?

We, at Divergent Thinking, recognize that getting a professional diagnosis is a privilege (not everyone has the money and resources to do so) and that in this context, self-diagnosis is beneficial.
Self-diagnosis helps people understand themselves and seek for a community of people that also, understand them (something they most likely never had in their life).
It helps starting a healing process and changing one's life to increase their quality of life based on their needs.

Yeah, but what if they are NOT actually autistic?

Yeah it can happen, of course! The same way we can misdiagnose someone with BPD when they are simply autistic.
Because we have to understand the causes under the traits and most people don't really remember clearly their early childhood to see if they had traits back then.
BUT!!... What if this "mis-self-diagnosis" helps someone make peace with themselves? What if it helps them build a life more to their image? What if it makes them have so much support?

Because of the second reason people seek diagnoses AND the fact that "experts" are not really experts, turns out, self-diagnoses are valid, helpful and beneficial.
And we hope, with our website, social media and incoming books, to give people more and more information about autism and ADHD that will make it easier to understand ourselves and yes, self-diagnose better.