Any chance of switching to someone who’ll give your thoughts actual concern instead of immediately dismissing you because blah blah social media evil? If possible, for sure give a heads-up to his superior.

Two scenarios here: - he is not professional enough, and doesn’t want to listen to you. - he is a very good professional and knows, from your previous interactions, that you do not have the profile and wants to avoid wasting your time and money. (And that maybe you have instead a problem with social media, but it’s above FML’s grade)

Official diagnosis can be hard to get, and self diagnosis is valid. Getting a therapist who understands autism is a crapshoot, because therapists are not trained in what autism really is: The official diagnostic criteria are mostly a list of trauma symptoms, because living in this world is especially traumatic for Autistic people. Most therapists couldn't recognize an Autistic person with coping skills. ASAN and AWN are good organizations. Avoid Autism $peaks: It's a fearmongering hate group.

Why? Do you want to be autistic? If it's so borderline that your psychiatrist doesn't see it, you'd be better off having it go undiagnosed.

Want mine? I don’t define myself by my label. It just opened my eyes to see why i do things the way i do, where to spot shortcomings, and how to compensate. Most people can’t tell, especially since I was beaten in a mental health ward for not looking people in the eyes or “talk about my feelings.” It’s a label, nothing more, it won’t change anything, and if you think you have it, assume you do, re-evaluate how you interact with others and challenge yourself to improve yourself daily. I got my “label” (Asperger’s Syndrome) back in 1999. It’s not real useful except put a name to ideosynchracies, and showed me what to work on. I wouldn’t trade it for anything though. It has shown me how to look from other people’s eyes how i’m perceived as, and let me be super freaking awesomely talented in the IT field. Even got me a nice paying just with a company that just bricked a bunch of printers (i work in commercial support of things that cost more than cars), where i get paid to drive, see things no one else gets to see, and have awesome customers and the right amount of interaction and low stress. Been recognised for my skills, and am happy at work and home!

I have autism and I haven’t been officially diagnosed, other than I have ADD/adhd. You will learn more about yourself as time goes on, maybe official diagnose is not needed.

A lot of doctors just don't take autism seriously at all, especially if you've learnt to mask well enough to pass as "normal" and/or most of your challenges are in the less visible traits (executive dysfunction/sensory challenges for example, rather than eye contact/social skills). Same with ADHD - if you're not hyperactive and disruptive and you're capable of getting stuff done eventually, they tend not to care that it's a daily battle to maintain focus and do the functional things (housework, cooking etc) instead of the whole day vanishing on nothing in particular. It is possible to significantly improve quality of life by basically just assuming you have the condition in question if the symptoms really resonate with your experience - looking at lists of tips/hacks from folks who are further on in their journey of adapting their life to better fit how their brain functions and adopting those that make sense has helped me a ton. I'd probably still be better off with a diagnosis more formal than a bunch of screening tests (supplied by my work, not random searching), an occupational health assessment that recommended formal testing and an informal assessment from my aunt (a qualified psychiatrist - she couldn't give an official diagnosis because of the family connection), but it's better than nothing.