FWIW I've since been informed that the RAADS-R autism diagnostic test has known issues with accuracy linked at least partially to the vagueness of its questions, also any diagnostic test you take online is moot anyway because tests like that need to be taken in conjunction with conversations with a psychologist/psychiatrist/other trained professional. Self diagnosis is an important tool of medical self-advocacy in an age where mental health issues tend to be ignored or poorly understood, but you also have to keep in mind your own limitations and lack of training. It's fun to take a test and say maybe this is the reason I am the way I am but if it really bothers you you can't leave it at that, you gotta get therapied about it.

Pls pls talk about Light having ocpd AND about Lawlight disorder solidarity, I could listen to you all day!! Your brain is huge

hello!! :D

of course! ive been sitting on these ocpd!Light and neurodivergent solidarity lawlight asks for a bit trying to think and get more knowledge and opinions on the subjects so i think it's finally time to answer them!

Firstly i need to restate that OCPD is a personality disorder and is not the same thing as OCD. OCPD is defined by the person who has it being completely obsessed with rules, order, and control with the person thinking their thoughts and behaviors are correct (while people with OCD have unwanted intrusive thoughts). OCPD and OCD have a few overlapping symptoms with each other so it can be hard distinguishing them, but it is possible to have both! Which I think Light does. One difference between the disorders is that OCD starts early in childhood, OCPD, like most personality disorders, appear in a person's late teens or early twenties.

with all mental disorders/illnesses you need certain symptoms to be able to be diagnosed (eg. PTSD- in order to be diagnosed you need to have flashbacks and experience dissociation, i am a person who has been medically diagnosed with PTSD and this is what my therapist told me) and so with OCPD there is also a list of symptoms you need to have. The thing i saw has a series of 8 symptoms and at least four need to be present in order to be diagnosed with OCPD.

These are the ones I think fit Light: preoccupied with rules, lists, order, organization, and schedules so much that the point of the activity they're working on is lost to them. (think of Light using a testing the notebook and extending and figuring out every little rule and loophole), shows perfectionism that interferes with task completion, is excessively devoted to work and productivity to the point where they cut out friendships and leisure activities, is overconscientious/scrupulous/inflexible about matters of ethics/morals/values, shows rigidity and stubbornness, is unable to discard of items even if useless, and is hesitant to work with others unless the other's submit to do exactly what they say and want.

okay now i've explained just a tiny bit of my OCPD!Light headcanon but you also asked for lawlight nd solidarity so i must talk about that before this gets too long! So, first let's get what disorders/mental illnesses I think Light and L have out of the way.

With L i think they have: autism spectrum disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and ADHD.

For Light i think he has: narcissistic personality disorder, a god complex, obsessive compulsive disorder, obsessive compulsive personality disorder, and POSSIBLY ADHD. My friend and I are talking about it. I haven't decided if I see it yet.

I think L has more understanding on why his brain is the way that it is. Why he has these thoughts and what's going on with them. He's very self aware and had probably read up on his disorders, and self diagnosed himself since I doubt the wammy house would provide therapists for the kids. Watari probably also helped L with his disorders and identifying them. However, Light on the other hand does not know why his brain is the way that it is. And honestly with NPD and his god complex he doesn't really care tbh, people with NPD/God complexes are delusional and even tho some can be aware a lot of people aren't. But with OCD he worries that everyone will see him as Not Normal and an imperfection if he lets those symptoms show. Again, not knowing why he feels like the need to flick a light switch on and off 7 times or else his family will be robbed, will make him feel like he is not the perfect man he has convinced everyone into thinking he is. A perfect man doesn't have to fold a shirt 6 times because it didnt feel right. Or need time alone in his room because he touched something that felt off to him.

I think that Light has had everyone around him fooled into thinking he is neurotypical. But L, as always in regards to Light, saw through his attempts of squashing his symptoms and tendencies out of view of others. I think im going to answer another lawlight nd solidarity ask listing some headcanons i have so it'll look cleaner and this won't be too long. so that's all for now on the Light is not neurotypical saga, tune in again and I'll talk about gay people

pardon this question, you definitely don't have to answer it, but how did you learn or realize you were autistic? I've been researching symptoms and experiences and i know a few people who are on the spectrum, and i've been wondering if i am even though it doesn't present conventionally in some ways? My psychiatrist shut it down v quickly

Hi anon, :)

Okay, I have a long response so I’m putting it under a Read More. The first half is basically my journey to where I’m at now, and the second part is my thoughts on where you’re at, and how self-diagnosis is pretty cool in a world where a lot of the system is against adults getting diagnosed on the spectrum. Feel free to ignore the first part.

It’s a strange journey to how I got here. My folks actually suspected I had autism as a child, but because Asperger’s wasn’t a thing in Western Australia back then (early 80s), I had some borderline traits and then was tossed back without a diagnosis, and that was that.

I had an idea about 8-9 years ago, but never did anything about it, because I was wary of treading into a community I didn’t think I was a part of, and I didn’t want to offend anyone.

Then I had a friend who is also likely Aspie’s, tell me that she thought I very strongly fit the symptom profile of AFAB folks with Asperger’s (people who are women, or assigned female at birth, often have a different autism symptom profile to men, for a lot of reasons, and are often dismissed, because misogyny and a patriarchal medical system). Those symptoms were spot on, but again, I kind of ignored it.

About a year after that, I was having some massive communication troubles, and I ended up with a book on ‘how to communicate with your Aspie partner’ (or something like that, I can find it for you) and it was way more helpful than any book I’ve ever gotten on communicating. Like, way better than my ‘living with a PTSD partner’ better than ‘living with an X chronic condition partner.’ Like, scary accurate. After that, I started self-identifying as neuroatypical. I already knew that it is extremely hard for adults to be diagnosed on the spectrum, especially AFAB folk. It’s one area of self-diagnosis where I was like ‘the material is helping me and my life improve, therefore, I’m going to self-diagnose as having this thing.’*

(*I actually think this is one of the best reasons to self-diagnose, which is if the materials improve your quality of life once you engage with them.)

Some time after that, maybe two years ago now, my current psychologist didn’t do an official screening, but said I met all the core markers for high functioning autism, and had been treating me as a client that was neuroatypical for some time (with some success) even though she hadn’t told me that (she just assumed I knew I was on the spectrum) and we started talking about it.

I’ve never had an official screening, beyond what I had as a 3 to 4 year old. Recently - last year - my Mum found out in a weird weird way. A friend of hers met me twice, her son’s autistic (he’s low functioning) and said to my Mum: ‘I think your daughter has Asperger’s.’ Mum was like ‘haha no, she doesn’t.’ And then apparently this friend showed Mum sites on autism and Mum came to me and was like ‘ahhhhhhh I don’t want to offend you buuuuuut this seems, a lot like - this explains a lot.’ And I was like ‘oh yeah, totally, I’m totally with you, your friend is right.’ And Mum was like: ‘O.O’ and that’s the story of how we get along a bit better now and how she understands me a bit more, lol.

*

But here’s the thing about getting diagnosed as an adult, particularly if you’re AFAB (I don’t know if you are, but anyway) - it’s really hard, and it’s often really expensive. Currently, in Western Australia, a place known for having very high standards of public health access, it costs $1300 for most to get the official screening done, and most doctors / psychologists don’t offer it, and it’s not covered by almost all forms of insurance, nor is it covered by disability/health welfare. A lot of adults literally don’t have the privilege to afford diagnosis - it’s things like this which make me a big proponent of self-diagnosis, especially in cases where I know the western medical system is really bad at supporting adults with whatever thing the thing is. (ADHD is another, it’s really tough for adults to get diagnosed with this, and get appropriate treatment, especially based on country - it’s possible in Australia, it’s basically impossible in Italy because of cultural biases). 

I don’t want to say your psychiatrist is wrong, I don’t know your situation, or your history with them, I’m not a professional of anything remotely medical or psychological. At all. Plus I feel it would be remiss of me if I didn’t say that there is a huge overlap between some high functioning autism symptoms and mental illness symptoms, and a psychiatrist is in the best possible position to know the difference.

I will say it’s worth looking around on Facebook for groups that might look at adult folks with Aspie’s or similar, and ask them what doctors or psychs they saw for diagnosis. We have to do similar here in Western Australia for Fibromyalgia, because even though typically you go to a rheumatologist (at least here) to get diagnosed, a lot of rheumatologists here refuse to even acknowledge/touch Fibromyalgia (it’s notoriously difficult to treat) - so I wasn’t diagnosed for 10+ years, despite actively hunting down a diagnosis for what I had (and I’d even ruled out Fibromyalgia for myself, because I’d been conditioned to accept my chronic, intense pain as ‘normal’ and ‘untreatable’).

Now I have a rheumatologist that diagnosed me, and I have a medication that helps me. That’s a miracle. And I got a referral to this rheumatologist thanks to a Facebook group / friend that were on the ball with this stuff. So I think it would be good to search around online. I actually hate Facebook, but god, it can be really good for putting you in touch with the right doctors, or the patients who see the right doctors/psychs/psychiatrists/counsellors etc. Like I said, I don’t know if your psych is right for you or not, but this is a world where second opinions count, and not all doctors are supportive of every thing. If I’d known I had Fibromyalgia 10-15 years ago, I could have been placed on Amitriptyline early and I may not have ended up on Disability via destroying my life via ignoring illnesses until my body literally couldn’t take it anymore.

My thoughts are…you’re looking for something that helps you, right? That’s why we need labels sometimes. Sometimes the medical profession won’t help us out with that, but that doesn’t stop you from accessing those books, articles, how-tos and so on in the meantime. There are a lot of people, regardless of age, who self-diagnose as neuroatypical in part because the social anxiety of getting diagnosed (a facet of being neuroatypical, among many other things) is just too damn intimidating. You can start looking up ‘how to communicate in relationships if you’re X’ now. You can really start testing all of that stuff out now. If it helps you, if it improves your quality of life (that’s the biggie), that’s like…the most important part imho.

Also, finally if you’re AFAB or a cis female, and haven’t already, google the presentation of Asperger’s in women. You may find the symptom profile fits you better than what you’ll find on the standardised Wiki page. Finally, even if you don’t have Asperger’s, that doesn’t mean you can’t be neuroatypical, or don’t have neuroatypical traits? I’ve had synesthesia all my life, that alone makes me neuroatypical. So it’s worth… remembering that no matter what the final label is that you end up with for yourself, in the meantime, it’s okay to validate those parts of you that don’t seem to fit into the norm of neurological behaviour. It’s okay to seek help and support for it, and it’s okay to give yourself permission to look further.

I wish the path to diagnosis was easier, no matter what the diagnosis ends up being. I have lived what it’s like in a medical system where doctors miss things or ignore things because it’s more convenient for them to do so. It sucks. Trust me, there are a lot of self-diagnosed people on the spectrum, who are right to have self-diagnosed. You’re not alone (I bet there will be other people reading this who can relate to you, anon), and I think it’s awesome that you’re reaching out / putting out feelers about this stuff. *offers hugs*