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️(he/him) 
I am thinking about autism this morning. Every self-assessment I’ve taken since I was a teenager scores ‘yep, that’s you’. (I have taken a LOT of self-assessments. Every few years I’ll go through a whole bunch, just to confirm.) But I don’t have a formal diagnosis. And even though I would never require a formal diagnosis from anyone else, I have still, for decades, struggled to know whether I’m ‘allowed’ to understand myself in this way or speak about myself as #autistic.
On mornings like this when I’m melancholy and feeling lonely (and this question of whether I’m allowed to know myself as autistic and use this language for myself and be in the community rather than just advocating for the community as an outsider… this question is having me feel like I’ll always be lonely). Anyway, on mornings like this I feel a bit sad and uncertain about everything. And I just want to know the right answer.
@Tiffany One way I like to think of it is not “am I definitely, 100%, absolutely positively autistic because if there’s the slightest doubt I can’t claim the label”, but more “what is the most likely neurotype I have?” If you fit the profile of an autistic person and not an allistic person, I’d say you’re autistic. And if you fit with the community and find resources for autistic people helpful for you, it’s probably because you’re autistic!