No, for there to be any real validity to the diagnosis, one needs to go through a set of tests that only an expert can truly deploy and then give any diagnosis in relation to that. Would you self-diagnose for cancer? Or for other issues of this sort?

Reading off symptoms from a list is not diagnosis but really only to play at matters. Genuine diagnosis can only be engaged in by one fully trained professionally to do that. Systematic knowledge cannot be gained by reading a few articles on ADHD or on, say, autism.

The process of obtaining a professional diagnosis can be challenging, time-consuming, and sometimes even inaccessible for many people. This is particularly true for adult women, minorities, and individuals in the LGBTQIA+ community, who are often underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

Self-diagnosis can be a valuable tool for self-understanding and accessing resources, especially when professional diagnosis is not immediately accessible. It can provide a framework for understanding one's experiences and challenges and can guide individuals toward strategies, resources, and communities that can provide support.

However, self-diagnosis has its limitations. ADHD, like many other conditions, can have symptoms that overlap with other disorders. Without a professional evaluation, there could be a risk of missing co-occurring conditions or misinterpreting symptoms.

That being said, the goal should always be to support individuals in understanding and managing their experiences, whether that comes through self-diagnosis or professional diagnosis. The ideal scenario would be one where everyone has access to professional diagnosis without unnecessary barriers, but until we reach that point, self-diagnosis can play a role in helping individuals navigate their experiences.

I think your comment is professional, fair and balanced, Melanie Green, so sure, exploring the terrain via one's own experiences is important in order to discover and learn who one is - yet with one caveat. It is not a diagnosis as such, as you ultimately conclude. That can only come from a professional, otherwise real and troubling errors can result.

I fully agree that there are too many delays and limitations in terms of access. Absolutely and with too many things, this causes multiple issues.

By all means, people should explore what issues they may have. I just think that it does not and cannot constitute any genuine, full and solid diagnosis. And people should beware of such for good reasons outlined by you, M.G. But you are quite right to emphasise there was one-sidedness in my own comment. Thank you for yours in addressing that weakness in my formulation.

As a professional who has worked in the educational field, vocational rehabilitation field, and with those professionals doing the assessments for more than 40 years, individuals and families have gone to great lengths to seek the testing. Some have gotten no closer to a diagnosis than before they started since there are professionals who will not make any diagnoses (for ASD-for example, when using the GARs) unless they can use the "Gold Standard" for testing when another test is the only one OVR will pay for. The diagnosis they may get has been a Rule out disorder which does nothing for them.

For students in a school setting who have been treated by a family doctor since a young age for hyperactive behavior, inability to focus longer than 5 minutes at a time, including meltdowns, language delays, and social inability to connect even with family members and rare eye contact; my educated guess would still be somewhere on the spectrum.

I married a man on the spectrum for the last 35 years, three of our four kids are on the spectrum, two grandkids are on the spectrum, and most of us have ADHD of one type or another.

Self-diagnosis is really common these days but diagnosis requires extensive skills, knowledge and training and ADHD must be diagnosed by a certified professional. During the assessment and evaluation process, it’s also necessary to evaluate the comorbidities so diagnosis can only be made through proper clinical evaluation and trained professions.