I am an autistic person, and ever since around 2020 I have seen many people on social media self diagnosing autism over the most normal human behaviors. I see people posting videos about “autism symptoms” that are just normal things that everyone does. There are people who speak for the community, but they arent even genuinely autistic. They are quite literally barging into our spaces and whenever I try to find other autistic people to socialize with online, a good portion of the time they end up being the same people who use autism as an aesthetic or a personality trait. It has negatively effected my mental health because I feel like a burden compared to these people who claim autism over the silliest things.
And lot of them have weaponized autism being harder to diagnose in women/afab. that is absolutely true for the record, but now I know people who have been denied referrals because they were assumed to be the same type of people who do this shit online. Now we cant even talk about this genuine issue without being told we are bullshitting because of these people.
Its starting to make me mad because people who are genuinely struggling are being denied recourses because of these people who pretend to be autistic (and honestly some of them aren’t intentionally faking it, but are just brainrotted from the internet telling them false information). I really wish people would stop with this nonsense because It feels so mocking and just overall really annoying. You cannot be autistic without being disabled, that is literally impossible and the diagnostic criteria proves it. Laying on your bed in a fetal position does not make you autistic, being shy does not makw you autistic, liking something a lot by itself does not make you autistic.
Now for the record I don’t believe that all self diagnosed people are like this and i think some are genuinely on the right track of understanding themselves, but there are still a shit ton of people who have totally warped the perception whether people deny it or not. Autism is a serious disorder no matter what level and I am tired of people not understanding it or infantilizing it completely.