This isn’t meant to be offensive. I’m just genuinely shocked by how many folks claim to be on the spectrum.
Does anyone else feel this way?
This isn’t meant to be offensive. I’m just genuinely shocked by how many folks claim to be on the spectrum.
Does anyone else feel this way?
Comments
They’ve made it easier to diagnose by expanding the symptoms.
A lot of people really have it. The diagnosis rate has gone way up. A lot of things that would have been labeled other things like Aspergers, which is no longer a medical diagnosis, have been replaced by autism. I think these cases have always been around but they were called different things.
So the problem if that’s the word for it is the definition of autism has now expanded to include a whole bunch of things that used to be considered “quirky“. They probably were autistic traits. What surprises me is the number of people who bring it up the first time I’m having a conversation with them. Oh by the way I’m autistic.I DGAF.
Autism is still a relatively new diagnosis. The first man to ever be diagnosed with autism died in 2023. It’s not odd when there is now an official diagnosis for something along with more information, research, etc. that more people are being diagnosed with it. More people are diagnosed with autism than ever before because we know more about autism and because the spectrum of autism is incredibly wide.
Its a combination on great acceptance and ability to diagnosed, combined with people self diagnosing themselves for attention.
You see similar issues and pushback from the LGBTQ community. It was so/is so marginalized and targeted that its an “easy” way for privileged, cis, white people to be part of marginalized communities. I know LGBTQ people that see so many “queer” people that are and live straight lives in everyway, yet now are part of a group of targeted people, this is mostly middle class white. The same for people claiming to be autistic.
It comes across as attention seeking
I literally can not read a post in any relationship or advice subreddit without the person saying “I have Autism/Social Anxiety/ADHD/OCD”
So the people saying diagnosis have expanded, sure, but these people are 100% self diagnosed.
They are looking at the traits of these things and saying “I have that thing!” And totally ignoring that these diagnosis all recognize a spectrum and these traits EVERYONE has, and that they become diagnosable problem when they are so extreme that they’re basically ruining your life.
In the DSM the criteria benign glossed over by internet diagnosis is
> D. Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning.
A psychiatrist is qualified to determine if that has been met. Kids online going through webmd just to “yeah for sure, I do embarrassing stuff all the time because, it’s autism!”
“Oh look at that wallpaper is misaligned, how annoying! It’s triggering my OCD” uh no, you’re not touching the wallpaper 300 times every time you leave the room, making you incapable of holding a job or making it to the bathroom in time without shitting your pants. You aren’t so determined to do the behavior that you’d end up a blubbering mess getting wheeled in to the psych ward of a hospital if you aren’t allowed to do it.
People throw these terms around like a badge of honor to show they’re not a normie neurotypical.
It’s annoying, medically incorrect, and does a real disservice to actual people with these issues who try to get help and the world has switched having ADHD to mean you lose your keys all the time.
Up until recently, asbergers, tourettes syndrome, adhd, etc were thought to be mental illnesses or simply bad behaviour.people who had theses conditions often ended up in psychiatric care. The doctors and tge patients families would wonder why treatment wasn’t working.
Diagnosed on the spectrum here: I think it only seems that way because a lot of us are online and not afraid anymore of saying that we’re on the spectrum anymore. Also it’s become a more known thing so easier to at least self-diagnose.
This is rly a case by case deal
It’s because social media is full of pseudoscience. Someone sees a video of something innocuous (eg., pushing pencil tips into large erasers) with the caption “Things Autistic Kids do for Stimulation” and now they think they’re autistic.
You wouldn’t self-diagnose a physical condition or disease without seeing a doctor, but it’s more common to self-diagnose with mental and developmental conditions. Which sucks, because getting a diagnosis as an adult is a PAIN.
I think it’s odd too. I understand that it’s new and we should expect a rise in diagnoses, but it seems like every other person is claiming it these days (at least in my circles). What does labeling all these people with such a general term actually accomplish?
Now that autism is kinda cool I think people are eager to claim it so they can excuse any shortcomings they have and feel special at the same time.
Disclaimer: I’m uninformed on this topic.
The rise of autism diagnoses is not due to any physiological or environmental factors it simply has to do with the way we see people on the spectrum. The spectrum itself being a fairly recent creation Autistic people have always been with us it’s just that in the last 30-40 years we have completely flipped the script on how autistic people are seen by society. In the past those with “spectrum related disorders” were called “odd”, “weird”, “quiet”, “troublemaker” or any number of adjectives that teachers and schools would use to describe children they simply didn’t know what to do with. Today those children are professionally evaluated and if it is deemed necessary given a diagnoses and an IEP. An IEP is a legal document, a contract between the school and the guardians that specifically identifies a child’s strengths and weaknesses and outlines specific educational strategies that will best help them succeed. That’s important because that means that they can no longer be ignored.
In the past a diagnoses of autism typically referred to a child who was non-verbal and severely intellectually impaired. The likelihood that the child would go on to lead a “normal” life was exceedingly slim and the possibility that they would eventually need institutional care was always a possibility. This is why many people, especially those from older generations, see autism as something akin to a death sentence. Today an autism diagnosis simply means that the child has a differentiated manner of learning and it avails them of all the resources necessary to grow, learn, and develop into a happy, productive adult.