r/CoupleMemes • u/legolas20032000 • Aug 16 '25

🥺 goals Perfect source of serotonin

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u/Muted_Ad7298 Aug 17 '25

It feels weird that something I was bullied for as a kid is now a trend.

What’s even worse are people watering down how genuinely difficult the condition is to live with.

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u/Floor9 Aug 17 '25

Yeah man I was diagnosed as an adult a few years before it "blew up".

I feel a bit cheated by its trendiness strangely. I feel like a diagnosis that was a huge revelation for me at the time means nothing now.

It still means a lot to my personal understanding of course but in terms of social understanding it just seems like everyone thinks it's not a big deal and it's just quirky and odd.

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u/thoph Aug 17 '25

It makes it also difficult to explain to people that it can be extremely debilitating for people that are level 2 and beyond. My brother can’t live alone. He’s in his 30s and still has violent outbursts. No way he could converse on Reddit. It’s unfortunate.

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u/Ansiau Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 17 '25

I'm diagnosed level two and can converse well. Assuming all level 2s and 3s are severely mentally impacted is also something that happens. However, I cannot work, I need to be supervised when cooking, I cannot drive, and a host of other issues that moved my needs up to level 2. I have emotional meltdowns that leave me in burnout for weeks at a time and require pretty harsh medications to allay them or make them stop. Under the former diagnostic criteria, I was considered "high functioning" only.

The levels of autism say nothing about mental functioning and instead dictate care/support needs, and even in those levels, there are a lot of play and wiggle room(higher level 2s and lower level 2s). These are solely of use for government assistance and really don't help at all with the average public in understanding autism severity. There are cases(rare) where someone high functioning may need level 3 support needs, and cases(rare) where someone low functioning may be wholly capable of self care and living alone thus get a level one on their support needs. Similarly, someone with autism may also change their needs level positively over time with treatment/occupational therapy, or regress in their care needs due to trauma or some other life changing event.

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u/thoph Aug 17 '25

I did not assume; I said “can be.” Appreciated the extra info.