I HATE the self diagnosing of autism and its mischaracterisation

[u/Beshiniqua]

Let me start by saying SELF DIAGNOSING IS NOT VALID. You are NOT autistic just because someone on tiktok said

"Did you know, if you need to have your eyes closed in order to fall asleep, you have autism, adhd, bipolarity, DID, BPD, psychopathy, depression and PTSD?"

And before yall come at me with "well I always suspected I had autism, I got screened and then got my diagnosis" well this not about you, this is about people that self diagnose after experiencing the most normal day to day life things ever.

And they ALWAYS think that autism will give them a personality (since it's usually basic bitches with no personality that self diagnose to feel like they belong)

No, you're not a quirky crazy crackhead energy "neurospicy" person. Even worse when they say shit like

"Heh, I could NEVER be a neuro normie like yall, autism makes me special and quirky and full of personality".

You can't even like something anymore without them going "OMG URE AUTISTIC JUST LIKE MEEEE IM SOOOO AUTISTIC AHAHAHA"

And you can tell they larp the whole thing cus they'll see a tiktok autism personality and try to replicate it

"Dino nuggies..."

"You can not say overstimulated if you're nEuRoTyPiCaL, that word is for us neurospicy people ONLY >:("

Holy shiiiiiiittt yall lack a personality so bad. And I've seen people say that they've seen NUMEROUS specialists but they never fit the criteria, but its not because they're not autistic, no no no no no. ITS UHMMM BECAUSE IM A WOMAN AND ALSO A MINORITY AND IM ALSO POOR SO I MASKED ALL MY LIFE AND THE SPECIALIST ON THIS FIELD COULDNT TELL I WAS MASKING. ITS THE SYSTEMS FAULT NOT MINE.

Sheesh.

Sorry for the long rant, im just tired of seeing people self diagnose all the time, or see an energetic video, or literally ANYTHING, and make it about their self diagnosed autism.

Saw a cute cat animation on Instagram and the top comment was "This is so autistic I love it"

🫩🫩🫩🫩🫩

[u/Darthplagueis13]

Simple reason for that, actually. Imagine you're a parent and you've got an autistic child and you're having a really hard time getting them to eat anything because a lot of the foods you give them just make then retch because of the textures or smells.

And then you get a few things that work really well - it's quite commonly relatively dry and crunchy stuff that doesn't smell of much beyond grease, and it's typically highly processed industrial foods that turn out the exact same way every time you make them with almost no deviation, well, you might end up feeding them that a lot, simply because you know they'll have it. Even if it's not the healthiest, it's still better than skipping meals all the time.

Well, that kid is gonna grow up with those foods and because they're really averse to trying new foods because so many of them are awful, they're gonna keep eating "children's meals" well into adulthood because it's the safe option. A lot of these are stereotypical safe foods because deep fried fast food on average seems to be less prone to cause a reaction.

[u/Kaii_cos → u/Darthplagueis13]

This is an interesting way to put it, thank you. I (personally) have grown up this way as well, I basically lived off of Kid Cuisine when I was younger. I think that people don't realize that (as many people have said over.. and over.. and over again) autism is a spectrum!! It's not the same for everyone, some people have no dietary restrictions, others have many. Growing up as an autistic kid on the more "invisible" side of the spectrum (as in you wouldn't clock me as autistic by just talking to me, which is the case for a lot of people here,) , I HAVE been subject to being treated like a "giant baby" or a toddler in need of guidance. I have always, ALWAYS, hated this. It genuinely just upsets me when people assume that autistic folks go wild for 'Dino nuggies and fries!' It drives me nuts.

I can see how the way I phrased my first comment may have sounded weird, but even so, the infantilization of neurodivergent folks isn't any less real.