Regular reminder that being an asshole is not a symptom of any form of neurodivergence. (You can replace “neurodivergent” with depressed, anxious, bipolar, etc. and the diagram works equally well)
ETA: social faux pas, awkwardness, and genuine symptoms of neurodivergence don’t make you an asshole. I shouldn’t have to say this? An “asshole” is someone who enacts a pattern of abusive, controlling, harassing, and/or harmful behavior with no remorse or concern for how other people are affected.
I think a fair number of self-proclaimed “neurodivergent” folks just like it because: a) They think it’s a free pass to be an asshole b) They think it indicates some sort of superpower with no downsides and that they are superior to “normal” people.
Knowing some clearly sincerely neurodivergent people I tend to be highly skeptical when people assert that status in an interaction where I wouldn’t otherwise be able to tell.
Masking exists you know. Just because you can hide it doesn’t mean there isn’t more under the surface. This is more of a Autism thing but I think some ADHD people also mask.
You’re right, but also there are still a ton of people that pretend or think they have some type of mental condition when in actuality they don’t.
I have diagnosed OCD (by a medical professional) and I’ve only ever told about two friends in my entire life because the millions of gross people around the world that say they have OCD for the most normal fucking things that everyone In the world can relate to.
Somebody saying they have OCD is so fucking cringe to me now because of these morons that I’m scared to tell anyone even if I’m close to them.
That’s fair honestly as a lot of people think they relate to OCD. I’ve even been called OCD even though I’m very sure that’s not something that impacts me.
It’s weird to me though because I’ve had a psychiatrist tell me I probably have ocd, but left it as just an anxiety disorder unspecified (ocd thought patterns that spiral into panic attacks), but I find a lot of these people are more thinking of feeling uncomfortable with any mess rather than spending your entire vacation worried you left the door unlocked or struggling with anxious thought loops that you can’t force yourself to stop thinking about.
So, for some honesty, I feel like there’s been a culture of folks treating “neurotypical” almost like a slur, like “neurodivergent” means better and thus folks thinking they need a diagnosis.
I know someone that self-diagnosed as autistic and was very excited to “finally make it formal” and shopped for a therapist that was qualified to diagnose and had even diagnosed a friend of theirs as on the spectrum. They were so pissed when after a couple of months of sessions the therapist continued to decline to issue a diagnosis. They couldn’t just be normal. I think most people I’ve heard personally declare themselves to be neurodivergent to be roughly in this camp.
I think popular internet culture is teaching people that a normal person has zero struggles with things like getting out of bed in the morning or being on time, and that if you have any whiff of not liking to do some unpleasant part of daily life then you are neurodivergent. It also tends to teach that neurodivergent people are smarter. I think this serves to dilute the reality of those with more serious issues. Similar to how a flood of “service animals” has diminished the experience of those with sincere need for them.
Genuinely, as someone who’s been on both the moderating and recieving end of communal moderation as a traumatized trans and disabled person, this topic is an iceberg. Social osratcization and bannishment shouldnt be weilded heavy handedly.
If you feel so oppressed, be glad that people empathize with you for your congruence with mental state, brain chemisty and so much more that we barely even have words much less proper understanding at large for, which is all lumped in to “neurodivergent”, and that your every choice is not medicalized and psychoanalyzed for being so bold as to be out about it.
Im over the respectability politics ☮️
It isn’t possible to fake being ND. Faking it would require someone to mask like a ND person does which doesn’t seem likely. Any therapist who still is going off of dated information and stigmas should lose there ability to practice.
What do you even mean? Of course its possible to pretend and fake being neurodivergent, many many people do. You may not fake it correctly, and that’s why these people might not be able to get a real diagnosis
The point of that story was that someone I knew that saw an actual therapist still said they were ND and denied the therapist’s opinion that they were NT. They had a friend that did receive a diagnosis from that same therapist and based on my interactions with that friend, I could definitely understand. They went shopping for what they thought was an easy diagnosis and failed to get one, but declared the therapy just isn’t good and they were done with therapy and they will continue to declare themselves to be ND anyway, because they know they are.
I strongly suspect a lot of self proclaimed ND folks are declaring so without any diagnosis or even against a professional opnion to the contrary. There’s too much romanticism of it and of course it causes some people to gravitate towards it. The end result being a dilution of societal accomodations toward ND born out of skepticism of some generally obnoxious folks.
Self diagnosis is completely valid. I’m pretty sure NT people aren’t going around trying to be ND. At the end of the day if they relate to ND they probably are one. I think ND people are much more common than society wants us to believe
Prior to the 90s, I think your perspective is correct, that no one would go out of their way to claim a condition they did not have.
But the 90s blessed high functioning autism as Asperger’s, and a bunch of smart computer people at the same time started getting rich. The popular take away for the random person was that Asperger’s meant:
So now you had a condition that confers intelligence at a time when computer nerd was suddenly respectable, and a condition that allows one to fully cave to discomfort that almost everyone feels to some extent (though the intent was to describe people utterly incapable, the practical result has been a lot of people having normal levels of discomfort wallowing in it).
Plus the modern terminology of “typical” versus “divergent”, where people naturally want to be “divergent” (so long as they are divergent just like everybody they like) and people generally don’t like the sound of being “typical”.
Again, this is not the professional perspective, it’s the layman’s perspective that drives people to self-diagnose as a path to superiority and/or not dealing with fairly normal levels of discomfort when dealing with other people.
You hit the nail on the head IMO, basically if someone says they are neurodivergent or brings up a mental issue they claim to have for no reason at all, like just to tell you hey I’m neurodivergent, I typically assume they aren’t and just pretend to believe them.
I’m ADHD and probably on the spectrum. Most of my friends are some level of both too.
There are still assholes who are also neurodivergent. I’ve met some. I avoid them. I will generally get along with other neurospicy people, especially if their combination is closer to my own, but an asshole is still an asshole.
That hasn’t been my experience but the demographic I hang about still has some stigma associated with being ND, so they wouldn’t “admit” to it unless it was relevant/apparent.
Curious if it’s regional or age related.
For example, at work where there’s a lot of 50+ people shaping the culture, I don’t think ND would be seen as an asset.
However, to me those that grew up when Asperger’s first hit the scene seemed more likely to treat it as “cool autism”, and migrated over to “high functioning autistic” when the DSM ditched it as a distinct diagnosis. I seem to recall some commentary at the time that the Asperger’s as a distinct diagnosis was more detrimental due to its popularity, and while formally the criteria for Asperger’s versus Autism would be similar, there was a sense that people should be more reluctant to diagnose as autistic than they were to diagnose Asperger’s.
I don’t think ADHD ever enjoyed status as a “cool” diagnosis though, but certainly in the mid 80s was overdiagnosed in children.
the last couple years on tiktok, but its tiktok so whatever
I’ve been called an asshole many times. I think most people think I’m a nice person, but to the wrong person I’m a complete asshole. If I find out you support cops I’m suddenly the biggest asshole alive. If you’re a capitalist? Guess what, asshole mode wants to turn on.
That’s fine in echo chambers, but when you’re in a diverse group? I had to learn social skills early on as a kid, and not every autistic child learns how to adapt to a social situation. I put my example as a hard truth: We can’t applaud people being assholes to certain people and then be appalled when assholes remain assholes to those aren’t the acceptable group of people to be an asshole to. If I want to remain socially acceptable around cop-supporters, I have to adopt different social ‘postures’ like respectfully disagreeing instead of calling them boo-tlicking piggies. My tolerance for respectful disagreement only lasts so long, though, when my under-the-breath stuff starts coming out and then I know I can’t be around people if I want to be accepted.
What gets rewarded gets repeated.