I remember my “come to God” moment. I was already in psych classes in college, then started using eye contact (not sure why, or what about me changed) but all of a sudden people are reacting more positively towards me, I actually get dates, people do what I ask. And I visited my mom so excited telling her I discovered this new “super power”… She had to give me a few beats to let it sink in, what I just said.
My wife started to research Autism when it was suggested to us that our kiddo may have it.
Thus beginning many instances of me saying “No, that’s normal, I do it all the time.”
In hindsight, perhaps CADmonkey had some other clues in his life.
I cannot remember how many times I have seen this in the past year, but boy do some people relate to it pretty hard.
An autism diagnosis is one of those weird things that can range from a profoundly important, life changing thing, to a borderline irrelevant piece of trivia about yourself, depending on where you are in life, what coping mechanisms you’ve developed on your own, etc.
For me, realizing I had autistic traits was kinda life changing, even though I didn’t get a diagnosis.
Also undiagnosed, also have autistic traits. I kinda just roll with them. A diagnosis wouldnt change anything.
It would change how employers have to treat you.
No diagnosis: “Oh, you can’t focus when people are talking around you? Boo hoo for you.”
vs
Diagnosis: “Oh, you can´t focus when people are talking around you and the tags on the shirt bother you? Well, let’s do something about that right away!”
Now, the only thing standing between me and a diagnosis is probably my disdain for self diagnosis and a professional realizing no one ever told me, but… Doesn’t everyone hate the tags on their clothing?
Or are Hanes just the masters of low-key support for neurodivergence?
(Not being hypocritical. I think too much self diagnosis muddys the line between accommodating preference and accommodating need. You should do both, but when the line blurs people start to push back on people who need accomodation, or to apply it to the standards of preference as opposed to need. I can do my part to keep the line sharp and also look at my own stuff and muse that the rest would likely just be some informative paperwork)
Tags don’t bother me at all; I’ve also heard “Highly Sensitive Persons” have a high sensitivity to tags.
I understand your concerns about LARPing for accomodations, but the reality is people do legitimately have traits (like not being able to focus when people are talking) that aren’t a “disability” or “diagnosis”. I very explicitly picked my example because there’s an autistic comedian who was on the verge of being fired at work for her autistic social skills but she failed her first examination because they asked her, “Do the tags on your shirt bother you?” and she said, “No.” And the psychologist interpreted that to mean that she didn’t have sensory issues, and therefore she didn’t have autism, and therefore she could be fired for being socially awkward.
But, as she explains, of course the tags on her clothes don’t bother her because she has a system! And so she had another exam and was more forthcoming about what they were looking for and now she DOES have autism and she CAN’T be fired for social awkwardness.
You can have a bona fide issue with your work environment, but it has absolutely zero value unless it’s part of a recognized disability, even if it can be independently verified.
The real problem is that employees (in the US, anyway), can be treated with absolutely arbitrary indifference, including being fired for absolutely no reason.
In that environment, the ADA and the Civil Rights Act ^(and unions, which are in superscript for a reason)^ are the only legal paths to be treated with respect and dignity
Oh, I didn’t think you were being cavalier about diagnosis and that part of my comment wasn’t directed at you, but was an aside/explanation for why I felt it mattered I hadn’t been told by a professional.
I of course think we should just be generally helpful and kind to people and their quirks and preferences. Just part of keeping society friendly and welcoming.
I just prefer if people distinguish between feeling a certain way and being externally evaluated.
Before I actually got a diagnosis I preferred not to say I had ADHD. I had difficulty focusing, I tended to get distracted, and all the management strategies helped me a lot, but that was subjective.
Likewise, a family member has an actual gluten allergy. The people who prefer not to eat gluten but can have made it a lot harder for her because the line is blurry.It’s purely a belief that accurate reporting and assessments make it easier for everyone, not that we should dismiss one and not the other. Doing that is what made people blur the line in the first place.
How would you get evaluated for a trait independently of a diagnosis? That’s not really a thing.
The problem with psychological diagnoses is they are mostly bundles of symptoms that are grouped together into a diagnosis, and it can’t be a diagnosis that effects too many people because then it wouldn’t be a disorder. That is to say, there is a very serious political component to psychology.
A medical diagnosis can be very targetted to one thing (like celiac disease) and it can be demonstrated objectively.
On the other hand, I’m not sure it’s the best idea these days to have this fact known to a government. Unless the current rightward shift reverts very soon, we’ll be properly fucked once climate change really hits - difficult times nudge people towards extremes, and the far right mostly despises autistic people.
Even as someone living in Europe, I’m honestly too scared.
Yup, when I was job hunting after DOGE got me laid off, I never put that I’m neurodivergent on the disability questions. The current administration wants to genocide us.
Man that hits hard, I was able to make some career moves during Covid, but those opportunities seem to be drying up the last couple years, it’s a scary time
Yeah, I have a feeling it won’t take long before it all goes down the drain…
Oh for sure, if you have a lot of power because your expertise is in very high demand, or your accommodations aren’t “too much”, this is exactly how it works.
But if you don’t, they’ll just come up with an unrelated reason to fire you.
Wait are there people that don’t take the tags off their shirt?
Yeah, why would I?
How about “I cant do repetitive or mundane tasks or I risk zoning out and causing an accident”
I don’t know that the ADA would help you there, unless there’s a modification that would make repetitive and mundane tasks doable for you OR those repetitive and mundane tasks are not a core job function. (US Context)
You think you’re being funny, but i had a friend who was a nurse and kept saying this about me.
I’m a senior, I couldn’t care less at this point.
If only she’d spoken up when you were a sophomore
Every time I read symptoms of adult autism, it confirms for me I’m not autistic, but you could use this same picture for me if you substitute the word “Dyslexia” for “Autism”.
Here, for some of you I’ll go ahead and ruin your day:
“Signs of dyslexia vary by age, but they generally involve difficulties with accurate and fluent word recognition, spelling, and language processing.”
Adult symptoms:
- Slow reading pace: Taking an unusually long time to finish reading assignments or reports.
- Verbal vs. written gap: Strong spoken communication skills contrasted with disorganized or labor-intensive writing.
- Word-finding issues: Frequently searching for everyday words or relying on filler words and general terms.
- Organizational hurdles: Difficulty managing multiple deadlines, taking notes, or summarizing spoken information during meetings
