this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
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Autism
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It's the self diagnostics favorite past time. Lots of people will take a "self care" day after a social events. Lots of people will rehearse social interactions especially if they're important. And lots of people take extra time to make themselves "presentable" before leaving the house.
It begs the question: What does it mean to be autistic? We diagnose autism based on a constellation of symptoms only when those symptoms make it difficult to function in society (which is an arbitrary line). You can describe lots of non-autistic human behaviors as autistic because it's all on a spectrum. But you can also describe a lot of non-sociopathic human behaviors as sociopathic, I don't think it means you have symptoms of late-diagnosis sociopathy.
I guess what I'm saying is that posts like these and the general attitude it represents irks me a lot. Imo it's really really harmful to say to autistic people: "normal people don't need a day off after social events." Some do, some don't. It doesn't make you a diagnosable pariah to have this need. If you are autistic it means that your tendency to get overwhelmed by social events is so severe that it interferes with your general life and well-being. That's it. (And of course the same applies for the other two symptoms described in the post)
Diagnosis requires suffering. It's the golden rule of the DSM