this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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My paternal grandpa was a mechanically/technically inclined person, a socially awkward, blunt and stubborn person with multiple failed marriages, and no friends ... who turned to tobacco and alcohol to cope... and he literally did have an extensive, hand crafted model train set and environment, the size of two queen mattresses, that he built, and often neglected his kids to spend time on/with. That and the alcoholism also caused some serious familial neglect.
My dad was a technically/mechanically inclined person, a socially awkward, very brash and overconfident, sutbborn person with a history of tumultuous romantic relationships, is still in a very unhappy marriage, no friends, who turned to alcohol to cope, which caused him to neglect his kids and wife... and then also went through various hobbies every 2-4 years or so, which became his whole personality untill he switched to another one.
I can remember him one time, piss drunk, explaining to 10ish yearold me the ins and outs of structural concepts in aircraft design.
I am also a technically/mechanically/computer programming inclined person, a socially awkward person with a history of tumultuous romantic relationships, who is overly literal and often quite blunt, with no real friends beyond the age of about 25... who would often isolate with the computer to get away from insane family drama... but at least I have not fallen into alcoholism nor had any marriages or kids, as I realize that social/traditional pressure alone is not a good reason to sign up for massive responsibilities...
But nope! Ask any of my dad's family if maybe Autism is a thing that runs in the male line of our family, and this is evidently a ludicrous, unfounded notion, but also at the same time there's 'just no real explanation' for the astoundingly obvious pattern I have here described.
They don't disagree that the pattern isn't there, they are all just massively biased/stigmatized against any concepts of mental illness or neurodiversity, choosing to view atypical, consistent behavioral patterns as simply indicative of the underlying, quality of moral character of a person.
Maybe I'm just in a local cluster, but seems like neurodivergent men is such a trope. I know so many ND men just in my friend circle, seemingly more than not, and many of them seem to have un/intentionally paired themselves to type-A extraverted outgoing type partners that sort of steer the ship lol.
You sure its unintentional, lol?
To me that sounds like a pair of ... differently specialized people, shall we say? ... realizing they appreciate each other, and the relative weaknesses of one can be augmented by the relative strengths of the other, and that they are more capable and happy as the sum, than as the seperate parts.
Gal pal can steer and direct the socializing, pull the guy into the occasional group event, AutismoMale can handle the things that require more research or analysis?
Guy on the spectrum probably gets most of the social interaction he wants/needs from the gal and maybe a few of his own friends, doesn't mind at all that the gal socializes with other people more often ... he infact totally understands and appreciates this, as it gives him relatively more solitary time?
I mean, "My grandfather was a baker and my father was a baker and now I'm a baker, so I guess its just in the family blood" used to be wisdom common enough that you'd end up with the surname The Baker Family and nobody would bat an eye. You don't need to medicalize what is seemingly a pattern of learned behaviors.
On the other hand, it seems silly to discount neurodivergence simply because its treated as a slur rather than a normal condition that exists on a spectrum of psychological propensities. Even worse to self-medicate as a cooping mechanism.
In an ideal world, sure, you don't need to medicalize Autism...
But we live in a very far from ideal world, and medicalization has already happened.
If you just tell people 'these are common adjectives that describe me, these are way my brain works in that are different than most, these are things I enjoy and things that bother me', without actually using the medical term... most people won't believe you or care and will just tell you to stop being that way, to just change.
People tend to respect you as a human being just a bit more if they have at least a roughly accurate conception of what Autism is, but there are also a whole lot of people ... like RFK Jr... who seem to only think Autism makes you an utter invalid who is essentially half brain dead.
The whole point here is that an Autistic person's brain does actually fundamentally work differently than an NT's.
These are not all learned behaviors that can be unlearned.
Like, we have a lot of brain scans and neurochemistry that shows Autist brains being significantly different than NT brains in a number of physically observable ways.
We know that genetic heritability is a significant factor, but we have yet to identify precisely which genes actually do this, and to what degree...
... I am rambling, but yes, the stigma is stupid.
I've known legit, diagnosed sociopaths (now ASPD)... and it is totally possible for a well intentioned one to go through a good deal of what would be considered 'extra' learning for an NT... to learn how operate in social settings in a more normal way... just as Autists either have to be taught this 'extra' social learning, or just struggle harder than others and learn masking all on their own.
Perhaps its my Autistic tendency to love accurately and dispationately classifying things speaking... but I would very much prefer a world where people would not be embarased by or stigmatized for using accurate and meaningful labels of themselves... without harmful, overgeneralizing sterotypes being innacurately applied to them.
No no. By all means, if you've got a psychological condition then codifying it and describing it accurately is great. I more think the impulse to say assigning career patterns or hobbies to psychological conditions omits a much more logical conclusion - that you learned a trade from your parents.
Less a problem of someone who needs an education in autism and more a problem of a guy who is heavily invested in eugenics. But I think there's a danger in rushing to bucket people too quickly, as well. Once "liking trains" becomes a medical condition, people like to run off and treat the symptom (by persecuting train lovers) rather than the problem (by curbing the social impulse to punish neurodivergence).
Chasing down genetic markers for behavioral conditions is going to be a fool's errand for a whole host of reasons. Human brains are extremely plastic. For the most part, if you've got a brain, you've got the capacity to adjust your behaviors to some degree - which may mean adapting to cover up neurodivergence or imitating a trait to fit in with a peer group that share it or just spinning it out on your own in response to education or trauma or other strong stimulus.
Ultimately, it is the social bureaucracy that needs to adapt to accommodate a wider range of behaviors and emotional conditions, not the individual who needs to be tagged and sorted like so many cuts of beef.
I am less worried about professional psychologists and amateur hobbyists alike rattling off new language for self-description than I am authority figures trying to pound round pegs into square holes because they've been given a very superficial understanding of what a given neurodivergent behavior looks like.
"Sociopath" is a great example of a term that inspires terror due to the way it has been propagandized to mean "soulless serial killer" rather than "person who struggles to connect emotionally with one's peers". The last thing I want is for some bureaucrat to use "love of trains" to mean "potential Clintonian Superpredator".
Nothing new about it but they know that in their hearts. They get mad and call it something new but for those of us with this new knowledge and understanding of ourselves know its all bull.
My dad was probably on the spectrum. He never drank or smoked because his dad did. That and it would have cost money in his never ending quest to have more shit than anyone else. His addiction was greed and control. He would have a meltdown/anxiety attack and scream in my face for various failing such as being like a slow gaited mule. I would never be as good as him at something because I was left handed. All in all my dad was a total POS. A disgustingly mean POS.
My Grandpa was one of the sweetest people ever. Until the family abused him into quitting alcohol and tabaco. Then he was as irritable as my dad. He never completely quit though. Alcohol was the only available method of treatment he had and he used it well. He learned to never drink except when there was no possibility of being caught.
My first drink of alcohol was with him and it was shine. Shine like you see in the old movies. Straight our of a stoneware whiskey jug. He would pick it up once a year up north in the hills. He always poured it into those jugs. It just wasn't right if it wasn't from those jugs.
For nearly twenty years I used Alcohol and weed to treat myself for ADHD and probably autism. One of the few regrets I have now that they are gone is that I never told my dad about it. It would have infuriated him and that would have made me laugh.
I drank and smoked weed for nearly twenty years until I got treatment. Mainly for the ADHD. I've never been officially diagnosed and there is little point in it now. I know who I am and understand mostly why I do the things I do. This is something none of them ever had.
Why you gotta point out my families behavior patterns to me like that /s