"You're just like everyone else, why can't you just be normal?!"
Yeah, fuck you very much Dad.
this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
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"Oh don't worry, you're just a little introverted, there's nothing wrong with that"
/s just in case, it's what they all told me
but man, fixating on computers in the 90's was a hot ticket
In my case, the screeners all came up deeply ASD, but it ended up that I have OCD+need for perfection instead. Different cause, very similar presentation in a lot of ways.
Interesting...
I definitely used to obsess over things I had said, and how I could or would say them differently or better. As a kid. That's not.. Normal?
These days I'll still cringe over things I said, or have conversations in my head as I drive, planning what I'll say and how they'll react etc, but it's no longer obsessive. Or at least I'm good at redirecting my thoughts and distracting myself so I'm not worrying about it anymore. Which sometimes leads to its own problems, forgetting to have conversations, misremembering my practice as the conversation actually having happened.
Same with text messages, if I read it, I'll think of how to respond, but often forget to actually.. You know.. respond.
These are not normal things that everyone does?
... Am I autistic?
You are commenting on Lemmy.
On a picture of text.
Serious question, that isn’t what people normally do?
How do you function if you don’t think about such things.
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)
You may need to read the post again until it clicks
Knowing and relating to all these things but not having the $3000+ to actually get diagnosed.
It cost my boyfriend $652 for the diagnosis, not including medication. That's with health insurance in the USA. It's a lot of money, but at least it wasn't in the thousands.
Edit: I'm sorry everyone. I thought I was in the ADHD topic. Didn't mean to give out misinformation.
Gawd fuckin dammit. Imagine healthcare in the US being better then in Canada in any way lol.
Where are you? There's likely assessment resources available that aren't private but not "advertised" as it were.
It varies wildly province to province how long the waiting list is when you go the publc route as an adult. Could be months to multiple years.
That's fair.
No it's not.
No shit
"Yeah it was so obvious that I'm wrong that you're basically an idiot for expressing disagreement. I WIN, LOSER!" said nobody rational, ever.
There is medication for Austim?
I suppose there are meds you can take to help you control some of our "quirks". Like meds for when you feel anxiety (maybe after a sensory overload).
If someone tries to sell you meds to cure it, they are grifters ore worse.
Not autism, but ADHD here, and pretty much all those symptoms.
You may have both.
Between 50% and 70% of autistic people also have an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder diagnosis
Oh I’ve been tested, lol.
Also, further down in that article it says about 13% of children diagnosed with ADHD also have a diagnosis of ASD. Which is higher than I expected, but not as strong an association as the other way around. I just thought that was interesting.
Shit, I feel attacked.
Kinda disappointing. Like the therapist saying or more like confirming you're on the spectrum was kinda redundant. Yeah sure, ok. Now what?
I'm still going to have to use all the compensatory methods. I'm still going to have to do all the social and emotional side manually. Like dafuq did i throw my money at you, no offense to the therapist.
Brain implants don't exist yet to fix or aid with my issues. Neither can we do any surgery to rewire the brain. I'm going to go out of this office and still have to deal with the same issues. What was the point even?
Yeah this did kinda put me off of therapy for the foreseeable future. Way too much like shooting in the dark to justify the resources it takes, time and money. So at least it did something.
I'm in my 40s. I got my ADHD diagnosis this year. For me, it was validation, and was worth the money I spent on it to be able to say: "Yes, my brain has trouble with these things and I have to work differently than others."
I imagine it's the same for ASD. Having someone else confirm you struggle with certain things is, in its own way, empowering.
I don't know that "Therapy" therapy, or even medication, is always necessary afterwards. I don't plan to get meds for my ADHD, or get regular therapy sessions. I developed my own coping strategies and I've been fine for years and years; if I had been failing to hold a job or relationship, then therapy might be helpful to teach me strategies. The desire for me was to have someone else, who has training and knowledge more than my WebMD queries, tell me that I am correct in understanding my own body and everyone else is weird.
Confirmation is one step in being able to solve / correct behavior and build workarounds.
Acceptance is a big step for a lot of people, as is the feeling of solidarity.
Now they know what to research for "life-hacks" on how to interact with and live within the world that isn't designed for people like us.
And it can help rewrite the techniques you have built to function in society (‘masking’) towards something more comfortable and less energy consuming.
A friend of mine got diagnosed in her 20s, when she went in burnout and couldn’t get over it because any social situation was overwhelming. Learning methods to handle social situations -less masking, more awareness of her limits, searching for clearer boundaries and much more I am not privy to- helped her tremendously and she is blossoming.
I can’t imagine not masking at work. It’s so ingrained that I don’t know what “not masking” in a professional setting would even look like. When I’m alone I don’t mask, obviously, but when I’m alone I’m also not talking to anyone. So there’s no facial expression or tone of voice to monitor.
I’ve had way, way too many bad experiences related to not masking. Too much punishment, too many baseless accusations, too many authority figures confusing flat tones of voice with “sarcasm” or “rudeness.” The idea of not masking in a professional setting is as scary as showing up to work naked.
It’s cool that some people are finding ways to reduce masking, but I can’t fathom what I could do instead. From what I’ve experienced, the world still isn’t ready for full autism acceptance.
Completely fair and I'm not denying it's overall usefulness. Way too many people have found it helpful to deny it.
I just got diagnosed late enough that i already had developed most of the necessary compensatory methods to deal with my day to day life.
You can get supports and accommodations, especially at work and school. Otherwise, as you said, there's little point to a formal diagnosis for the sake of it.
In my case, I don't want/need any supports, so I was fine with a much cheaper unofficial assessment. It helped me understand myself and my struggles, like learning just how many things I downplayed as "being dramatic" was real sensory and social friction.
Yeah, if i were to be diagnosed earlier then some help in school life would have been good.
Otherwise pretty much the same, i already had developed all the necessary workarounds for my life by the time i got diagnosed.
It fixed my mental health and helped me begin to recover.
Throughout my whole life I had thought that I had some form of brain injury or screw up, or maybe I was just being lazy. I couldn't write properly, I was weird. I was an outcast. I tried to be normal which I hated and even then it failed. Even my demeanor I couldn't change. Eventually as a teen I went into a really dark place, and ended up getting a psychiatric nurse.
He suggested to me that I might have autism and referred me for an assessment, I waited three years for it, but I got diagnosed. It's like everything made sense now, and it gave me permission to be myself. Anyone who had an issue with that was being ableist, as long as I don't intentionally try to annoy or harm anybody, or make people uncomfortable. I'm allowed to like what I like and not do what I don't want to do.
I still think I have issues from growing up with undiagnosed issues, mainly related to confidence and self esteem.
Then other people with autism, ADHD, etc. start describing your exact experiences and you're like huh oddly specific but okay probably doesn't mean anything
"Nah, I'm just really, really introverted... Like more than anybody I've ever met, kind of turbo-charged introverted, but that's all it is. That and I'm just completely defective as a person, so that's why nobody will be my friend."
-Me, 2016
That’s just my life in general. I’d rather just not know if I’m on the spectrum or not. I can function just fine in society with or without it