zlacker

>>Anon84+(OP)
> I remember seeing a woman who was a classic example of someone with high neuroticism, poor self-esteem, and severe social anxiety, and she had believed for much of her life that she was autistic ... it fit in with her experience of being awkward-shy-weird.

I so strongly agree with this and it's not just based on my own experience, but many people I know.

Growing up broke and in sketchy places with sketchy people will induce plenty of anxiety. Then I managed to get out of all that as an adult and starting a career.

The anxiety never fully went away, but it now presents itself the way one would expect instead of "weirdness". Maturing and having a more stable life happened to my friends also and nobody says "I think I'm autistic" anymore like we did in high school and college. Now it's hard to distinguish if we were saying that to ourselves as a slur in self-deprecation, or if we really believed it. Young people are just awkward and too many people get older without letting go of the things they told themselves a long time ago.

Make of that what you will. I know my story is super common, but the only reason I bothered to write this is that it doesn't get said enough.

>>sublin+W6
People nowadays are just desperate to have a diagnosis. Everybody wants to be special and unique, everybody wants a stamp on their forehead that says "I have [x]" "I am [x]". People cant accept that the issues they have might just be not special at all and are mere human issues all of us have. Its the result of aggressive sensationalism and the desire to stand out from the crowd.

>>zwnow+Y7
People are desperate for an identity. It has always been that people would latch on to things that seem fitting for them - maybe they put a lot of stock in their identity as a soldier, or as a fan of a band, or maybe as a member of a group like skateboarders. And, interestingly, most of these historic manifestations also have an aspect of "stamp on their forehead advertising their identity" - patches, shirts, other identifying aesthetics from their community.