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
Yeah, of course. When a "normal" person asks for a reasonable accommodation--like being able to wear a smooth cotton polo alternative they bought with their own money rather than the piqué fabric one assigned by the company--they get "wow you want to be so special and unique, no you need to wear the shirt assigned by the company and get over it." Is it any surprise that someone would want to go get an autism diagnosis or whatever else so they can... just wear the damn shirt that doesn't make them half-grimace at all the customers?

They're going to be accused of wanting the special and unique stamp in either case, but at least in the second one they can feel somewhat comfortable.

People will, of course, conjure up an unreasonable accommodation (in an attempt to paint all accommodations as unreasonable) in their head to try to justify why this sort of request can't be accommodated, which just increases the fuel for the desire to get the autism diagnosis.

Put another way, if people were a little more accepting, less only-slightly-weird people would be seeking these diagnoses.