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[return to "Autism's confusing cousins"]
1. dimal+qP[view] [source] 2025-12-06 18:49:48
>>Anon84+(OP)
> Autism exists, to the extent that any psychiatric disorder exists.

Which is to say, not really. I say this as someone who has been diagnosed as autistic, and identifies as autistic. All of these diagnoses are presented as clear, well defined constructs that exist in the world, but in reality they’re fictions that that committees have drawn around a vast gradient of human traits.

No individual human truly fits any single diagnosis. For example, I have two family members that depending on how you frame their behaviors could be described as either autistic or narcissistic, yet these are supposedly completely different disorders. Prior to being diagnosed as autistic, I’d been diagnosed with some of the ones suggested in the article as well. Was I misdiagnosed? I don’t think so. None of those constructs are real either. So, they’d not even wrong. For a time, some were useful. Some were harmful. But seeing myself as autistic has been a lot more useful.

What matters to me about identifying as autistic is that it allowed me to find other people who experience the world similarly to me. Until I found other autistic people, I felt like I was a single alien stranded on Earth, alone. Finding other autistic people was like finding out that there were millions of other aliens like me hiding in plain sight.

I hope that someday we can move beyond the 1950s-style nosology of the DSM and have a more rigorous science of mental health, but right now, it’s what we’re stuck with.

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2. nis0s+EQ[view] [source] 2025-12-06 19:00:20
>>dimal+qP
I am sorry, but if you’re saying there’s no biological, physiological or neurophysiological evidence of these conditions then you’re just plain wrong. I cannot emphasize that enough.
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