For some people these diagnoses will be a very good fit with clear predictive outcomes. But many of us have a grab-bag of traits from several categories and still mostly get along in life, maybe with some assistance particular to one of these diagnosis but no more help overall than anyone else needs otherwise.
The diagnostic models suck. They are too broad here, too narrow there, misunderstood by professionals. I had a psychiatrist (mis)diagnose me as bipolar based on a 45 minute appointment when I was in some sort of crisis in my early 30s and that ended up haunting me years later when applying for a job with a security clearance. I didn’t even know about it at the time. This was one of the top rated doctors in a major metro area. What a sham.
The field is a mess. It has a terrible history of horrific abuse. Some autistic children still receive involuntary-to-them ECT. I think we should be supportive of research into these topics while also being critical of the very obvious problems with them.
Did your sporting team have success on the weekend? Wonderful, direct eye contact, smile, mirror. Ok, now, to business:
I—-as a non-autistic person—-have lots of default tendencies which were socially discouraged as a child and which are now no longer part of my self concept. I’m not “repressing” a desire to be awkward, I’ve simply learned to be less awkward.
But my understanding of autism, which is I think backed by the article itself, is that autism exists as a fundamental cognitive process and tends to be pretty stable.
Btw the reason I ask is to learn…as a software dev and manager, several of the people I interact with could probably be diagnosed autistic and I’m always curious to try to understand what that’s like better.
When I first started interviewing people, I would have crippling anxiety. On days I had a interview scheduled with a candidate, I would obsess and have anxiety to the point where I wasn't able to focus on anything until the interview was over. It was bad. I'd spend hours rehearsing every line I was going to say. I was an incredibly awkward interviewer.
Fast forward 10 years and hundreds of interviews later, the anxiety is completely gone and an interview doesn't even spike my heart rate anymore.
I absolutely met multiple DSM criteria for anxiety 10 years ago, but not anymore.
I suppose I was cured through "exposure therapy" (or whatever you call doing something repeatedly that gives you massive anxiety).
Interviewing still doesn't come naturally to me. But it's easy now because every interview is basically scripted. I repeat lines that I memorized over the years. I always start interviews with the same ice breaker. I use multiple tactics to put myself and the candidate at ease throughout the call.
Do I still have anxiety even though I've learned how to cope with it? I don't know.
Is someone still autistic if they were able to learn coping tactics that make the symptoms invisible to themselves and others? I don't know.
For what it's worth, exposure therapy is a real term and it's an actual part of cognitive behavioural therapy.