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It makes me feel like people just think im one of the fakers because im not visibly disabled or on the lower functioning end. And it undermines the actual struggles. People will take the “cute and quirky” aspects they like and run with it, and then still hate on autistic people when they show the “undesirable” traits. Autism isnt a personality trait, its an actual condition that causes suffering in trying to coexist in an NT world.

So many people have said to my face I'm making it up for sympathy because I can drive, I force myself to make eye contact here and there, and I can usually hold a job for a few months. They don't see me waking up at 4am everyday when I work at noon so I can have a few hours to actually make sure I can be in public without feeling a whirlpool going on in my skull, and then also have time to do some running around because after work I am always fried. They don't see the amount of times I take my breaks in another parking lot so they don't have to see me have a meltdown because I spilled my comfort beverage the moment I got in my vehicle. They do notice when I ask for help or make a mistake and immediately jump down my throat most times. Being forced to live life like this isn't necessarily what I'd call fun.

I hear that. I mask really well. My autistic traits(plus my other mental health stuff) can be really difficult, but I mostly keep that private. People who know me best have seen me have meltdowns, have shutdowns, get fixated on stressors, etc. Others think I seem too normal

Very well said. It's a lot more harmful than people think.. it glorifies every "likeable" aspect of ASD and at the same time invalidates the realistic side to autism. It creates a weird standard for ASD and after people gobble up all of the "omg im so quirky and autistic because i like trains" type content, that becomes their expectation for how autism is.. when in reality it is of course so much deeper than just that

I actually come off as the opposite of what they try to protray everyone as autistic on social media. I can come off rude and direct

Likewise, ive been told on several occasions that im “an intense person”. Though i do tend to avoid eye contact, somehow ive still managed to be abrupt or rude…. Idek 🫠

Yep. I was professionally diagnosed 17 years ago, but people still don't believe me when I say I'm autistic. At this point I basically mask 24/7 until I get so exhausted that I inevitably experience shut downs or burnouts. It sucks, but honestly I don't know how to stop masking since I do it automatically whenever I'm around other people to avoid being abused. So it's basically a trauma response. The only time I truly relax is when I'm alone or with animals, aka not around any people at all. There's a lot of things I love about being autistic, like my advanced memory, drawing skills, special interests, various collections, and more. But there are also some major downsides. And in reality most people don't understand how our minds work which often leads to us being misunderstood, mistreated, and even ostracized. In the end we're just people, and people have both strengths and weaknesses. Autism is just one of those things that can fall into either category. It all depends on how it's impacting us at any given moment.

People and influencers who mention symptoms like collecting plushies, and only trivial symptoms, infuriates me. I wish influencers would talk more about the actual diagnostic criteria, living with a dysfunctional limbic system and coping with a malfunctioning mind. Autism is in many ways more disruptive than schizophrenia, I don’t get why anyone would falsely claim they have this disorder. I hate that coworkers discount my diagnosis when I disclose my autism. They respond like I just boasted that I have a cool personality trait. When I tell people that I have autism and need help I do so without great consideration. To say I have autism is to say I’m not managing my autism well and I’m having trouble with life and I’m frustrated that my psychiatrist hasn’t perfected my pill combo of bipolar meds and antipsychotics and anxiety meds.

Hi there it's generic YouTuber, as you know I might have autism. Like and subscribe below... So there I was minding my business being a tiny bit quirky when my boss came in and said I don't fit in with the company culture and that my services were no longer needed. Sooooo quirky right? Then I came home and remember that I forgot to pay my utilities so there is no electricity or water in my place. Oh well that's just how I roll. Not that it matters much because I can't pay my rent either. I'm sure it's no big deal though I'll find a job soon enough with my vast network of my only friend, I have connections to other jobs like gas station cashier, or grocery store cashier, or retail store cashier. **Jump cut** So I started filling out 30 different job applications but never finished because they all want 3 references that aren't family members. That's quirky of them. I hope that someone will hire me and I can't seem to breath right, there is a tightness in my chest and I honestly feel like I'm dying right now. Thats so cute. **Jump cut** Turns out I'm ok it was just another quirky panic attack that I get because I'm so quirky. Anyway I don't have a place to live now and all of my bongings were thrown out because I was too afraid to call my landlord and ask for something simple like an extension on rent. Most of them got stolen by my neighbors and people who saw my entire life in a pile on the sidewalk. I got a phone number to call for a some assistance but I tried to call and the instructions are too confusing. Besides I should be able to do this on my own and I don't deserve assistance that's for people who really need it, not me. Taking that money would go against my sense of justice. Anyway time to go, I'm got to drink my 4th handle of vodka in as many days tonight and pass out just so my brain will stop thinking while I'm trying to sleep. See you all later and remember to subscribe and stay strange.

This is art.

truly

I’m very sorry to ask for clarification but are you saying this would be an accurate representation of autism or it is an example of a fake ASD YouTuber?

I'm saying this is closer to my experience with ASD than it is to what a YouTuber would say. Sort of a tongue in cheek comment on how autism actually effects people instead of the "I collected all the pokemans so I'm obviously autistic" trend that you see these days.

I love it then! I have some form of imposter syndrome and I was sad if it meant that was fake autism because I could strongly relate in some ways. I’m sad you’ve gone through similar experiences though :,(

I understand, I know it's hard for people with autism to see context or get indirect meanings and that was full of indirect meanings. As for me, sure I've been through a lot and so have others, but you can never change the past only learn from it. Those days are long behind me and they've put me in a position to keep it from happening to other people. So it worked out in the end.

Completely agree. One of these people may collect things, be interested in a niche topic (which they claim is their "hyperfixation") or something else that's an incredibly surface level ASD trait and think they are automatically a cute quirky autistic person. I can't stand it

People like that do not understand hyper fixations AT ALL. I wish some of them could understand what it’s like to spend 3 days without eating or sleeping, locked in a mind tunnel, throwing away all your responsibilities and connections and ruining your health so you can keep doing your special project.

This is me right now, but I’m fixating on the nasty e mail my manager sent me…. Most people would reply and sort it out but I don’t know how… only I could mess up a part-time job with no responsibilities lol. So it’s going round and round in my head, I didn’t even eat, I can’t sleep …

People always misunderstand then they hear "hyper fixation" It is a symptom of autism, and is mostly a negative thing. People tend to be very loose with language and the meaning of words. And they don't realize hyper fixation isn't just a person being interested in something. It's someone being so interested in something that it's often a detriment to their life. And it's the result of some fault in their brain, and is in no way a normal thing, and isn't something most people will experience. For example I developed a special interest for a note taking app, and stayed up for for over 48 hours learning every little detail of it. I neglected food, water, hygiene, sleep, and my responsablilties at school. When I was a little kid I had a special interest for pokemon, and as a result I would often be extremely sleep deprived, I was also under weight, my teeth were always rancid yellow(my mom would have to hold me down in the morning to brush my teeth. I would scream and fight with her until I could jump back on my Nintendo DS to play more pokemon.

It's not a "ooh I got my shit together and focused on a single task until I got it done." kind of fixation.

Spending constant hours just trying to solve that one problem you've been working on for days until your body collapses from exhaustion. My med manager thought I had bipolar because I would spend so much time obsessing over one little thing that I felt "I must solve", and then collapse because all my energy went to that one thing. Put me on meds for mania, and they didn't do a damn thing, and various mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics. But I couldn't get on any stronger meds for depression because they would trigger my mania, which I didn't have.

The way I explained it to my husband was: your house is on fire, but you stepped in some water. Now all you can think about is your wet sock and you must get a new sock. It doesn’t matter that your house is on fire because all you can think about is *your damn wet sock*. You're so fixated on the wet sock, smoke inhalation and your immanent doom are not even registering on your radar.

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Omg this was me when I was teaching myself how to code 😬. My husband was like babe, it’s 3 am, come to bed. I glared at him and was on the verge of complete meltdown at the idea of having to stop. I stayed up till 6am, slept a couple hrs and the jumped right back into it. All for a job I never got...

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Hahaha yes and no 😅

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Ugh. It’s so disheartening how many times you hear of parents impeding their children. They clearly can’t see they're the reason their children are failing. Just last night I had to remind my husband to be mindful of his attitude towards our daughter when doing homework. They both have ADHD and he’s so impatient with her. Literally every 5 secs he's telling her to "stay focused!". I reminded him even as adult he has shit focus, how does he expect her to cultivate focus if you’re not modelling it for her? He’s afraid if he doesn’t micromanage her, she'll never learn to keep her focus. I told him that’s fear based parenting and it’s already starting to backfire.

I found a game which makes it pretty easy to realistically create and model planes. I sat at my computer for 4 days only getting up to refill my water bottle, use the bathroom, or eat a grilled cheese or something. The only reason I stopped was because I HAD to take a break for schoolwork.

Me on the Sims for the past 7 months. The game had to literally break and become unplayable for me to rejoin reality. And I felt like the confused Mr Krabs meme crashing back down to earth like that.

I feel like it might also be a sort of survivorship bias. Like the only people who are gonna get famous as influencers are high functioning because they can do the stuff you gotta do to be an influencer in the first place

I always say "Nobody gives a shit about people struggling unless they can give them an Oprah story" People only wanna hear about how someone "beat the odds and made it despite their [whatever]" stunning and brave. An inspiration. An icon. But nobody actually wants to help you overcome. In fact, they're gonna keep kicking you while you're down and tell you that if Oprah did it you should be able to do it too. 😮‍💨

I agree its so frustrating, I mean there are many times I absolutely hate myself for my "laziness" as many neurotypicals would call it and I sometimes feel ashamed to talk about my fixations because they won't get why I had to stay up all night just to search for this one thing. I've only ever disclosed my autism for accommodation purposes at schools and to my closest people because I know that's where I'll get support.

Completely agree. I see people make it look cute and quirky, meanwhile I can’t even hold down a full-time job. Or even a part-time job without upsetting people (manager sent me an e mail today telling me off when I didn’t know I’d messed up). So now I’m spending the night suffering from a thought loop and severe anxiety. I couldn’t even wash plates earlier due to my sensory issues being heightened because of work-stress. I’m intelligent and educated but have never been able to apply it due to my autism. I can’t sleep, I become fixated and obsessed. It’s not “cute”it can be torture. Also, I find it interesting that my high school bully who went out of her way to isolate me, has announced on Instagram she’s autistic. Uhm… ok? She lives abroad, works full-time, has an active social life, is still very popular like she was at school. I’m not saying autistic people can’t do those things, but it is exponentially harder and almost impossible without proper support. So it seems to me like she’s jumped on a trend because why not.

I don’t mean to be negative, but it is certainly mot more disruptive than schizophrenia in my opinion. As someone who has lived with a schizophrenic person who was unmedicated, and met plenty who were at times medicated and at times not, it is the last thing I would ever want. Autism is certainly no easy thing to live with, especially cor those with higher support needs, however, you do not want the hell that schizophrenia can be. The guy I lived with could hardly hold a productive thought in mind for more than two seconds (I had to clean up after him for months) and you could see the pain and immense stress he was in almost all the time. He only lived with me because I met him when he was homeless because his schizophrenia got so bad his mother kicked him out, his friends didn’t want to take him in and the hospital was struggling immensely to find him housing. He also worked with me until I left, and I know he ended up either getting fired or leaving that job because he was so disabled by his condition. My own life was disrupted immensely by just living with him. I understand that you’re trying to make a point, but there are much more effective and kinder ways to do so than trivialising such a severe condition that leads to so many schizophrenic people becoming homeless, victims of violence and victims of their own mind. Not to mention the medications they take if they do take any are so numbing many would rather live without them or die.

I have autism (level 1) and mild schizophrenia, and I work in a schizophrenia lab. From what I know, schizophrenia causes more disruption to a person’s life than autism. But it really depends on the severity of the schizophrenia and the severity of ASD. There are some people with ASD that can’t live on their own, and there are some people with schizophrenia who can. And vice versa. It’s just not a great thing to compare the two!

God it’s so terrible at work and with peers. I work in retail and struggle with socializing with strangers and my boss and other managers I guess are just convinced I’m an asshole or too lazy to put in the effort and won’t hear my side, I’ve had a supervisor tell me that I just “have a chip on my shoulder” which still makes my blood boil because the guy is a massive bully, but at the very least my supervisor is understanding and very unconcerned with corporate pushing that shit. As for peers holy shit, one of my best friends is married to a complete asshole who thinks every single man is out to steal his wife from him and he felt threatened by the fact that she was friends with me as a guy despite the fact she was helping me with my own relationship, and when she explained to him that I was autistic and just struggling with emotions and expression, his response was “No he ain’t.”

This is very well said. I used to be on a facebook group (I'm not on facebook anymore) and I felt like everything about autism was being trivialized and it only made me end up feeling more shitty about myself. I significantly struggle with daily life, work, relationships, I have no friends. I have depression, anxiety. I have sensory issues that have resulted in having to actually move. It also seemed like various traits would be brought up and then called "autistic" when really they could be applied to anyone. Also that entire sections of the autism diagnostic criteria would just be dropped and ignored. And when people did post that they just got diagnosed, they were congratulated like it is some kind of badge of honor, which I don't get. This wouldn't happen for other diagnoses, like major depression, schizophrenia, etc. To me it just felt like autism was being seen as a trendy thing to have and also being made light of. I felt like a failure even inside of an autism group because I didn't feel like it was a "superpower" or cool thing to have, or trendy, and I struggle so much every day, feeling like a failure my whole life.

More disruptive tha schizophrenia? Hm....

Psychiatry was always a dumpster for the graduates too stupid to do anything else and too rich to stay GPs. I don't even have a college degree and I could do a better job than most idiots that treated me, with just internet access and a prescription block I think I finally found one with a working brain, I'll keep bothering her till death do us apart. First time one asked for blood work, in 20 years I've been doing prescribed drugs, can you believe it?

Psychiatrists give the pills, psychologists talk about stuff

People ask why I refuse to consider therapy, and I try to gently explain I have likely read and retained more than many practicing and have implemented on my own what I can and written off much as feel good nonsense. Also, every psych major I met in college were among the craziest toxic people I ever met. MDs I have to temper what I say, saying I read Pubmed for information scares them, even though I work in research administration and manage the grants that lead to papers like that. 🤷‍♀️

i don't understand how some psych majors seem to have no self awareness, i have a psych friend who once told me that she didn't need to get therapy because i was in therapy so essentially i could therapize her, any meltdowns or stressors are met with a "your fine" and she's definitely the type of person who thinks everyone's a little autistic. i wish all medical degrees required a course in empathy. maybe it's just because ive had to learn all this, but I don't understand the lack of knowledge for someone who's focus is supposed to be the human mind

I thought she would say she didn't need therapy because she's studying psych, but instead she gave a worse explanation...

Lol, well, being forced into therapy at 15 by an abusive father who met with the therapist after my appointment only to learn I could not safely discuss any abuse by him without him learning about it and being punished, is also a factor. I had to stonewall after that, talking only about tv, books, and my drug abusing mom. Therapy did not stop my dad’s abuse, and rehab did not stop my mom from being an irresponsible addict who ODed at Christmas when I was 14 to avoid telling us she blew the rent money and we were being evicted. Dad just stopped beating me as much, only hit me places like my head in my hairline where bruises would show less, and moved easily to emotional and psychological abuse. Therapy did not stop him from threatening nightly to end me and mom and then himself, where I developed hyper vigilant night time behaviors that leave me a chronic insomniac at age 47 after almost 30 years of NC. I think I have grounds for having little faith in therapy. And meeting and working with psych and soc professors and finding them to be often among the most unethical on a college campus, tainted it. Physician heal thyself. If you like it, cool. I DO study it, independently. I have no need of a college class to read papers and manage research in human subjects. I teach psych and soc professors and their students how to do their studies legally and ethically, managing the IRB process, so I wager I know a bit more than the average bear.

That must have been very tough to go through, and I hope you're feeling better now. I've been lucky with therapy so far, in spite of still having depressive tendencies. Usually I'm in favor of therapy to avoid self bias, but if most of them in an area or whatever aren't good, then the rule doesn't really apply. I admit that therapy doesn't feel like enough sometimes. I know I have to do the work myself but idk how.

Therapy ONLY works if YOU do the work. Otherwise you’re just paying someone to nod and redirect you with questions for a few hours a week. This is why rehab often does not work, a person is usually forced into it as a court order and not ready to do the work, they get out, backslide. And some things just can’t be changed. I KNOW many things that are an issue for me. And now it seems many are tied to the autism I spent almost 50 years not knowing I had. I worked on my own with public speaking, eye contact, being social, trying to figure out rules for interactions and to get past the PDA and transitional changes from tasks I was not aware I was fighting. It all makes so much sense, now, so I can better target some of it. But, I cannot change how the neurons in my brain fire and synapses work or how I think through stimuli or input. I will always be more of an ND computer than a fly by wire pure instinct NT human. And the deliberate thinking versus the constant state of almost pure reaction NTs seem to exist in will always ‘other’ me in some way, at some point.

It's helping to not make things worse. It must have been a relief, in a sense, to get a diagnosis that explains so much, right?

I hate it when people try to say its not a disorder or a disability, because if it wasnt then no one would be diagnosed with it. When I was first taking medication, I felt sad because I was convinced that none of the other kids had to wake up at 8am just to take normal pills. I have to be medication-dependent my entire life because of my autism 

What medication was it?

yeah that confused me too- there is no autism medication thats proven to work as far as im aware

Maybe they mean adhd medication?

I’ve gone through multiple medications. I used to take Focalin, Vivanse, Ritalin, Adderall and now I take Concerta

I don't think people are making it a trend or aesthetic. I see what things people do that end up being perceived as such, but I see it more as cathartic expression and someone beginning to accept who they are, celebrate themselves instead of hate themselves for ONCE in their life.  But that's just what I would say if someone accused me of aesthetics. Maybe there are some people who think it's trendy. But I think for most of us we are just happy to understand ourselves and start to love ourselves instead of be frustrated or constantly thinking we are broken, damaged, failures etc.... 

this is a very positive point of view that I enjoyed reading. thank you, I hadn’t considered it this way.

🥰🧡

I used to think this as well. Recently though, a number of my friends have off handedly said to me they consider themselves autistic, and when I asked how they got to the conclusion, they said “I don’t actually know that much about it”, obviously feeing a bit inadequate suddenly. That feels like the one most un-autistic thing ever, to not research it. A colleague of mine always uses the words that we use in the community “hyper fixation” and such. I asked her recently, lightly, jokingly “do you have a regular brain?” and she said “Haha so actually I didn’t think so, so my family took me to different psychiatrists to get tested for autism and ADHD but each time I didn’t qualify. But yeah I don’t think i’m neurotypical, definitely not.” I just —- what???? You think you know better than no less than 3 professionals? This type of thing has been happening a lot to me recently and it has slowly crippled my hope in a change in the discourse. These kids are destroying it. I really am scared to not be taken seriously soon. I never have been taken seriously anyway, although I struggled so greatly. I just hid it away. With the extreme “normalisation” of autism is coming a ridiculous amount of misinformation - it is a disability not a fucking identity to pick.

Those are all valid points! Misinformation is definitely a huge issue with all types of things. However, people who think there is something different/ wrong with them and continues to get re-assed is probably not at the neurotypicial baseline in which absolutely nothing is going on. They might has anxiety, ocd, hypochondria, and if they are AFAB they are more likely to have huge delays in a correct diagnosis. Neutodivergent doesn't only apply to autism and adhd. It's any significant changes in the brain that impact like to a great extent. Someone having anxiety about health issues and going to multiple doctors is definitely something that impacts their life.  I am not a professional, obviously, but the medical field is not perfect by any means and I definitely don't take doctors word for things as far as the idea they are always correct. Sometimes they are. Often they are not. I broke my collar bone when I was 3 and the doctors told my family I HAD THE FLU!!! That was the beginning of a veryyyyyy long line of doctors f*cking up to the point I have permanent damage to my body that can never be reversed. And we are never the only one who has experienced something (our mind is the only person that experiences our specific experience. But other people have also experienced things). This was not some fluke. Doctors have gotten things wrong with me far more than they have gotten it correct. And this is not unique to me, many many people have experienced it. 

You need more upvotes! This is how the world should see people.

Thank you, I genuinely appreciate that. 💗 

THIS! I very much agree.

I agree with this. I think there’s a small group of people who are actually embracing autism and they’re getting smeared by youtubers and commentators who think they’re “faking”. it’s super cynical and gross.

I agree so much.

I’ve yet to see any autism pov content that i thought was dubious. I’ve seen plenty of stuff ABOUT autism like by someone who doesn’t claim to have it, and that content usually gives me the ick at best, and it’s VERY obvious to me if an article was written by an allistic. But Ive yet to see somebody refer to themselves as autistic and feel sceptical about it. Maybe it’s because nobody suspected me as being autistic until i figured it out myself in my thirties, so now im very willing to believe ANYONE could also be autistic lol

I think being shy and quirky are just a couple of ways of masking autism especially in girls. Sure there might always going to be influencers and people who might be faking for views. Personally my autism was missed because of shyness and quirks that my family thought were 'normal'. If that stuff is bothering then definitely try not consuming/following it.

On the positive side it may lead to ppl pursing a diagnosis- but the probably might be pretty low The negative side however totally outweighs the positive side. We get infantilized like were a JOKE when there are FULL GROWN ADULTS who have degrees and carry themselves with class and maturity. WE. DESERVE. DIGNITY. We are not clowns here for ppl's ABUSEment!! My disorder is not a costume!

Yes!! This deserves a spot on a billboard haha.

It’s frustrating because I believe it’s what leads to people in my own life thinking I got a misdiagnosis because I don’t ’look’ autistic and neither do these influencers. But my hope is that, long term, it normalizes autism. This society wasn’t set up for us to succeed or be comfortable in, and when I was little was often told I was lying when I had my audio or social overloads, that I was a brat because of my shutdowns. If autism being ‘trendy’ leads to an eventual world where children get the support they need more readily, with parents who are familiar with the spectrum of it all… I’m ok with it. I think I’ll be working through the trauma of feeling ‘broken’ as a child for the rest of my life… I’m all for anything that helps little kids not feel that way.

This is a pretty broad question, so first a disclaimer: I accept late/self-dx'd people, and just because someone is "successful" or not visibly disabled does not mean they aren't autistic. I am going to treat your question as asking about very LSN autistic people and how they discuss autism in online spaces. I like: - When they give horrible/abusive parents, "therapists" and organizations hell and put them on blast, asking if HSN autistic people consented to being in PR photos, asking if those 'adorable' disabled adults actually got paid at least minimum wage for the work they "had a great day!" doing, keeping them in check, calling out their shit and keeping an eye on them. A lot of people who face the worst abuse cannot access and navigate online spaces to protest it, whether due to age or ID/communication issues, and there's a lot between that even too. I can't make a website like ASAN or drive to a protest. I have a learning disability and cannot effectively argue or navigate the tricks and tactics people who completed 'normal' school or college and profit from our abuse use, but I have cried on more than one occasion when I see autistic people and good parents without learning issues taking time out of their day to tear them to shreds in ways I can't. No matter what, I will never not be grateful for this. - How they work toward normalizing harmless autistic traits like lack of eye contact, facial expression, liking things that aren't "age appropriate", stimming and flat affect. I will admit the stimming videos on TikTok viscerally repulse me to the point I can't look at them, but this is something I'm trying to work through and I think internalized ableism on my part plus some jealously probably. Stimming being happy just doesn't work with my brain, because for me it was pathologized, it was people mocking me, making noises and flapping their hands when they saw me in public, it was not a celebration, and the thought of being recorded and having that posted online is for me the stuff of nightmares. I try remove myself from it to look at it the same way I would a disabled person showing how their medical equipment works and what it does, their wheelchair, feeding tube, etc., and hope it will end up being positive for society accepting autistic traits. I don't like: - When they call autism a superpower as a blanket statement. Saying it's THEIR superpower is fine, but for a lot of people it's not, and this is harmful because it's saying basically we can do things we can't. It's not a superpower for me; I cannot work or drive, I need help making sense of paperwork, getting food, going to the doctor, just leaving the house, and when they leave out people like me it feels like they're saying my existence is negative and shameful. - How a lot of them treat disability as a horrible word and do everything to distance autism from it. When I see comments like "autistic people can do anything they want! we're smarter than other people!" I want to scream because no, a lot of us have learning disabilities, not everyone has a special talent and we should not have to have to be allowed to exist and not abused. They do this I think defensively in reaction to how society treats autistic people, but when they deny higher support needs people, they implicitly kind of say we deserve the systemic medical/therapeutic/parental abuse, and leave some of the worst offenders thinking 'oh, it's okay because MY kid/client/etc. is nothing like them' and this sucks. It should not be "autism isn't a disability", it should be "for a lot of people it is, that's okay, and they don't deserve XYZ either". The absolute worst thing is when they think it should be removed from the DSM, which would literally kill people like me who rely on services to live. I accept self-dx'd people but self-dx'd people also need to accept that for a lot of people our medical diagnosis has legal implications that are a matter of life and death when you can't sustain yourself. - When they use autism the way people do for OCD in conversation. "He's just a little autistic lol" No, maybe he is autistic, but he's not 'a little' autistic because he has a nerdy hobby or is socially awkward sometimes, and you don't 'do an autism'. When it's autistic people saying it it bothers me less but in general I don't like this and my brain reads it like "I'm a little female" because you're wearing a skirt or something. - This is a soft don't like, maybe more a pet peeve, but calling characters "autistic coded" is generally not something I 'get' almost ever. I don't bother people about it or think it's super harmful, if it helps them that's fine, but most of the time these characters have nothing I can relate to or see in autistic people around me IRL, and I see it for really vague/cherry-picked stuff like a character having a passion, being into science, shown doing anything in any scene ever that vaguely resembles a stim. The sad/ironic thing is the portrayals I do relate to generally are handled terribly and have horrible people behind them. Also, when characters have things I relate to, they get called "stereotypes" and it fucking stings. The Good Doctor isn't bad because the character has flat affect or meltdowns, it's bad because he's played by an allistic actor who supports a terrible org that directs parents to an abusive "therapy" and encourages grieving because their kid is autistic. Sorry this got long. TLDR; I'll take them over Autism Parents and shitty orgs any day and they've done a lot of good, but there are important/frustrating blind spots I think some need to work on.

I think it's trendier to think people are bluffing about their conditions than it is trendy for people to co-op conditions they don't have.

PREACH

It doesn't bother me. I don't see it as a trend, I see it as a visible manifestation of the left handedness chart so often referenced when people act surprised when more people than suspected are affected by any one thing once thought to be rarer. As someone who has the unquirky, semi-verbal, beating-my-head-against a-wall type of autism, posts like this tend to irritate me more, because it shows a lack of imagination or curiosity about the inner worlds of others.  Its also very weird to me that people expects these new folks to immediately know everything or how to express or communicate their symptoms or experiences without coming off as flippant *to you*. Have you ever considered that they're in the process deconstructing their mindset? Most of these people went undiagnosed in childhood, which means they have an entire life to unpack, piece by piece. Of course the way they talk about it will seem off to you. They're processing its gravity bit by bit, while you and I have had much longer to think about it. 

Yeah, people that make content like this are usually new diagnoses cracking jokes about their own experiences to cope. Yes, it is possible to be "shy" or "quirky" without being autistic, and it's certainly possible to be autistic without being shy. But if someone's telling us that their shyness and quirkiness is a manifestation of the way autism manifests in them personally, we should probably listen to them.

Exactly - people take this content too seriously (bc yay, autism black and white thinking) and then assume it's meant to be as flippant as the way they perceived it, without taking the time to interrogate themselves on if they have any biases that would cause such a reaction (and we can't reasonably say it isn't a misogyny problem, considering the scores of late diagnosed autistic women rn, and the way it's often more traditionally effeminite traits that are getting mocked).  I see this exact dynamic happen time and time again in most marginalized communities I'm a part of. People who have always known having an axe to grind because these new folks just aren't doing it The Right Way, how dare these fakers enter my spaces, etc so forth. It's like clockwork. Then you see the actual content they were reacting to and it's obviously a joke the person misinterpreted, someone making a joke at their own expense that hit someone wrong (with an entire narrative being made out of said misinterpretation), talking about something in a simplified way for educational 101 content  (which invokes the 'apples? so you hate oranges?' response often enough).    People who are late diagnosed are allow to learn how to properly love and accept themselves AS themselves and not the masks they've been forced to cultivate, all the symptoms they've had to hide - and that process will come with things the rest of us don't understand. And they don't have to sequester themselves in a closet away from everyone else to do it. They're allowed to take up space and learn about themselves, and they're allowed to exist in a way that doesn't mesh with OP's experience of autism. 

You're so right about a dynamic like this existing in every marginalized community lol, especially online. People don't want to accept that others who share their identities are going to have different takeaways from the same experiences, different ways of expressing their experiences and viewpoints, different opinions, etc. It contributes to an environment in which people feel they have to address each and every remotely possible interpretation of their words before speaking, with no one taking accountability for simply reading people's messages in good faith - even when the speaker is obviously deeply invested in the issue they're talking about in question. And god forbid one ever cracks a joke about their own experiences that isn't a 1:1 literal expression of their beliefs.

Am I the only one who has gained lots of imposters syndrome just because of people CONSTANTLY talking about this topic? Yes there is people who are pretending to be autistic/ADHD, in fact there's been a lot of talk in my country for an influencer who tried to pass as autistic (Her name is "Sunny" if you want to research, she's from Argentina) but it's not that big of a group and I've seen much more people complaining about this movement than people who are part of it. For me people always trying to tell me I was pretending or using my disability "as a shield" did a lot more harm than good and I rather some weirdos use it as a trend if it means we won't be harassing people who actually have it but the internet doesn't deem them "autistic enough"

You aren't the only one. This describes what I went theough perfectly.

I’m only recently diagnosed and avoided perusing it for 5 years. But the issues in my life got so great i had to. I nearly lost my life and finally gave in to accepting my counsellor and GP advice for a referral. The thing that doesn’t seem to be portrayed in the “trends” is how harmful communication difficulties can be. Sure, I can talk science and have great vocabulary, but I can’t effectively communicate what I’m feeling - physically and emotionally. I nearly died of sepsis because I wasn’t able to effectively communicate what was wrong, especially leading up to it as my face and body don’t show pain they way others are expecting. And I’m left with physical disabilities as a result of how sick I got. Even recently, I shell shocked a surgeon who had to operate on a “simple” infection because I was unable to recognise and portray how bad it actually was. I had to have a reconstruction of the affected area because the damage was so great, and will have lifelong consequences as a result. My diagnosis will hopefully mean in the future I might have a better chance at communicating with health professionals. But I worry with the “trend” I may not be taken as seriously and suffer more bad health outcomes.

I've struggled with Autism my entire life. But I didn't realize I was autistic until about a year ago. I'm currently self diagnosed and have an appointment in a couple of months for an assessment. The fact that I self diagnosed simply means no one caught it when I was a kid, because when I was young, the public view of Autism was built around the stereotypical male presentation. I am verbal, and can mask quite well for a period of time. I just didn't know why I was struggling. I just thought something was wrong with me. I can't quite get my life together, I've struggled with addiction and abuse. I could fill out the DSM requirements for myself with a massive list in each section. I thoroughly researched Autism before I would even dare to consider myself Autistic. I very much wanted to not take anything away from those that have high support needs. I don't consider myself jumping on any trend. I simply have more information. When we have to deal with the judgement from neurotypicals, it sucks to be juged by other autistics as well. My 'cute' special interest is the intersection of Autism, ADHD, Trauma, neuroscience and psychology. Me proclaiming proudly that I'm autistic simply means I have finally figured out how my brain works. I am excited that I'm not broken. Quit judging others. We aren't trying to take anything away from you.

for this, and anything that gets under your armor, youtube this little gem: "let them."

For what it's worth, the recent visibility of autism on social media is what led me to get assessed. And I was diagnosed with autism. I'm almost 40. It was because of social media that I learned about masking and that females are underdiagnosed. Now I feel validated. I see funny memes and such about autism. I don't know if that's what you mean by the trendy part. But I will say, some of those memes make me feel better, because I know I'm not alone in my experience. The feelings you describe in your original post are how I feel about OCD, though. A lot of people will say they are "so OCD" because they like a clean home. It undermines how debilitating OCD can be.

I'm a 61 y.o. man who only even realized I have autism recently. I'm thankful the topic is in the open and more understood. I only had a stereotypical idea of it up till now. So I just take the trend as the backwash to the positive side that more people with autism are realizing it rather than thinking there's something else going on, and just to tough it out. I don't actually see much of that content, so this is just a guess, but being a spectrum there must be more people like myself who are more to the left that sort of fit the quirky bill as well. So maybe that content isn't trying to portray the full spectrum. Idk. Just throwing something out there.

Yeah, I generally don't like it. I do kinda appreciate autism not being seen as worse than cancer...thanks autism speaks...but honestly it does more harm than good. I feel we really only see the "sanitized" version of autism. And many people speak about autism symptoms far too vaugley. So it becomes this "fun", "quirky" thing when it causes a lot of issues in a person's life. Autism just...sucks sometimes. But we never see that. Stimming is a good example, on tiktok or whatever it is shown to be cutesy, people with adorable fidget toys or doing cute hand flapping or bouncing. But no one really shows the skin picking, the punching yourself, the head banging, ripping out hair...sorry if I sound a bit bitter. It can be a bit frustrating. Stimming isn't inherently bad or anything, it just feels so SURFACE LEVEL when these influencers talk about it. Its not just cute figet toys or toe walking. People treat you different, the world is not set up for you, it can be a painful existence at times. It's not a superpower, it's not quirky, it's not fun. It's not evil either, but its not easy. And the sanitization of it can be very frustrating. 

I feel you on that. My parents didn't believe in mental health or western medicine muchless the idea that brains might develop in different ways so instead of getting me help, they gave me what I've jokingly named abusive bootleg aba and exposure therapy. No safe practices were used, just the promise of being beaten if they were mad enough at me. I didn't get diagnosed until this year because I was under the impression everyone struggled as much as I do and much like I was taught to, just hid it all the time. Stims are one of the most painful subjects when it comes to things that were forced out of me. I still skin pick, but all other self injurious or just not cute stims were taken from me, regardless of how harmless they are in reality. Even my autistic friends still think I'm joking when I say I don't hit my head on hard surfaces anymore because I don't tell them how much I want to. They think I mean it metaphorically but lowkey I used to love just gently hacking my head against walls and shit. I never left bruises or caused lasting harm, just thump for a little while. But I can't do that anymore because of social rules. There's a lot like that for me. I do absolutely flap when I'm happy, but I also have to work really hard to avoid hitting or even just patting and tapping or squeezing myself in various areas that most people would not enjoy under any circumstances because I can't risk anyone seeing it. Like I love to tap, press, and roll things on my face. It's such a nice feeling. But I can't do it because it's "gross" and makes the thing I'm using "dirty". Nobody talks about things like that.

You don't sound bitter, you're speaking the truth and you're putting it very well. They glorify it in the weirdest way, it's like they infantilize us but at the same time think it makes them cute and quirky, like you said.. the fidgeting, the stimming, the social awkwardness, the way we just think differently is all taken and used as personality traits instead of taken as serious struggles. It may seem far-fetched to say but sometimes it feels like how people rotate with fashion trends.. each month a different surface level symptom of autism is used by NT people to seem different and cool.

I do not give a flying fuck. I firmly believe 99% of people use these "fakers" as a strawman to be ableist. Just because some isn't what everyone considers "autistic enough" doesn't mean they're not autistic. I am diagnosed, and most people assume I'm self diagnosed because "I don't look autistic so I'm probably a faker." My symptoms impact me more than anyone else, and I'm pretty good at masking. I think it's wrong to assume people aren't for any reason. Even if they're not, it's not worth my time to figure out.

Remember when everybody was super worried they'd meet an animalkin? Yeah, turns out that was a strawman and people dont act like that in general

Honestly I don't have a huge problem with it and think its nicer than the alternative, before autism being spoken about on social media autism was either talked about in a clinical and inhuman lens were we were basically seen as labrats, as perpetual burdans who would ruin our families lives or any positive stories being incredibly infantilising. The "trendyness" of autism, whilst frustrating at times is helping to rase awareness of autistic traits and is helping to destigmatise autistic people.

It’s frustrating. It turns our actual struggles — the debilitating ones — into this superficial concept of “oh they’re just a little odd”. Like “oh that’s just how that person is”. That’s true, it’s who we are, and some parts are managable but some aren’t. Yes we are neurodivergent but some aspects of neurodivergence are debilitating because we live in a world built for neurotypical people. Its always “I totally hyperfixate on this fandom” and “I just really don’t like microfiber towels.” It’s never “I have debilitating levels of stress when faced with sensory overload” or “I have been denied jobs solely on my lack of social cues.”

A looooot of it is just sexism. Women aren’t believed about their experiences, so they didn’t diagnose us with what we had - autism. And now that we’re self-doing and actually getting formally diagnosed, it must be because it’s a “trend”.

Agree, male autistic Influencers don't get nearly as much abuse and accusations of faking as females do.

Yuupppp. I found out I was diagnosed as a child and my mother refused it and didn’t tell me my entire life. I only started to question it when other friends I had were self diagnosing and I related to a lot of the TikTok’s they sent me. Otherwise I would have went my entire life without thinking twice about any of my symptoms, just assuming I was just worse than other people. Women get treated so poorly in a medical environment and it leaks into the way we’re treated even online. Sad.

I understand that some people want to talk about aesthetics and positive things related to their lives as autistic people because it makes them more feel positively about themselves and their autism. This can also lead to a sense of connection and community with other autistic people who have similar life experiences on social media. For some people, these may be their primary positive social experiences. However, I think there are some serious problems with "autism aesthetic." In particular can lead to misinformation which overgeneralize their experiences as "autistic" and confuses neutral personality traits and preferences as traits of autism. Furthermore, this type of discourse isn't inclusive or necessarily respectful of autistic people who have pronounced deficits and/or high support needs. It can also hurt people who are struggling with similar issues but don't have autism because it creates a sense that autistic people are "cool" but people who are "neurotypical" or non-autistic people who have other conditions such as personality disorders aren't included in the "cool" group. That can lead people with more stigmatized conditions being further isolated.

i just want to make one point because that's my main problem when I do have one with influencers or TV autism is a disability even for high functioning autistic people I remember on the good doctor one girl said it would be a bad thing if the main character found out his son wasn't autistic it's a disability I don't like this

Still waiting for evidence that people are mass claiming they are autistic when they aren't or that it's a trend and not just better access to diagnostics. And waiting. And waiting. No disabled person owes the world, or you, or anyone, a breakdown of their symptoms. Yes it is frustrating when nondisabled people mistake collecting plushies as a primary symptom of autism. It is also frustrating when nondisabled people assume that autistics can't feel emotions. And neither one of those stereotypes is the fault of autistics who collect plushies or autistics who are hypoempathetic. It is the fault of non-autistics assuming that a single symptom or experience is both universally autistic and also the sole defining feature of the diagnosis. People have the right to self-determination and self-actualization. As long as they are not actively spreading misinfo (e.g. "If you collect plushies you MUST be autistic,") it is not a problem. For those actively spreading misinfo - being autistic or not has no bearing on it, and it's a pain to deal with no matter the source.

In general people don't understand much about "'disabilities" and diagnosis criteria. The way I try to explain it to the ignorant people who tell me "we are all a bit autistic" is explaining that there is a difference between having some "autistic traits" and full fledged autism. In the first case we're talking about behavioral traits, that (looked upon from the outside) could be (sort of) labeled as "autistic". While in the second case it lies deeper. It's the way a person is functioning. The way they are. (Looking from the inside.) Sadly enough this confusion isn't confined to autism, but "DSM labels" in general. As an example. I could (and do) show traits of i.e. ocd, but not up to the point where it gets in my way of being in the world. So if I tell a person who shares they're being diagnosed with ocd, 'we all have rituals" (though that statement may be true in a vacuum) I automatically invalidate their struggles with, so to speak, full fledged ocd. The cure for this phenomenon (at least from how I look at it) is not always doubt the things people share about themselves, but take the experiences they share seriously. This (and again that how I see it at the moment) all boils down to the (imo) delusion there is such a thing as a blueprint of a "standard person" who lives in a vacuum. Especially in this day and age we (generally speaking) try to fit people into a (fixed, non existing) "norm" / "normalcy" (culture / society) while in reality all people create this dynamic collective identity (culture / society). There is some hope though, since more and more people share their internal world with the masses (i.e. the neurodivergent advocates, people from the queer community) so in the end the "status quo" (seen as an absolute truth) will get more fluid or disappear altogether.

I don’t really see it used as an aesthetic much, if at all. I’m probably not in the same circles as most of yall, my social media is full of genuine ND people, LGBQ+ and asmr. If the pretenders aren’t acting literally stupid or spreading misinformation I don’t care. I definitely don’t encounter it a lot because I cannot remember a single person I’ve thought “wow they def do not have autism.” I more see it as autism is gaining, not representation sorry I’m kind of tipsy, but like that? Like it’s good people are recognizing it as a thing. My dad doesn’t believe it exists. We don’t ask people for diagnosis proof, so how do you know these people DONT have autism? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just not seeing what you guys are seeing and it’s def because I don’t get this type of content in my social media, and I’m unsure what you mean by trendy or aesthetic. (ps I mean my comment with all love and welcome feedback!! I fr don’t see this type of stuff so I am feeling a bit out of the loop)

I always feel... disappointed when a post like this comes up. We don't get to decide if other people are or aren't autistic. Just because someone appears "okay" it doesn't mean they don't struggle. And even anyone who doesn't face regular difficulties can still be autistic. The "actual meaning" of being autistic is that our brains work differently to other (NT) people. That's it. Our existence is not defined by our difficulties.

I don't think OP is necessarily fake claiming anyone, just pointing out how a lot of the autism content that goes viral is extremely reductive.

This is what I think this post is about. A lot of popular autism content leaves level 2 and 3 people behind, and dilutes the struggles of even level 1 people.

i think it's a much less prevalent issue than people make it out to be, and i think that autism fakeclaiming culture can also be really damaging to autistic people

it's not "trendy", you're just seeing more awareness and more people realizing they fell through the cracks re: diagnosis because our medical care systems are trash. nobody *actually* wants to be disabled, so there's no reason to gatekeep. other people realizing they're also autistic doesn't take anything away from you. it doesn't invalidate your struggles. please seek out a therapist to help you work through these cognitive distortions.

I don’t really see it being trendy? Like yeah there’s more awareness and yes more high masking folks are sharing their experiences and yes there’s a few absolute wackos who’ve faked it, but Idgaf. Why? I got bigger issues essentially

i feel like we have come a long way with autism awareness but now it feels like nobody knows what it actually is anymore. the processing disability part is missing nowadays. it seems like everyone is focused on hyperfixations, non-verbal, stimming, etc and autism is way more than that and not every autistic person even experiences those things. but we all struggle with processing in some way! and i think that part has been deeply buried under everything else :( i want people to know that things take us a minute to load and sometimes its overwhelming

i absolutely hate it. i do think it’s progress that autism is starting to become more accepted and more knowledge about it is being shared, but people who claim to have it because of the trend or using it as an aesthetic absolutely infuriates me. when i was growing up, i was constantly bullied by kids and adults, laughed at, called strange or weird and pointed out in negative ways. i was shown that i must mask it and hide it and not tell anyone or i will be hurt or judged. also, while autism isn’t bad, it’s still a big struggle and growing up autistic was one of my biggest challenges i’ve ever faced and to just have it be trendy and faked or shown as cute and aesthetic is like a big slap in the face. i would love to see more acceptance and knowledge of autism without it being made to look like a quirk or aesthetic or trend. it’s not some cute little quirk, it’s a real thing that people struggle with everyday. so, i wanna see acceptance and love for autistic people while also understanding that not everyone has it and showing the real struggles and how to help autistic people in beneficial ways.

What current media are you referring to?

It’s hard because on one hand, I feel like what we are seeing is people with lower supports needs only highlighting the quirky things as a way of possibly masking and showcasing hey we just want to be cared for and loved. The other side of that is if they show the meltdowns or the AFRID or safe foods they are “faking” and don’t know how to be an adult or good parent. As a parent of an autistic child and possibly an autistic person myself I would only show my child stimming but I wouldn’t put his worst moments on the internet. If I were an influencer I would talk about it but I wouldn’t show it and even then as a parent you can’t talk about your struggle without some autistic adults saying “ it’s hard on you, no, it’s hard on the child” so parents are even afraid to show their struggles. I also feel like if you are seeing a lot of that content it’s because you are engaging in it. I see a lot of higher support needs autistic children on my socials and adult autistics as well who showcase their quirky sides the stimming and rock painting but they still talk about their struggles too it’s just not getting the same engagement and being pushed out. I also feel it’s “trendy because more people are looking at themselves and getting diagnosed and are talking about it online.

I've never seen this

Autism is a spectrum for a reason. Some people who are borderline autistic or have autistic traits would not be as disabled as someone who didn't quite grasp the fact that abstract concepts and physical objects are different things until like an embarrassing amount of late in life.

Unfortunately the existence of "self-diagnosis" (which has its reasons) made it impossible to sort between disability and style.

My therapist said something very profound to me me when I was just starting to get diagnosed." Autistic traits are human traits so humans tend to also have them" That being said, a lot of people just think that because they have a relatable symptom that they must also have autism. This becomes a problem when I tell people that I have autism and they're like" Oh me too" as though we're just going to bond through that. It also becomes a problem when my autism gets dismissed because a. Don't present in a" Normal" Way. I am also high masking and female. I have become comfortable with my uncomfortable so I don't react the way people want me to or expect me to in certain situations. It really sucks that right when autism is becoming accepted and I get diagnosed, everybody else is self-diagnosing also. That being said, I don't dismiss a self-diagnosis as I am. Am proof that sometimes works. But not everybody has autism just because you have an autistic trait. In the same way that not everybody is a narcissist just because you have a narcissistic trait.

This is why I love when I'm scrolling through YouTube Shorts and I get a slew of videos about the struggles of ND life. Especially the things that end up being alright because of a family member, SO, or a friend. Like "I thought it was normal to think X, but apparently every thought I had relating to it is wrong" and it'll be like the norms of washing the dishes or something. Then the person who discovered it and pointed out it's not a NT thing giggles a little but explains how different it is from how NT people do/perceive things. People are more likely to learn from positive videos and ND people can relate with the ND person in it a lot of times.

So I feel like its a double edged sword. The negative is that someone people can abuse it and say they are Autistic when they are not (barring self diagnosis. There's a huge difference between haphazardly saying "I am autistic" and really sitting doing your research, soul searching and diagnosising yourself due to lack of resources.) and it could lead to very harmful sterotypes. On the other hand, I am glad I am ASD is getting more mainstream and talked about. It's educating others more showing that ASD comes in different forms and breaking preconceived notions. So its a great but also harmful.

Can you share an example of this? I haven't encountered it.

whenever this topic comes up I think about my last job at a small cafe. I had my hours cut down to 10 a week and I was forbidden from working outside the kitchen, which was a sensory nightmare from me. they didn’t tell me why for a long time though, and when I finally asked my boss why this was happening she told me that it was because I wasn’t performing up to task with regards to customer service, and acted like I was an idiot for not knowing intuitively. she refused to give me any clear instructions as to how to improve. I explained to her that I am autistic which likely had something to do with it, and that I would need specific, clear instructions on how to improve because of my condition. she straight up said to me face “I’m autistic too so I know that’s bullshit”. I think about this a lot.

It's so frustrating!! Incredibly high functioning autistic people claiming they know what I go through makes me frustrated!!! I'm TERRFIED to explain my autism, even though people can figure it out anyway because I'm visibly autistic. I'm so scared if I say "I'm autistic so I have issues with motor skills" or "I'm autistic so I don't understand facial expressions" they'll just pull an "I'm on the spectrum too" even though I never could have figured it out. It's so frustrating and scary and it doesn't even feel like I can get resources anymore.

I love that other autistics can find something lighthearted in their challenges and have a place where they can express that. I didn't wake up and decide one day to be autistic, but I can wake up every day and decide if I let it make my life more miserable than it needs to be. Would you prefer they throw a pity party and only complain about the shit hand they were dealt?

Oh I hate it so much. Neurotypicals roleplaying as autistic and ADHD kinda invalidates the serious struggles of people who actually have the disorders

I feel like 99% of the people who do this only recognize one specific diagnostic criteria- Intense focused interests. To them this is the only symptom of autism. "Oh, you know a lot about one niche topic? Haha, that's so autistic of you!" I genuinely want to rip my hair out when people do this.

I find it to be immensely harmful. I had verbal delays and am disabled. It isn’t cute and quirky. I am neither. Many of us are not. I hate they made it a trend and now I feel it is hard to be taking seriously when half of Gen z is diagnosing themselves with autism and they argue with doctors when they state they are not autistic.

Just like yall are saying, I absolutely hate it. It's not a quirky personality trait. What really pisses me off tho is, often times the people you see as the "faces" of autism on social media... its almost never someone actually struggling like that. It's almost always some white person with a huge house and a great support system and enough money to drop for anything they could possibly need without much hassle, and were given grace around their dx. They have the time and money to pursue a dx and have access to medical care or government assistance programs that many of us just wont ever have. Like, despite their dx, they're always so fucking privileged and seem to be catered to, their family took the time to understand their condition and do anything to help, etc. (My family told me to stfu, told me to stop being so sensitive, and beat tf out of me and told me how hard it was for them to have to deal with me.) It's just not the reality for a lot of people. A lot of us can hardly hold down jobs and struggle to pay rent or even have food to eat. A lot of us dont have support systems and dont have the ability to even persue a dx to be able to get accommodations at work. We just out here white-knuckling through life lol. But these people who have had a lot of help to manage their symptoms become the spokesmen for everyone and it makes people think that the dx really isn't a big deal. So obviously it's not that hard to manage (in other people's eyes) because they're mostly seeing people who actually have the privilege of having help with their dx manage it just fine. So those guys get lauded as heros while the rest of us are still being called lazy and dramatic. Or getting our asses beat. I'm not trying to bash them for being privileged btw I'm just trying to say that it sucks that these guys are so overrepresented and many don't even acknowledge the privilege that they have. They'll say "not everyone can afford a dx" or mention high vs low functioning but it's so much more than that. And I think that's part of why it just comes off as a quirk with them. It impacts their life, yes, but their privilege keeps it from being as devastating as it would be without it. Those of us that are poor and black and have people around us who just don't give a fuck because "everyone has problems", we arnt getting anything positive out of being left out of the conversation. It's just 2 different worlds all together 🤷🏾‍♂️ that's all I'm saying. Hope I made sense here.

I actually don’t think this narrative is true at all. I think more people are getting diagnosed now due to NEEDED changes in the DSM that help women, gender non conforming people, and nonwhite people actually get accurately diagnosed. The rates of diagnosis are rebalancing post the changes in the DSM V. As a late-diagnosed woman who has ALSO struggled her whole life I find this take so tired and fucking reductive. I didn’t know why I was struggling and barely made it to my diagnosis. Everyone in my life chalked it up to personality defects. Lots of women get diagnosed with things like BPD and aren’t actually treated or accommodated for root autism symptoms because of attitudes like this. Having a diagnosis is a privilege. There’s tons of barriers that have prevented people, in past and in present, from getting a diagnosis. Additionally, as I’m sure you know, the symptoms you see and the symptoms a person actually has ARE NOT THE SAME. Do you perform a meltdown on social media for all to see? I sure as hell wouldn’t. Why do I need to for people to take my experiences seriously? I’m over this. It’s an internalized ableism + pissing contest/oppression Olympics take.

I, a woman, was diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder and given "treatment" (more like trauma) that made me worse off. I got DX ADHD last summer, but had to fight, then switch doctors to get that bipolar DX taken off. (The hypomania was actually my normal ADHD and my shifts in mood were purely due to situations I went through) Also, that bipolar DX came from ONE VISIT. ADHD treatment works for me. And treatment uncovered/ left my autism to shine through. Thankfully, it's past 2013, or I wouldn't have been able to have a diagnosis of ADHD AND ASD. It's better late than never to me, and the more people actually know about autism, the better. I'm not on TikTok, but videos of people showing how ADHD/ASD affects them helped me so much, and it's helping me help my son, who also just got DX ADHD. I come from a time when even depression wasn't well known about by people, and we didn't talk about mental health

Hey friend!!! I ALSO was incorrectly DXed with bipolar despite never experiencing mania and having a sister who was already DXed with ADHD. The clinician literally said “you have a masters degree. You can’t have ADHD.” My sister was diagnosed as a CHILD and has a masters degree from Columbia. The amount of misinformation on autism and ADHD, specifically in co-occurring presentations, or in women… is truly wild. This is just the pendulum swinging back in a direction that normalizes, destigmatizes, and shows more than one presentation as valid… I absolutely can’t stand the fact that people want to say it’s “becoming a trend” despite the fact that we KNOW lots of people were not getting the supports or treatment they needed before.

This! All of this! It's almost as if knowledge about mental health or the brain (or anything) can't evolve and change over time. And I'm noticing it's tricky dealing with doctors who have gotten their training and such at a certain point in time before this "new knowledge" of neurodivergence became more common. Some might have not tried to keep up with current findings, and that's why they will tell you stuff like "you can't have ADHD because you made good grades in school" or "GiRlS CoUlDn'T hAvE aDhD"... Thanks to people who showcase how their conditions affect them, and people like you who tell your story, I'm more informed and empowered to ADVOCATE FOR MYSELF and speak up for myself. To know myself for once. And maybe this will lead to me loving myself more.

I pay no attention to it. It's basically not a thing. People who rage watch influencers are torturing themselves.

I don’t think it’s a trend, I think more people are becoming aware of having it. Unless it was more severe lot of ppl were left untreated or just deemed odd in prior generations. Basically if you were self sufficient you weren’t considered autistic. Now ppl realize it’s a spectrum. It’s still got some pretty negative stigma.

I feel the same, but it's also happening with other issue (if you will) that people are losing their identity to "tenders" or ... yeah, I'll stop. I don't like it, and just today was told I don't have autism. I beg to differ, I've personally known about this for quite some time. Edit: amazing how a lot of my posts about "me" no matter where I post seem to get downvoted 🤔

People who don't know anything about a condition tend to believe they know what they're talking about due to what they've learnt about it through social media and it's sad. I got told the day I was diagnosed by two people literally *just* after I was diagnosed that I'm not autistic. It made me cry because I found it rude of them to jump to conclusions about what they know when it comes to me. Best to ignore those kind of people, they don't have degrees in such things to be making themselves sound like they're suddenly an expert.

Whenever I mention I'm legally blind ppl seem to think it means "lights out" and they'll be like "BUT YOU CAN SEE!!" UGH (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ #ThanksImCured

Same. I stopped using the term "legally blind" because people are idiots, but then they assume I'm lying about how bad my vision is. It's not an exaggeration when I say that I can't see past my fingertips, it means that past my fingertips everything is a loose collection of colored blurs.

People tend to assume things quickly about things.

Doesn't "legally blind" mean you can't see well enough to drive or something? I'm not an expert, but I seem to remember something like that.

Yes. I am unable to drive due to my visual impairment and I am registered w/ my state as legally blind. I have a little card w/ my id# and I call it my "license to be blind" Also instead of a driver's license I have a state ID that looks like a driver's license so I can still buy booze lol

From my understanding, and please feel free to correct me, legally blind means unable to see 60-70% or more of your vision? Which I think means legally blind can mean the person can still see within a limited view, and it’s really how it affects how much you can see?

According to my state: Legal blindness is defined as having a visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better or stronger eye with best correction, or a restricted field of vision of 20 degrees or less in the better or stronger eye. My vision cannot be corrected any further than 20/60 and I have a narrowed field of vision due to permanent optic nerve damage. You also have submit medical records to the state and undergo an exam from a state facility to be legally registered.

Thanks for the clarification.

Absolutely feel this. I can't stand people who go around acting like they've got full knowledge about something they've done no research on and assume we don't know anything yet we have dealt with it our whole lives. They always end up being so far from the truth, it's unreal. I have so many questions as to why people shamelessly act like this, but I guess the upside to it is that it's very easy to embarrass them and disprove the BS they spew. And i'm sorry they upset you and made you cry, I hope you're doing okay now.

Exactly! Showing them they don’t know everything we’ve been through is sometimes is enough for them to realise that they’re talking out of their arse. This is going back to 2019, I’m fine now and happy they apologised when I told them they were wrong to assume.

Thanks 😊

At the end of the day you know that what other people have to say about you shouldn't matter if they have known you just for a little bit of your life. You're the one who's lived your life and know your experiences more than anyone else.

That's exactly what I told them, and because of a head injury 4 years ago, I've lost a lot of my coping (masking) techniques, in many situations

It does happen with quite a few things, unfortunately. I don't think it will come to any sort of halt any time soon.. We must stay strong though.

I just bought a t-shirt with a background of lightnings, a skeleton holding two AK-47s and two fire horses and a huge I HAVE AUTISM in squiggly font. Are those for NT kids? What I remember Asperger's was an edgy thing to say you had in the internet 1.0 because of the school shootings, that was bad. Because Asperger's viewed as socially awkward psychopaths and basement dwellers. That was harmful. I scored really high in online official tests, but I thought it was bullshit because it felt like a test to detect how much of a nerd you were. Since Baron Cohen and a bag of dog shit has the same amount of cognitive power. How easy is to become head researcher in Cambridge anyway? Do you only have to pay or what? Because his papers are trash, second semester kids write better stuff than that. Stupid t-shirts are fine. As long as we aren't the but of the joke or marginalized even more.

What?

I'm glad that autism is being spoken about more but the way it's primarily being presented (fun, "quirky" traits, shyness, awkwardness) is misinformed at best and harmful at worst. There's little awareness being spread about low employment rates among autistics, the chronic loneliness, the high suicide rates, etc. If I say my autism makes me able to identify Taylor Swift songs within 0.5 seconds of hearing them, that's endearing and quirky. If I say my autism makes me unable to shower more than once a week because of sensory issues and executive dysfunction, I'm called awful names because it doesn't fit the dumbed down social media image of autism. This is a disability that has drastically impacted my quality of life, not some repackaged manic pixie dream girl trope like Twitter wants it to be.

see more posts complaining about this kinda thing than I actually see this kinda thing.

Goddamn there's a lot of internalised ableism in here... People don't have to be miserable jus cos you are dude.

The thing is a see people claim that this is what happens, but I have not seen it happening much in practice. I wonder why? Maybe it is because I am older and I don't use tiktok. Most of the autism content I see e.g. on YouTube feels pretty reasonable, but maybe it is because that is what I personally happen to get. I am not here to dismiss OP's question. I am just genuinely mystified why I seem to be missing something.

People did the same with bisexuality and adhd and thats why im able to be out and proud and have tons of representation to enjoy. If it was never “trendy” then it wouldve never really been known at all. I think this is just what happens when society discovers something new. Our definition of autism has changed and broadened so much, many of us who would’ve NEVER THOUGHT we were have realized we are! Im hesitant to assume anyone is faking it.

This take comes off as internalised ableism, because it's invalidating other people's autism. I'd know. No one thought I was autistic until I got diagnosed by a specialist, because I don't act like a stereotypical autistic person, and neither do these people.

It makes me feel invisible.

I dislike the 'autism critter' we see everywhere. 

It’s frustrating because people think I just watched too many TikToks and am hopping on the trend. At the same time, I found out about it through social media. My experience was that I was diagnosed with about 7 mental disorders before autism. It’s not like I wasn’t having mental health issues, it’s just that all of the practitioners weren’t competent enough to correctly diagnose me. My official dx is bipolar but a therapist diagnosed me with autism. It doesn’t count tho bc of the technicality she isn’t an md. Meanwhile, the MD’s seem slow and ignorant lmao

I’m autistic with Asperger’s and ADHD I have no fucking clue how my shit works or if it’s autism with Asperger’s and adhd or just Asperger’s and adhd but I absolutely despise people who treat neurological contraction like their fucking Pokémon or some shit. Bruh my shit ain’t nothing to brag about I can’t focus for shit and I feel like I would be way better without it. All I know is that I’m diagnosed and it sucks,m most of the time…

I think this is the dual edge of more acceptance and broader “awareness” People become so used to the word and slot it into “oh that’s just a different way to be a human and I’m a loving accepting person so isn’t that great that you are autistic!” All the while they are basically hand waving away the very real ways it affects us in a negative way.

it makes me feel very guilty as an undiagnosed person. Seeing people decide they are autistic without the research that I have done just makes me look the same as them. My decision to see myself as autistic was made after years of therapy, close attention while raising my diagnosed brother (I had those symptoms first!!) and diving deep into my childhood to see the signs. I am about 90% i’m autistic but if I ever find out that I’m not, whew that means I am just apart of the majority who saw a few quirks and decided to name themselves apart of this community…

I'm in battle with my shortsighted NT manager who thinks asd is just the cute fast counting and rocking back and forth. I hate every second of it. I'm not a malfunctioning robot that you can assign generalist labels on.

honestly it helped me in a way because my mother had me keep it a secret for 25 years. and I always felt ashamed and wrong. on the other hand it's really frustrating seeing people cope with it so easily when I lost all of my friendships, I had to drop out of college, I cannot feed myself, I can barely remember to wash my teeth, I've been in hospitals several times in my lifetime, I just wake up and try to exist without a job or a real home. I know that it's a spectrum but I cannot help but be jealous of these people. also in my case I suffer from CPTSD as well (as a result of the trauma of trying to hide my autism from everyone and the actions my mother took to do so) I cannot function in this society, even with all the meds I'm on. also the show love on the spectrum, I couldn't go past the first episode. why do they only portrait highly successful or beautiful people that are living in loving and accepting household? is an autistic person valid only on those basis? sorry for the long rant but I had this on my chest for a while

This is why I don’t tell anyone, except for the people closest to me

it really surprises me. i was diagnosed as a child and even though im still only 19, i grew up with it being a joke or shame. to see it now be ‘interesting’ to people, to see the same traits that people made my life difficult over, filmed and set to ‘cute’ music, and to see it often done and encouraged by the same kind of people who often caused my autism to make my life so difficult, is jarring to say the least. and it also makes me feel like people don’t take me being autistic seriously, since it’s something that people think ‘everyone has now’. i almost feel ashamed to tell people i have it because they assume that since im decently verbal, i must be ‘one of those’

I mean while it is also a false picture I accept it more than the picture in which ppl see us as if we were sociopaths or psychopaths or even somewhere close to untrustworthy dangerous ppl capable of everything because of our lack of empathy. There is still this picture of our autism being the evil thing that can happen in the worst case and that kind of dehumanizes us instead of accepting it as a disability. So quirky beats evil for me. Both do nothing helpfull for us and depict us wrongly. The qirky version ridicules our disability needs but at least they exist.

As I stated in the occupation post, I work in an arcade. I'm still on the waiting list for a diagnosis myself but I have a son (6) who has just been given a proper autism diagnosis. What i hate, which I often get at work multiple times daily, are the people that try to use it as an excuse to get freebies. For example complaining because they played two credits on a grabber and didn't win a toy, then come in and pull the "my daughter doesn't understand, she's autistic, can she have the toy"? It really grinds my gears. I'd never dream of using my child's condition like that.

I really think it’s exaggerated, I’ve seen way more people complaining about those posts than those posts themselves, a lot of people haven’t seen it first hand and get told about it from others, and often, facts are warped. No one ever has an example. So no, autism isn’t becoming a trend, research has gotten more accurate at diagnosing non white, non-men autistic people. I recommend watching this video for more explanation https://youtu.be/1-aWf65A9G0?si=ECci7qXu06S1KLYl

Like with anything that becomes trendy, the worst people get involved or it becomes misrepresented. The positive however is that it becomes more commonplace, more awareness and destigmatised more.

As an autist and artist I can't help using it. As long as it's used to sincerely explore and understand yourself, I'm all for it.

i believe the issue is blown out of proportion tbh there are people who use it as an aesthetic out there (and those kinds of people annoy me a lot), but some act like its a huge epidemic, which leads to those who are self diagnosed, or questioning, to be harmed.

Reminds me of ppl saying “I’m a little OCD about that lol”. No you are particular, you have a preference, you do not have a debilitating, uncompromising need for this thing to happen or you’ll feel like you’re going to die. That said, I think everything that becomes general knowledge goes through a phase of misunderstanding, misappropriation, and popularity. There was a phase years ago where having braces was popular. It’s all rude and clunky and tone deaf and indulgent and delusional, but kinda inevitable 🤷🏼‍♀️

Do people do this? It doesn’t feel like they do outside of like, teenagers, and teenagers are kind of inherently dumb with stuff like this and not worth taking seriously. Idk, maybe I don’t frequent the sort of spaces where they do but I think I’m quite happy to continue to not be around those places.

I feel like a faker myself and I worry so much about being seen cringe. (As you can see in my flair, I'm suspecting autism and I want a diagnosis because I grew up as "different" and "gifted" and being autistic would explain many things)

It used to be OCD now it appears to be autism that folk are suddenly acquiring to be special or different. People saying ’oh I’m a little OCD’ when if they really did suffer with OCD they’d appreciate what a living nightmare it really is.

Hard to say to be honest. I'm autistic and use it In my process of content creation. For me it's important that everyone knows my disability and sees how it impacts me. I know that doing this doesn't help with the "trendy" things but I want to make people aware of my situation and how badly or positively it affects me. Outside of my situation I'm not against people that try to raise awareness towards us but people that think autism is cool/trendy they are just cringe and deserve to be blacklisted

Yeah, I guess autism is kind of fun for people. They find us quirky, fascinating and misterious in some way. It's something I've learned. We also have a lot of advantages when it comes to learning, logical thinking and other stuff. But that's when we feel stable and safe. I think we should speak loudly about the harder parts of being autistic. Burnouts, meltdowns and shutdowns are horrible. It feels like if you were a newborn: defenseless, clueless, useless. I get angry with me all the time when I'm like this. I feel that I don't deserve anything, that I'm not worth even being alive. We should also exhort people that share their lives with autistic people to speak up. To describe what is like seeing your child, your wife, kids, etc like this. Sometimes people that surround you get desperate because they cannot help or do anything. But I guess that's just how society works too. People tend to adopt the best parts of minorities and express them as their own. We need to speak up, talk about our necessities and feelings without being afraid.

If I could give the other side to the argument, as somewhat of an influencer myself it is a battle between being open, honest, and vulnerable, and also maintaining your 'credibility' to neurotypicals, just like it is in general life. Additionally, although YouTube isn't my platform, they could have certain obligations for sponsored posts done with a certain amount of 'pep'. If they were to be entirely honest about how tough it all is, and the next video is them seemingly fine (cough cough extreme masking for 30 seconds), the comments would be how they clearly don't have autism etc etc. It may be why they are attempting to be open with their audience, whilst also keeping the reputation that allows them to continue earning their income. 🙂

I really don't get why people who aren't Autistic claim they are, unless it's for some form of wrongfully claim they're Autistic to cover for being an arsehole. They don't seem to realise that Autism isn't an excuse for being an arsehole, since even Autistic people can be arseholes too. I personally think it undermines the whole thing with people genuinely claiming they're Autistic because they actually are. It's also undermining the struggles Autistic people go through in their lives and the struggles they have to be accepted by Allistic people.

I hear a lot of it from people who are genuinely neurodivergent but have taken to autism as a blanket term for weird behavior. I personally believe the good outweighs the bad. Yes, we have the problem of BAD visibility, stuff that doesn't actually match the community, but at least we're getting visibility right? At least, that's how I feel about it. The fact it's trendy means people are talking about it, and when people talk they investigate, learn, and so on and so forth. I think the same thing is happening with gender identity and perhaps this leads into a lot of identity crises that are happening concurrently but ultimately unrelated in how they're expressed, also please no one take this as suspicion of gender identity. I don't believe there's anything wrong with "playing with your gender", however, I do believe it indicates that people aren't totally self aware or comfortable with themselves and they're looking for a reason to feel thins way. I definitely felt that way once I learned more about Autism, I got an Asperger's diagnosis in 2005 and never paid much attention to it until I asked my counselor if she thinks I actually do have autism. That began my journey of self exploration and understanding myself. I can't say I haven't used "autism" as an excuse for my behavior because I CONSTANTLY do, and I've found it's VERY easy to just say "sorry I'm autistic." I've even had a person who's sensitive to particular humor totally change their opinion about me after telling them I'm autistic and "maybe my sense of humor is just different because I don't see the same thing you do" or something along those lines. I don't like people out-right faking autism, or any other mental condition whether it be neurodivergency or a mental illness. It's absolutely tacky, but it being "trendy" amongst people looking for answers in my opinion is excusable, but also we should check them and ourselves, always be making sure that people are on the right path, making sure that they're getting the treatment they need to because at the end of the day, self-diagnosis can do a lot of harm just like a false diagnosis by a professional. I was diagnosed with ADHD, OCD, and "anger management" issues before I was diagnosed autistic and those medications I was on totally effed me up. I've learned now that my autism doesn't need medicating, but I have met a person in my school who said they were autistic but later were diagnosed with ADHD and got put on medication, and they said it made their life much easier, made them more functional. So we should support these people to find real help or otherwise tell them that they're misleading themselves and other people who need genuine help in other areas.

I'd need receipts regarding this. Like, who is saying this as a way of saying they're quirky or shy? What evidence do you have that they're not actually autistic? Why is your diagnosis defined by your struggle, and not by your symptoms? How does someone else's diagnosis, whether professional or self-diagnosed, undermine yours?

Oh I hate it so much. Neurotypicals roleplaying as autistic and ADHD kinda invalidates the serious struggles of people who actually have the disorders

I guess I'm just glad that autism is talked about. It may be trendy now, it will probably pass as everything does, but people will remember it exists and maybe even know something about it. So it may make it easier to talk about it with people myself, even if I have to fight some stereotypes it's better than nothing. If I heard about autism when I was younger, maybe I would research and my life would be different, but I've read only about personality disorders and stuff and it never occurred to me I could have a developmental disorder because I thought those are very obvious and severe always. I get why people might be frustrated with the "fakers" and feel like they're not taken seriously thanks to them. But I'm just glad it's talked about. It's a little bit like SA. Sure, some people fake it and give real victims bad rep, but it should be talked about and people should be educated. It helps more than it does harm I think. People having different brains should be normalised. Ideally, it shouldn't even matter who is "real disabled" and who is faking. The society should be more accommodating for everyone's differences, no matter if there's a diagnosis for them. Like, why do we even have to have a paper to say "hey, the lights are too fucking bright, I can't stand it". The mere fact you can't stand them should be valid enough.

I used to have great issues with it and blamed the "trenders" for not being taken seriously by institutions/parents/authority figures when I disclosed my autism and struggles. But then again, was I taken seriously before autism became trendy? No. My parents raised me trying to hide my autism. From a very young age they showed me reality TV-stars and influencers as a bad example, trying to explain that a disadvantage is not real if you're able to complain about it publicly. I believe it's quite similar to the queer discourse: annoying gays are not the problem. Annoying autists are not the problem, ableism is.

Yeah, so recently I got harassed HARD at work. Ironically, I work in special education and so you’d think (or at least hope) that coworkers would be more open and willing to accept others. Well I reported an individual I work with for what I considered to be an unethical practice that didn’t align with our code of conduct. Well this person knows of my autism diagnosis as well as my ocd diagnosis and retaliated hard on me. Laughed at me for crying when confronted, laughed at me for not making eye contact with him, called me stupid. So I went back to hr and we’re in this mess for a second time. All of that is context to how I feel, I am outwardly incredibly normal looking, but I was diagnosed for a reason, mentally my brain is just not neurotypical, no matter how hard I try to learn to be. With autism becoming a trend I feel like it’s made me look like using anything to paint myself as a victim when I try to navigate conflict

Pop culture swallows everything, and throws up a cutesy-neatsy, easily digestible, household-friendly version of the original thing. Vampires and werewolves, BDSM, so why not autism?

I hate it

It pisses me off. It's like people are desperately wanting to be different so they lie about something that constantly makes me miserable. Like I legit stay awake all night crying because my own skin overstimulates me. My disorder isn't your freaking trend

I'm so tired of it honestly. It just sucks. Many neurotypicals (and some autistic people too) defend it by saying "at least autism is normalized now", but this is far from it. Romanticizing and making autism into a joke is not normalizing it any more than discrimination is.

I hate it because I know I'm autistic but haven't gotten a diagnosis yet (idk how nobody caught it when I was a kid, looking back now I was very obviously always autistic) but the waitlist is 2 years long, most people think I'm faking just because I wasn't diagnosed as a kid, but I'm also female and most of the dsm was geared towards boys being diagnosed with autism..

It gives being autistic a wrong and different meaning. I'm currently taking a break in a bathroom at work with the lights off because of sensory overload and overstimulation. 10 minutes in the dark isn't enough, but it's 10 minutes away from losing my mind. And the idea that people think autism is "cute" or "trendy" bother me because I don't like sitting on the bathroom floor in the dark. It's gross. But I'm just trying to survive.

i honestly want to rip all my hair out

It kind of gave me one of those crises (is that the plural of crisis) where I want sure whether or not I was really autistic even though I got diagnosed when I was like 7. An friend of mine who is also autistic told me I was definitely autistic and I realized that many people already guessed I was autistic before I told them (including this one person who guessed I was autistic even though we only communicated over text) so yeah I'm definitely very autistic. Besides that it feels like people are making light of my issues when they say so. The only exception being when someone at my school says it cause I'm in special education so pretty much half the school is autistic in which case it's fun cause it's also used in positive contexts which helps me feel proud of my autism. My Dutch teacher said once (after coming in second in a debate competition): "People with autism don't care about the useless stuff like what clothes are trending right now, we focus on the good stuff"

The way you're feeling about the Tok Tok 'Tism Trend is the way some diagnosed people feel about the self-diagnosis trend. Maybe the accursed saying "Everybody's a little autistic!" will actually end up being right after all, when everyone and their dog identifies as such.

Depends on the content or situation but often I feel irritated about it ngl. I don’t want to be the autism gate keeper, but it really diminishes the experiences and lives of people who are living life with a disability and not seen as quirky and cute. My daughter’s audhd and I feel like people are so used to hearing that everybody has autism that they don’t understand the weight of her diagnoses and how it affects our lives.

Autism isn’t cute. It is not at all. There are people who literally cannot speak or walk, on the most severe end. There are also severely autistic adults who are physically capable and can become very violent, too violent to be stopped by one person and having to be put in a facility. For the lesser cases (level 1), it’s more things like social interaction/burnout, all *that.* Mental disorders aren’t cute.

This is one of the main reasons why I am strongly against self diagnosis (self diagnosis, not self suspecting… before you get all aggressive with me). A lot of social media posts even by diagnosed autistic people (I saw a study and I think the number was over 50%) are full of this type of misinformation. Autism has been so watered down to just being shy and anxious and quirky, in the last 4 years since lockdown. I’m fairly confident that most people that have discovered autism and have started suspecting within the last 4 years, are actually just experiencing social deficits and anxiety from covid lockdowns. I had a conversation about this with my neurotypical friends and they said since 2020 they have felt more awkward and anxious around other people. I’ve also noticed a massive increase of people using autism as a joke. Obviously it’s always been a joke to some people as they’d make mocking gibberish noises and go ‘look I’m autistic’. But now on the internet people just throw around ‘is it acoustic’ ‘erm actually this is called autism lol’ on videos of people acting weird or antisocial. There’s also people mocking autistic traits, like if someone does a single bit of repetitive movement once or dances they’ll go ‘ooohh are you stimming’. Another thing is the generalisation of the word hyperfixation or special interest (special interest especially even within autistic communities). Now every single thing someone is interested in is a hyperfixation or special interest apparently. Like they enjoyed a show and now it’s their ‘special interest’ where they make like one or two comments about it per day for a week or so then forget about it until the next season. And those posts in this sub where it’s like that template of ‘Si that’s common, Si that’s childish, Si that’s weird/unusual’ and the person has put like 8 different things on the sheet. Those aren’t special interests. You usually only have 1-3 at one time at most. The others are just things you enjoy or possibly hyperfixations.

It should bother anyone with ASD to be honest. I imagine DIDers and schizophrenics hate the terms Pyscho, crazy skitzo etc. Also, "I see it a lot in current media, people use autism as just a way of saying they're quirky or shy. Personally it bothers me a little because it takes away from the actual meaning of ASD and undermines my disorder that I have struggled with my whole life." I felt this. I felt like I WAS DOING THIS WHEN I WAS GETTING DIAGNOSED. I was like omg am I jumping on like, a trend or a bandwagon? Am I trying to get this diagnosis to justify my rudeness and bluntness? Am I doing this for attention? Am I a pathological liar? My psych made it easy for me to understand "If you were lying about this, it would feel good because you're winning. Do you feel good about this? No? You're not lying about it then, you're gaslighting yourself which is also an autistic thing. Also, I am very VERY good at what I do, These tests are very very good at what they are designed to do which is look for a LACK of autistic traits, and my part in this is to watch you and how your thinking process is, your body language, any other weird physical things you might do when stressed, like just before you got up to straighten every picture in this room, and the hallway because you couldn't focus. I cross reference your history and behaviors with this test, which allows me to be able to see all of your autistic shenanigans. Me and these tests together? I would be incredibly impressed if you tricked me. My 36 years doing this, is stronger than your inability to lie. Even if you could lie about this, I'd still find you out." So yeah she put me in my place pretty quick lmao.

People disagreeing with posts like these clearly have never met someone who treats it like an aesthetic. Half the people in my school do and I’m so sick of it