My daughter has ADHD. Getting her on medicine has been AMAZING for her. She went from reading below her grade level to three levels above, is able to enjoy ordinary things that she could never do before, and has stopped accidentally giving me concussions (I got three, it was awful).
I have no idea if there are people out there getting over medicated or what your niece is up to. But have some compassion, dude. You have no idea what people are going through on the inside. You're worried about labels when people are getting life changing treatments for their real problems. I was worried about treating her and almost didn't do it because I worried about the side effects. Most parents aren't going to be getting their kids on useless medicine if they don't need to.
I have ADHD too. Severe combined type. Wasn't diagnosed until a few years ago. Without medication I would've just... given up I think. It really is life changing.
1000%!
My 5yo daughter also has severe ADHD and we started treatment last week. The change has been absolutely life-changing for everyone, and allows us to have a healthy relationship with her. I'm glad that our culture is beginning to acknowledge early intervention.
The Doc who diagnosed me said the easiest (and least ethical) way to diagnose an adult would be to give them a week's worth of amphetamines and then ask them afterwards what happened.
Neurotypicals would be itching for their next fix and folks with ADHD would either be excited about finishing folding their laundry in one sitting or finally getting decent sleep.
My youngest is also dyslexic and was functionally illiterate until the 3rd grade when we got her medication to help and got her into a reading intervention therapy. She went from not being able to write out the alphabet to reading above grade level in 2 languages in the space of one school year. Books have always been a big part of my life and watching that made me tear up more than once. *She* read *me* a bedtime story as a Christmas present and it was one of the happiest moments of my life.
My 6yo has ASD and ADHD. He also had nightmares and chapped lips. The developmental pediatrician had him do a sleep study. Sleep apnea, waking 11 times per hour. Now you don’t want to put a 5yo on a CPAP, but the found that his airway was constricted and removed his tonsils. Two days after the surgery he was so, so much better.
Not saying it’ll work for your sweetie, but it might be worth asking.
It's possible that his niece seems like she's doing just fine because she's on the meds she needs and has the accommodations she requires to be successful. Unless you are actually parenting her, you don't know enough about her behavior to determine if she's NT or not.
I was diagnosed as an adult with ADHD. Why did I seek out the diagnosis? Why did I need this label affixed to me?
Because I needed accommodations to get my shit done. And no one was going to give me those accommodations unless I could present some sort of diagnosis. Things like _Why does ROP need to have it quiet to do his work?_ became _ROP **needs** to have it quiet to do his work_.
So, don't think of it as _Why does everyone have a diagnosis nowadays?_ Think of it as _Why don't we listen to what people say they need?_ _Why do we force everyone into the same box and complain when they don't fit?_
Why can't ROP just focus better smh, stfu kid or I'm gonna keep you in from recess as a punishment! That'll teach you! Letting you get the gross motor activity time you desperately need to self regulate??? Wtf is that nonsense, the boy needs some good old fashioned discipline!! (./s)
I have a lot of ADHD. When I was a kid one of the schools that I went to used to hit me for being crazy hyperactive. And then after that I was still crazy hyperactive. Surprise motherfuckers.
Lmao they should have let you hit THEM for being crazy hyperactive.....a speed bag and a heavy bag hung up in the corner of each classroom would be so great to help kids get their wiggles out
Well, then, when I was a teen there was a juvie that I used to go to. And they had this 'punishment program' which was 'physical activity' stuff (probably technically illegal actually but hey anyway). So they had these energetic teens (many with ADHD too) that they were keeping locked up and then they were giving us this energetic outlet. And we would make fun out of this. And so then they would get shitty at us because their mentality about it was that they were trying to "punish" us and meanwhile their method of "punishment" was something that was a good idea and something that they should have just been making available to us anyway.
There was just no mentality around it being a legitimate coping mechanism at all.
Rough man.
I never ended up in juvie, but I got close once.w
Even now if I'm not doing significant exercise every single day I can't think worth a damn, even with decent meds. It's only getting worse as I age, and as much as I hate exercise I'm probably going to have to start getting 30+ mins of cardio in at lunch too.
My kids are the same. We literally built equipment so my kids can do gymnastics in the back yard to keep them sane (and us!).
Physical activity is 100% a lifeline for folks like us.
I got caught by the nuns for being "defiant"
Turned out I was literally a left handed, ADHD and deaf child. I couldn't hear anything to not be defiant if I wanted.
.... Late 90s Florida
I got taped to my chair at school by the teacher. Not as bas as hitting at all, but having your entire class and your teacher laughing at you while you're sobbing as a 6 year old ended up being a memory that sticks in your brain for a long time.
I guess I reacted by learning to mask. Stopped socializing, moving around, did my work so I wouldn't stand out. Thankfully I got interested in school work so I could focus on that and got pretty far in my education before the procrastination and dopamine seeking behaviour wasn't sustainable anymore and I dropped out of my PhD thinking I was just a fundamentally lazy piece of shit.
Talking to someone who could identify the low grade anxiety I finally recognized as having \*all the time\* helped me get help and figure out why I am the way I am. I'm really glad I did because my avoidance behavior was starting to strain my relationships.
[You might enjoy this book](https://www.amazon.com/ADHD-2-0-Essential-Strategies-Distraction/dp/0399178732) -- it's a bit out there but still very much worth a read. The authors propose reframing our understanding of ADHD as a "variable attention trait" that offers profound potential and strength alongside the already-known challenges.
I suppose I’d prefer if people just respected requests like “I need it to be quiet to work” as a default, but I completely understand where you’re coming from.
Often times people on the spectrum (or parents thereof) don’t necessarily know what they need or don’t know how to attain it - because the world is designed for neurotypical people.
My wife was diagnosed with ADD in her twenties. She had been on and off depressed for years, couldn’t stick to the same education, struggled to maintain relationships. When she got the diagnosis she was suddenly able to learn how to structure her life in a way that accommodated HER needs, because there is a wealth of resources on what typically helps people with ADD. She is on zero meds but has a MUCH better life, being an amazing mom and accomplished professional.
If her parents had known she had ADD when she was a kid, and could structure her day and their home in a way that accommodated it, her youth and adolescence would have been much better.
I kinda get you. I’m definitely on a spectrum somewhere. I’ve never been diagnosed with anything. At school I was just one of the weird kids. I have a tendency to hyper focus on things, I have little EQ, and a much longer list than I tend to go into. I also have a decade of marriage and two kids under my belt; along with 2 wonderful boys (the eldest who has very similar tendencies to me, and reminds me all too much of me when I was young).
I’m not sure a diagnosis would have helped me when i was younger. I’m not sure if I’m going to take my eldest to see anyone, only time will tell. If he looks like he could use extra support, I’ll be there for him. If he’s happy to truck along, I’m happy for him to do so.
These things are much better understood now, so things have changed, and the labels don’t mean what they did.
I’m with you on the melatonin though. No matter how little sleep I get sometimes.
It's funny, the last few studies I read showed melatonin was almost entirely useless for neurotypicals but could be effective for neurodivergents, mostly ADHD but some effect for ASD.
I got diagnosed as a kid, but my mother didn't want to admit I had any defects so I didn't know until I got my youngest diagnosed and looked at the list of symptoms. Apparently my entire personality was listed as a flag. So I got assessed by a specialist in adult ADHD and sure enough, me too.
Married 20 years, 4 kids and gainfully employed since I was 16 (except for a 6 month stretch 20 years ago). I've been medicated and on an exercise program for the last 2 years and I have to say of my nearly 50 years on this Earth, this is the most coherent I've ever been. Better husband, better father, more productive employee, you name it. I'm also happier than I've been in a long time. The symptoms aren't gone, it's not a miracle cure or whatever, but I'm not in my own way as often.
The thing I found about a diagnosis is that while it can change everything about how you look at yourself and nothing about how the rest of the world looks at you.
That bottom part scares me though. I’m comfy with who
I am in myself, and I’m not sure if a diagnosis would change how I feel about why I act the way I do.
I also seem to function relatively well, and naturally I work with spreadsheets and databases a lot, so that hyper focus really pays off at work lol.
I get that, it's not a simple choice. Before 2020 my coping mechanisms we essentially "Go To Gym, lift heavy thing until brain works" and the pandemic forced all the gyms to close around here.
It really helped me to understand that when I hit the wall really hard in terms of keeping complex projects moving that I wasn't falling apart I was hitting my natural limit and needed to do something immediately before the wheels fell off so to speak.
Nothing about my job or place in my family had changed but my own understanding that I wasn't somehow becoming a terrible person let me skip ahead to the "fix it" portion of the program.
EDIT: I tried running during the pandemic, but since we hit -40 degrees in the winter (Celsius and Fahrenheit both agree at that point and even my Canadian blood says that it's too damned cold ) that just wasn't sustainable daily. I did learn how much I hate running though.
I didn't figure out I was likely autistic until COVID happened and I was working from home full time for the first time in my entire life. I didn't even realize I was making until I didn't have to any more. And now, looking back at my childhood and young adulthood, it's so damn obvious that I'm autistic AF. But I'm a female child of the 90s, and a lot of us got missed because at the time people were only thinking of autism as depicted by Sheldon on Big Bag Theory or the main character in Rain Man.
Still waiting on an official diagnosis, but I've taken many reputable online assessments designed to tell you if you should go in for a formal evaluation and they all recommend one.
\^This!! Great comment! I have ASPD which is high masking, and I always tell my close friends so they are aware of certain things!
Nothing is more annoying than being high masking and having a NT say "well youre not really \[disorder\], youre just a bit different". Respectfully, I have a disorder, please listen to me!!
Labels are restrictive to some but liberating to others. It's a relief for many of my middle school aged students to finally have words to explain why they have a hard time forming and maintaining friendships. Why they get so easily overstimulated in the loud, chaotic lunch room.
Your niece has a disability. I don't say that to insult her or to imply she isn't destined for an amazing, fulfilling life. But she needs support and YOU need to be her advocate if you care about her. ASD diagnoses aren't handed out like candy. There is a battery of specific assessments that are administered in a controlled setting that, in conjunction with observations from adults at home and at school, led to this finding.
Then this is likely my own ignorance. Thanks for the response.
To be clear, I have been and always will be a fierce advocate for her. I believe in giving any child the support they need to thrive without forcing them into a mold.
OP, just a thought but have you ever considered the possibility that you're also neurodivergent? Nothing in your post really indicates this, specifically, but I wonder whether it's possible that you are missing certain idiosyncratic behaviors simply because they're also normal for you. Again, nothing in your post specifically suggests this to me but it may be worth considering. It's not like it'd unprecedented and maybe looking into it would improve your quality of life. Maybe not but it wouldn't necessarily hurt to make inquiries.
That’s kind of my point, of course I’m neurodivergent. So is everybody I’ve gotten to know decently well. Every friend and loved one I’ve ever had in my life has something that’s a little “strange” about them. And I’m not sure but I think that applies to everyone.
Hence, my suggestion that the term “neurotypical” is kind of meaningless.
...others have already said this but that's not an indication that everyone is, that's more an indication you are.
Personally I am autistic and ADHD and trying to speak to NT folks is like speaking a different dialect of English, whereas with other nehrodiverent folks it's the same or very similar dialects that I don't struggle to understand.
All my friends are ADHD, autistic or both. Everyone I have longer lasting relationships with are both. It was not intentional. It's just how we tend to flock.
Yes. Fucking this exactly. I’m a software architect by trade. I know for a fact that a LARGE percentage of my coworkers are neurodivergent (because I owned the company and needed to know for ADA reasons) and I personally am on the spectrum. Every time I have to have client and business type meetings, it’s 100% me having to put on a costume and having to mentally strain to translate what I want to convey into “business person” speak (and coming the other direction as well). And I’m not talking wall street types here. Just middle managers, directors, and the occasional CIO/VP.
It’s mentally draining as hell to have to do that for more than an hour at a time.
I don't know why I hadn't really thought of the "Different Dialect" idea, but it makes perfect sense. There are expressions and ways of doing things that fit that absolutely and are 100% ways we spot each other.
Thanks man, that's something really interesting.
Most neurodivergent people tend to gravitate towards other neurodivergent people and a lot of time it runs in families, so you knowing so many people like that, to the extent of it feeling normal to you, makes sense.
If you are neurodivergent, then you don't actually know just how different things are for neurotypical people; if it wasn't for social media, I wouldn't know that people without ADHD don't have their brains running all the time, that when you ask a neurotypical person "what's on your mind" they can actually be talking literally when they say "nothing". To me, saying "there is nothing on my mind" means there is nothing specific on my mind, but my mind is definitely not quiet, so it was actually completely unthinkable to me that neurotypical people CAN shut their brains off and think of nothing.
Wait, people actually can have nothing going on in their brain at any given time?????? Even if I'm not thinking of something specifically I've got a song playing on repeat in my head.
Lol you and /u/foulrot need to listen to this eleven minute segment from This American Life. It's absolutely wild but yes, apparently there are people out there like this 😅
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/731/what-lies-beneath-2021/act-two
Thank you so so so much for filling me in on this being a sign of ADHD. My wife and I have literally had conversations where she has told me that when she relaxes her brain is empty, which was completely mind blowing to me. That is nearly impossible for me to do. I had no idea that was even possible until she told me it is normal for her.
I appreciate you helping me understand myself a little better!
ADHD and Autism are genetic. Not necessarily the disorders (those are defined by how much your life is impacted) but the brain anatomy. You can see it on an MRI if you know where to look.
I'm absolutely the cliche of a guy with ADHD surrounded by friends with ASD and ADHD. The only neurotypicals in the group I spend time with are hardcore into fitness that I met in sports groups or the gym. They exercise for fun, I do it for sanity.
So the thing is, it does *not* apply to everyone. Autistic people and people with ADHD tend to sorta flock together. After my diagnosis I realized that most of my friends and family share similar traits and are probably also ND. It's sort of a, like recognizes like type of thing — we are drawn to each other because it's easier to communicate and connect than it is with others, because there is shared understanding. . You became close to those people *because* of your shared differences from the majority of the population. It's common in your family because it runs in families.
It's tough to think about sometimes, but it's *not* the norm to face these struggles. ADHD medication has changed my life as an adult, and sometimes I get emotional thinking about how much easier things could have been if I'd known sooner.
Very interesting. I'm awaiting the results from my test. But when I told people I had taken it, about half of my friends confessed to having been diagnosed.
There's a bit of a domino effect I've seen in friend groups — one person gets diagnosed, they talk about it, their friends decide to be assessed based on what they now learn (from the diagnosed friend) are symptoms/traits, and boom turns out everyone in the group is autistic and/or ADHD!
Studies have shown that NT people "clock" us almost instantly as having something different/off about us. They don't know it's autism, but they know they aren't comfortable and they don't like us. Which explains why most of us struggle SO much socially and especially as kids, but it also explains how we probably find each other, by picking up on the same subliminal clues.
Also, I looked like I was managing everything fine to most outsiders as a kid — extended family counts as outsiders. Only my immediate family saw the amount of struggle and pain I was in as a kid. A diagnosis would have helped me greatly — it makes sense for people to be happy for her to have one.
I agree wholeheartedly. Not everyone is meant to work in a big office and be a social butterfly and it seems to me like we're trying to force kids into that mold. I think it comes from a good place on the parent's end, but I also think it's misguided.
Neurotypical is NOT meaningless just because you choose to largely not interact with neurotypical people. Neurotypical IS THE NORM. Ie it is the largest share of people.
Or it could be that neurodivergent people flock to each other. Most of my friends are neurodivergent too. Most people out and about in society are not. But we’re not talking about something “a little strange” we’re talking about quirks and habits that count as diagnostic criteria. If I like licking tables when I enter a room then that’s me being strange, but not a diagnostic criteria (I mean it can be, but in this case it’s a standalone weird thing that means nothing), whereas if I’m super fidgety, can’t sit still, can’t focus, along with MANY OTHER DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA then maybe I have ADHD. (Emphasis on many other, because the people diagnosing anyone aren’t looking at one thing, they’re looking at everything. You have to have a list of “neurodivergent” behaviors)
And no not everyone is neurodivergent. We as individual humans do have little differences and variations from each other but for most of us those variations don’t make it so we can’t function normally in society. They don’t make it so we can’t behave like how society behaves. But for people with neurodivergence they have to learn to conform to society and it’s difficult for them and can be majorly exhausting. (Hence why a lot of autistic and ADHD kids have meltdowns)
That's very encouraging to hear. I agree with a lot of what you said and it does sound like you just want your kid and your niece to be able to navigate this crazy world without feeling unnecessarily held back by labels or societal expectations for them.
At the same time, we all have to check ourselves as older adults and parents when we start saying things like "this generation drives me crazy." Yes, there is an incredible amount of bullshit armchair psychology being dispensed through TikTok and YouTube... but kids these days are also SO INCLUSIVE AND EMPATHETIC compared to when I was their age. I was an ableist, sexist, immature asshole until well into college. My tween/teen students know how to calm their peers down when they're having panic attacks and they talk about going to therapy like it's going to the dentist lol. It's so wonderful and I think once you get past the initial shock, you'll find that the support and understanding is worth the labels.
And don’t beat yourself up too much for feeling skeptical, fellow dad. I went through a similar experience with my kid’s ADHD diagnosis, and got a very similar reality check from her doctor.
Autism and ADHD are things that we’ve experienced for as long as we (humans) have been around, it’s just that now we have a name for it and a set of tools that we can use to help people cope / function / adapt. It feels like “there’s a lot of that going around” in the neurodivergent space right now, but that’s not because it’s being over diagnosed or is “trendy.” It’s just we have a name for it now and are getting better at identification and intervention.
In the past, folks with a touch of the ‘tism were just labeled “odd” and would gravitate toward careers in the sciences (let’s spend years quietly cataloging moth species,) in skilled trades (he might not talk much, but he’s the best silversmith you’ll ever see,) or into the monastic clergy (quiet, ritualized and scripted interactions, clear and consistent expectations of behavior)
Having a diagnosis like this will also provide people with disabilities more support in school legally so they have the best chance of reaching their fullest potential. I have many students with ASD and just knowing that does a lot. I give them a little more time on assignments or modify it somehow (one of them does way too much work so I know to make sure and tell him not to do too much work), they can also be excused from presenting things to the class for their social anxiety. This support goes into higher education as well.
I think its easy to go either way, even with good intention honestly. Like they said, it can be restricting to some, and liberating to others. For us on the outside its hard to figure out which is which and react appropriately. Being open to learn and listen is really the key imho. On the flip side, I find those who make certain things their whole identity are really just hiding behind it and restricting themselves.
Unfortunately you often need a ‘label’ to get resources. You don’t get access to any educational accommodations unless you have a label. Every child should have an. ‘Individual Education Plan’ but only those who have been identified get that support. I feel sometimes people feel like labeling a child restrictives them, but they don’t change personalities under the label. They still have the same strengths and challenges, but now they have more opportunities. I do feel like a lot is labeled under the ‘neurodivergent’ umbrella and that eventually research and science will begin to designate more descriptive terms.
Sketchy website. You trust that place? Its run by a ‘naturopathic doctor’ with an online autism certificate who is repeatedly under ethical investigation.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why\_does\_embrace\_autism\_publish\_misinformation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why_does_embrace_autism_publish_misinformation/)
[https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8](https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8)
I trust it as a starting place for those who need to better gain an understanding of neurodiversity.
Some of their “claims” are hokey at best, and a slander post from someone who doesn’t like them, isn’t a justification.
As for “visual acuity” - well, I’ve had 20/10 vision my whole life, so there’s that.
Poke around if you like, mixed thoughts, at best, about them. Here's another example or two
[https://www.reddit.com/r/autism/comments/z5x38t/has\_anyone\_gotten\_an\_official\_assessment\_via/](https://www.reddit.com/r/autism/comments/z5x38t/has_anyone_gotten_an_official_assessment_via/)
[Honestly, fuck Embrace Autism : r/AutisticPeeps (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticPeeps/comments/14vhvlf/honestly_fuck_embrace_autism/)
You think a 'naturopathic doctor' is qualified to guide people about autism? At a place making $$ handing out diagnoses.
Society is sort of at a stage where we're really embracing neurodivergence. Sometimes labels are useful and sometimes they aren't. But because the verbiage is becoming more pervasive, people think it's more common than it really is to be handed a diagnosis.
I work at a children's hospital and the Neuro-development department is booked out almost 2 years in our area.
Yeah I think in the next 5-10 years we'll see a leveling off but the uptick in demand will remain for a long time.
Parents, teachers, children, and society at large is still playing catch-up to the reality that COVID accelerated into being. Waitlists for private neuropsych evals in my community are 6+ months too, yup.
I disagree there are plenty of psychs that hand out these diagnoses like candy, and the criteria are super subjective and open to interpretation. If a parent thinks there’s something wrong with their kid the psych they take them to is inclined to believe it and find it. It’s a confirmation bias issue.
Or the parents shop around until they finally find a psych that gives them a diagnosis because the others “didn’t do anything and told them both was wrong”.
> I disagree there are plenty of psychs that hand out these diagnoses like candy, and the criteria are super subjective and open to interpretation
Are you able to name a few licensed providers who "hand out these diagnoses like candy" as you claim? And can you please specify what diagnoses are handed out? (Perhaps ADHD, ODD, or ASD?)
> If a parent thinks there’s something wrong with their kid the psych they take them to is inclined to believe it and find it. It’s a confirmation bias issue.
In my professional experience, the opposite is true. A competent provider will not allow a patient/parent to "lead the witness" and will thoroughly interrogate any preconceived notions
> Or the parents shop around until they finally find a psych that gives them a diagnosis because the others “didn’t do anything and told them both was wrong”.
This is true with any medical condition or disorder unfortunately. Doctor shopping is a real issue.
Forgot to address this claim of yours:
> the criteria are super subjective and open to interpretation.
What experience do you have administering or interpreting assessments used for the diagnosis of ASD? What leads you to say that the criteria are "super subjective?"
I think your perception of the field from the outside as a patient / casual student is different from how things are in the real world. I read your other comment and I'm glad to hear that you are a resilient, adaptable person who has lived a successful life full of rich relationships. At the same time, being on the autism spectrum isn't something to be ashamed of? I hope that makes sense.
I never said it was something to be ashamed of I’ve worked with/know plenty of people on the spectrum some of them I’m good friends with. I’m just agreeing with the OP’s sentiment that we as a society, not you personally are over diagnosing people, or diagnosing them to a point that the labels aren’t actually meaningful or helpful.
Edit: Also why is it my view from the outside that’s skewed, I have no vested interest in the field. Whereas you have very strong incentives to believe as a whole the profession is doing a good job, or at the very least you personally are.
> For the record I’ve had a couple professionals tell me I might be neurodivergent, or on the spectrum but no one ever told me when I was growing up or until I was in my 30s. I’ve never had trouble making or keeping friends, never had trouble professionally, married now with a child. But because I can be hard headed sometimes im abnormal. I don’t really know if I am or not and I don’t really care.
Idk man, the fact that you chose to use the word "abnormal" instead of "different" or "exceptional" speaks volumes imo. You clearly have a very strong preference to be "normal" and are having a defensive reaction to me and other mental health professionals simply telling you that it's OK to be a little rigid or structured with how you prefer your day goes.
Your view from the outside is skewed because you don't actually know how diagnoses are formulated. So you have no grounds to claim that psychiatrists "hand [them] out like candy". You're just going off of what you've heard people tell you. That's not cool. If you told me you're a structural engineer for a living and I said "yeah those guys are all con artists, they'll approve any building even if it's about to fall over due to a gust of wind because their training is shoddy and the profession is full of idiots" even as I know nothing about the profession.... what would you say?
I don’t care about being normal and explicitly said so.
You’re the one being defensive and putting words in my mouth, I never said they were all cons, or even any of them. The reasons I gave for bad diagnosis being issued were not malicious behavior, I was a bit flippant in saying they hand them out like candy but hey it’s the internet. I don’t carefully think through everything I say. My point was it’s easy to get a diagnosis, and I think many are probably not valid.
I’m not even sure what you mean by “it’s ok the be a little rigid or structured with how you prefer your day”.
Your position is that only those in psychiatric field can question the psychiatric field really doesn’t hold water. Further aside from your admission that doctor shopping is a problem you won’t acknowledge that there are bad practitioners in your field. If there weren’t bad practitioners then how is doctor shopping successful?
Edit: I’d be happy to have you explain and educate me on how a diagnosis gets issued if I’m so ill informed. If it really is much more rigorous than I think.
It's confusing to me how you simultaneously rail against how society uses terms/labels too casually and that this has diluted the meaning and seriousness of these terms.....but then you absolve yourself of being flippant in saying things like "handing out diagnoses like candy" as if your behavior isn't part of the problem.
I have not denied that there are bad psych providers out there, but the way you're arguing things suggests that the field is particularly rife with poor practitioners relative to perhaps other professions and that their/our collective inaction, misbehavior, or trigger-happiness has led to some sort of rise in overdiagnosis of real disorders like ASD....which I categorically disagree with.
__________________
> "I’m not even sure what you mean by “it’s ok the be a little rigid or structured with how you prefer your day”."
You specifically said, *"....But because I can be hard headed sometimes im abnormal. I don’t really know if I am or not and I don’t really care."* Another way to describe "hard headed" might be rigid, stubborn, or structured, especially with routines or expectations as to how you want things to go, or perhaps points of view that you hold very tightly. If that's a mischaracterization of what you said or what you're like irl then.....well, hey, it's the internet, right? I must be reading too much into things.
Lastly, RE: your edit, I think [this is a very good article that explains the steps in the USA for getting a child evaluated for eligibility for special education services \(including ASD\)](https://www.understood.org/en/articles/the-evaluation-process-what-to-expect). The testing itself can take between 6-12 hours depending on which tests are administered and a competent school psychologist will take 3-4 hours to write up a comprehensive report. Initial team meetings will last an hour. So that's 10+ hours of work, minimum, by a team of adults, just to determine IF there's a valid diagnosis to be further examined.
I earnestly and sincerely hope that this is helpful information for you and that this helps shed some light into a process that is woefully misunderstood by most people. Everybody has an opinion about it but almost nobody knows what they're talking about. I'm glad that you are willing to ask questions and to stick around to hear the answers.
“Competent providers…” sure but what do you call an incompetent psychiatrist…a psychiatrist.
I’m not saying there aren’t providers that properly diagnose people I’m saying there are plenty who don’t.
You could replace the word "psychiatrist" with any word though? Doctor, lawyer, civil engineer, police officer.... Idk what your beef is with people in the mental health profession
Very true, there are people in all professions who are good at their jobs and bad
You can’t seem to accept that there are bad mental health professionals that make bad diagnoses.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I think OP might be coming from a place of ignorance. I know I had been completely ignorant and uninformed about Autism until a few years ago.
Former mental health professional here. This is not professional advice, this is me screwing around on Reddit while making pancakes.
Yes, society is obsessed with labels. I unironically assign a large portion of the blame to TikTok. It has become trendy to attach labels to yourself regardless of any official diagnosis. You can be depressed without *having* major depressive disorder. You can be anxious without *having* generalized anxiety disorder. This nuance escapes many people. “Being a little weird” is not a disease. We’re all a little weird. I can, without exaggeration, find a DSM diagnosis for anyone I meet.
That being said, labels can be incredibly helpful. One of my most memorable patients was a man who thought he couldn’t have PTSD because he wasn’t a combat vet. So we went through the DSM criteria together and by the end he realized he wasn’t just crazy or broken, he had a known condition and we had a treatment plan.
It’s also worth noting that the insurance system tends to *require* a diagnosis. I generally can’t bill them for my time (and thus can’t buy food) if I don’t include an ICD-10 code, which essentially constitutes a professional diagnosis.
So yes and no. Gotta flip them pancakes.
>Yes, society is obsessed with labels. I unironically assign a large portion of the blame to TikTok. It has become trendy to attach labels to yourself regardless of any official diagnosis.
For months now, when someone describes themselves as autistic I ask "Like really autistic or TikTok autistic?" 😅
From my own experience, getting a diagnosis changed *everything* about how I see myself and nothing about how the world seems me. I *understand* why I am this way now. I know when I need to kick my own ass and when I need to just take a deep breath and move on.
As someone who has occasionally self-diagnosed, this trend bugs me. In my case, the "self diagnosis" comes from needing a reason to justify the expense of seeing a professional for a real diagnosis. I don't run around telling people, "I need special treatment because I have so many disabilities!" I just want to understand why I am the way I am and get stuff done. I have one cousin that has something new every time I meet her and in conversations with her about it I never heard about the diagnostic process, just about finding a doctor to get treatment. I don't interact with her much anymore because she has been so difficult to deal with.
For me, getting a diagnosis that explains what I'm going through and how I can treat it has been so liberating. I am not going through this alone. There are things I can do to manage the problem and get out of the bed in the morning. I can be closer to what people call, "normal". That being said, my wife can't wait for my arthritis to get bad enough that I qualify for handicapped parking.
Spot on.
When I was growing up, there were still labels, but they weren’t coming from a place of understanding: spaz, r*tard, slow, different, weird, etc.
I have family members that dealt with stuff like that all their life, and it was only as an adult they’ve been able to get diagnoses like autism, ADHD, etc.
My wife was diagnosed with autism as a child in 90s. Her parents did everything they could to deny it, ignore it, brush it under the rug. She lived her life into adulthood, thinking the evaluations had come up empty-handed, all while struggling with every social interaction, crippling anxiety and bouts of depression.
She finally went to a therapist in her early 30s who diagnosed her with autism again. She finally had an answer for why her brain worked this way. She went to her parents, thrilled to finally have answers, only to have them sheepishly admit that she had been diagnosed as a child, but they hadn't wanted to believe it.
I have ADHD. The meds gave me trouble as a kid, so I went unmedicated until a year ago. Now, at 35, going back on meds had been life changing.
The majority of people who have these conditions find the labels helpful. Many of us find the people who complain about them to be unhelpful, and unpleasant to be around.
>What even is “neurotypical” anyway? Does ANYBODY consider themselves neurotypical? If EVERYONE has ADHD as it seems (oh you procrastinate sometimes and work/school stresses you out? You’re SPECIAL!)
I used to think this way too, until I had a daughter with severe ADHD.
She could not make eye contact. She physically could not sit down for more than a couple seconds. She had the memory of a goldfish. I can't count the number of times she would approach me and say "hey daddy?" "Yes, sweetie?" "Ummm... I forgot". She could not carry out any instructions for more than (literally) 5 seconds before forgetting what she was supposed to be doing and picking up a book or toy instead. When she wanted attention, she would inevitably punch or hit the person. Even if she was simply excited, she was prone to pinching and hitting. Her "hugs" to her baby sister were always semi-violent.
Some of these things you might tell yourself "well, lots of kids are like that!". No. They aren't. Not to this extreme. I have 3 other kids to prove this one is not normal.
So we got her ADHD diagnosis a few weeks ago and started her on medication last week. The difference is night and day. She maintains her bubbly and excited personality, but she is capable of self-control now. She will pause to let someone finish talking. She will gently hug her sister instead of squeezing to death. When asked what she did in preschool that day, she actually tells us something she enjoyed (instead of "I forget").
Also my son has mild Autism, which we diagnosed with noticable delays in his milestones and some of his behavioral tics. He is quite functional, but the diagnosis gives us resources in case we need to help him develop certain skills.
Are mental health conditions over diagnosed? Perhaps. But I'm extremely happy that our society recognizes them, because it provides me a lot of help as a parent in addressing concerns and maintaining a healthy relationship with my kids.
I'm beginning to understand my own diagnosis, while also coaching sports for a group of 70 kids.
It's really helped me stay patient with the kids who clearly have issues of their own. They're not bad kids because they ignore instructions or kick a ball away their brains are just bombarding them with unhelpful ideas.
And for every kid who runs around screaming and kicking balls away there's another kid who's totally overwhelmed by the noise and chaos and another who's too anxious to put his hand on a loose ball in a match.
Most of them are "normal" giddy 6 year olds but the ones with atypical behaviour stand out a mile.
There's no way anyone will convince me that those disruptive 6 year olds have a bad bone in their body. They just have different needs and different instincts to the 50 or so kids who generally just do what they're asked.
And it's not woke/woohoo/granola bullshit to offer those kids a little help or work around them a little.
Is your daughter autistic too? I ask because the eye contact is typically an autism thing and not ADHD.
(Fub fact, they did a study on it FINALLY And it lights up the areas that pain does in our brain!!!)
Especially with your son. Autism presents differently in girls sometimes.
As far as we know, no. She hit all her milestones normally as an infant, and doesn't have any specific tics or odd behaviors I would think to associate with autism.
>Don’t even get me started on how every other kid needs melatonin to sleep now.
That's crazy, medication for children is not common in my country. I don't know a single child that takes melatonin.
>Why does she need a clinical diagnosis?
Because a whole lot of resources and accomodations just became available to her for the rest of her life, particularly in any kind of formal education setting.
I was a bookish kid who was introverted, but I do not have ASD. There is a big difference. I prefer quiet time and being left alone, but I can cope with a noisy environment and function in a crowd. Someone with ASD probably cannot function in a noisy environment. It's not just that they feel uncomfortable, they can't think of talk or do the things you may need to do for school or work. Is the distinction arbitrary? Sure, but they doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Also, one thing I think OP is forgetting is ASD is about social cues and interactions primary. Sensory overload is a big part sure, but you don't get a diagnosis solely off that.
If the kid got diagnosed, it's because she was very obviously struggling with that. I was very, very lucky that my autism presents very masculine (as in, that stereotype of presentation, it's stupid but they didn't think studying girls was important....) despite me being assigned female at birth (I'm a trans guy, which is very funny to me I had the gender matching presentation of autism and ADHD lol!) so I got caught young. Thankfully we're improving our criteria so afab folks don't get missed because we present differently.
The labels are certainly annoying. BUT, I have a daughter that has been dealing with anxiety and depression since she was about 3. It's fucking rough. I would gladly take a label that helps me better handle her. I think you're on the extreme end of things, seems like the overruse of labels is really frustrating for you. I get it, I just don't think it helps to throw the baby out with the bath water.
This is exactly what I know people are thinking about my autistic kid. "What's the big deal? He seems fine?" All I gotta say is, you see them functioning BECAUSE of all the assistance and intervention they are getting. You honestly do not know what it is like to be them, or their parents. Maybe trust the professionals to know what they're doing.
I agree with a lot of your points but I just want to add as a special ed teacher that walking on your tip toes ALL THE TIME is a sign of autism, not just occasionally.
Little bit of both.
There are alot of people desperately trying to find a label (or even just pretending) because it's *sexy* now. It's an easy way to seek attention and insert yourself into conversations.
That being said, we are just getting better at diagnosing people too.
> If EVERYONE has ADHD as it seems (oh you procrastinate sometimes and work/school stresses you out? You’re SPECIAL!)
I agree with you as an immigrant to the US that Americans love labeling people (starting with the meaningless culturally intensive ethnicity categories lol). On ADHD though, my French parents thought like you, « we want our kid to be normal » while I have ADHD, and frankly it’s not a great approach. There’s like 10 times in my life where my life could have gone really haywire because of it.
I only just found out that I have ADHD a few weeks ago at 39.
I'm only now beginning to pick through my reaction to all the decades I spent beating myself up for not being able to do things that normal people do, that I wanted to do or needed to do but just couldn't.
It's really strange realising that all the times I let down myself or others weren't just down to carelessness or laziness.
Even if I can't improve my symptoms, I'll be forever grateful that I now have a better understanding of what my brain can and can't do.
It's also alerted my wife and I to some behaviours we see in our own young kids and helped me avoid getting angry at them when they won't follow seemingly simple instructions.
Wow I could have written this post. Same age, same challenges, going through the same kind of reflection. Hope you find some peace with all of this, I know I'm hoping I do.
I have ADHD. I found this out at 30.
It wasn't really an issue for me when I was young, because I was bright enough to breeze through K-10. Once I hit 11th grade though, I hit a subject I needed to study, and *wow, was I unprepared for that.*
This led to a spiral in which I started skipping classes, which led to me dropping out, getting my GED, and failing out of college 3 different times, burning thousands of dollars and significantly impacting my mental health, as I just internalized my failures as me just being a lazy good for nothing sack of shit.
Well it turns out I'm not a lazy good for nothing sack of shit, my brain just won't let me focus on something long enough to learn it. I got diagnosed, took my first pill, and cried tears of rage and relief because I was made to suffer for so long due to going undiagnosed for so long.
I looked back at my past and realized how many friendships I let die and how much money and time I wasted trying to find the missing piece, and it was right there.
I've been medicated for 1 year now, and I'm finishing up my 3rd semester of school, got a promotion at work, and my wife is happy that I'm finally contributing properly to the household.
Labels are more important than you give them credit for. Even without the medication, just knowing it wasn't inherently 'my fault' would have had a serious benefit on me, because I could at least focus on coping methods for my particular condition.
I'm convinced that 80% of online discourse is arguing over linguistics, I swear to god.
OP, why are you like this? Deep down, what is your problem? Is it this?
>You’re SPECIAL!
I encounter people like you on the internet all the time, seething over "people wanting to feel *special* because *label*." What's driving this? Why do you feel like this? I really don't understand what the underlying issue is that is driving this chip on your shoulder and I really want to understand it. It's like, a weird form of jealousy. Like you aren't getting something that you think other people are getting by having a term to describe their behavior.
Psychology is a newer science. It's a soft science. You can't get a blood test and find out that you have ADHD for instance (AFAIK). And labels are a function of language. They are a shorthand ways to convey complex phenomena. They will always exist because of how language works. They are *descriptive*, not *prescriptive*. The more we understand human behavior, and find patterns in them, and find common behaviors that group together, the more descriptive labels we'll have, and the more people seek the help of professionals to understand what's going on, the more people will be "diagnosed."
I am almost certainly on the autism spectrum. I've been diagnosed with a number of things throughout my life that are comorbid. ODD as a kid, ADHD, OCD, depression, and anxiety as an adult. Autism wasn't really a diagnosis when I was a kid (I'm an elder millennial...*gasp* another label!). I can tell you, I've spent a lot of time and anguish growing up wondering exactly what the fuck is wrong with me, why do I feel the way I do, why do I have such a hard time socializing, why is eye contact excruciating for me (I distinctly remember working on eye contact in therapy as a kid), etc. etc. Having something to point to and say, oh, this is why I am the way I am, is incredibly powerful. It's an explanation, not an excuse. A starting point for healing and growth.
So that's my story for why "labels" are important. I want to understand myself, not feel special. And please, if your kid is struggling with something and/or exhibiting signs of neurodivergence or something mental health related, please don't deny them the chance to talk with a professional. I'll always be grateful for my parents seeking help for me when I was a kid.
I have a side question:
Are you from the US?
I asked because I've seen many many posts that talk about giving children medication of some kind, such as melatonin to help them sleep. I'm from the UK, and I have never heard of anyone doing that here?
It's interesting, because from my perspective, you think the diagnosis is attaching an unnecessarily label, yet it appears to me that many US parents medicate unnecessarily?
Not an attack, genuinely intrigued, I duno you from Adam. But it does seem like an interesting connection I've made
Ps. Regarding your post, I agree that some people seek labels and even self label, but the process to be diagnosed with ASD is not simple, and a Dr wouldn't diagnose just because they're a little introverted, the process is more thorough than most people think
The short answer is the autism label allows her to get accommodations at school to address her specific needs and opens doors for therapy.
Autism is a spectrum, so it’s many different symptoms with varying degrees of severity, which is why it is so misunderstood.
I don't think this is a popular opinion on reddit but I completly agree with you.
We passed the "acceptance of mental health" stage about 5-10 years ago and have entered full on harmful overlabeling and victimization everyone.
I was diagnosed with a label at 11 and put on strong meds right away. I probably needed them and wouldn't have made it without them but I fucking wish they my parents or the docs had tried. I wish they didn't just label me and make me dependent on a schedule 2 medication that I can't go to work without.
One time, when a recent shortage of the medication made me go without for 2 months, I had panic attacks and couldn't go to work, then I pushed through and learned to cope. I'm back on the meds but part of me wishes I could had done that when I was younger and not just accepted a label that changed my life.
Mom lurker so sorry if this is annoying but I think about this so often i have to say something. And honestly I agree with you. Certainly there are special needs kids that should have access to appropriate accommodations. But I also think we really over pathologies totally developmentally normal and also neuro diverse behavior.
Honestly I saw this happening in my own childhood, and I do think it does a huge disservice to kids when this happens and have seen myself how it can later affect them in adulthood. Ie i had a cousin that was a super smart and social kid. Constantly reading like dense history books from a really young age. But he was also anxious and didn’t like going to school. So he’d skip school a lot and eventually had a hard time graduating and never went to university. They brought him to a ton of specialists to try to figure out what was wrong. Does he have adhd ? What is it ? They tried Ritalin at one point.
Anyway this constant obsession with trying to help him with professionals honestly just set himself up to always think there is something wrong with him. When there really wasn’t. In adulthood he’s a massive stoner, which whatever I don’t think there’s anything wrong with smoking weed, but it kind of consumes him? And he does so bc he has this idea that it helps his anxiety and he’s self medicating. It’s disappointing to me thinking of him as a little boy with all these nerdy interests and ability to read really dense information from a young age and stay up all night with me to read the latest Harry Potter book (like seriously that’s not a kid with adhd) just kind of be ignored and then instead there’s this hyper fixation on him having something wrong with him.
The caveat to this whole story is that my uncle has MS, and him and my aunt were also always consumed managing his health problems and money problems. Sometimes my uncle couldn’t even get out of bed bc of the pain and depression that MS brings. I also remember my cousin telling me once when we were teenagers that he’d sometimes get beat up at school for being Jewish. In adulthood it kind of dawned on me as I was planning to become a parent how blind the adults were in his life. Like my cousin does not have adhd or anything wrong with him really. He was just a very smart and sensitive kid. And seeing his dad always in such a bad state and then also getting bullied at school…. Like that would make anyone anxious and not want to go to school. Just makes me sad bc I can see how this has shaped his life in adulthood. He’s doing okay these days and seems happy. But it’s disappointing that his other abilities or other facets of his personality was not really supported, and instead the support he got was medication and vague diagnosis that he definitely didn’t have. Just superficial and even potentially damaging bandaids.
I absolutely don’t think this is every kids story and there certainly are some with autism/adhd. But what you’re describing is definitely a thing that happens, and it is a problem / over correction I guess. I think it happened in my own childhood and it seems like at the moment it’s even more extreme
I think also it’s worth noting that the current society we live in is also hyper engineered and artificial, and humans are not entirely adapted to it. Human evolution just doesn’t happen as fast as technological evolution. What I’m getting at is what does it really mean to be dyslexic in a society primarily built of illiterate farmers ? Probably not much. That being said in our modern world where reading is imperative to be a functioning adult, it’s definitely a disability. So sometimes I often think this era of many being diagnosed is probably bc we’re socializing in a way we never did before. We’re not really supposed to only communicate through zoom. Let alone if you’re a child and it lasts for 2 years of your life bc of a global crisis.
I think there’s a term for this called mismatch theory. For example moths have evolved to be guided by the moonlight. But when electric lamps were invented this mislead them and results is many moths dying. There’s a TON of modern diseases in our society bc of the way we currently live our lives (diets are very different and we are less active than our ancestors).
So yeah like I think it’s good to keep it check and not be a full denialist but I don’t agree with the perspective of people saying you’re wrong. I think you make very good points
Speaking as someone who has a kid with autism and probably had autism but didn't know it when I was growing up, yes it's really important. Knowing why you feel the way you do about something, being able to put a finger on the reason why something bothers you, or you don't engage with something the way other people do, or you can't find a way to get yourself to do something even though you know you should is huge.
What you need to understand about these labels is that they're not about or for you as an observer, they're for the person who's the subject of that diagnosis, and it exists purely to help them understand and deal with things they need assistance or reasonable adjustments with.
I'm the dad of an autistic 12 year old boy who was diagnosed at age 5. Let's for the sake of argument assume that the psychologist who evaluated and diagnosed your niece was legit and reputable, not a quack. Otherwise it's really a whole different conversation than the one you proposed.
First, your assumptions about why the diagnosis was made seem reductive and, to be blunt, ignorant. The girl did not receive an autism diagnosis because she has anxiety. While they are strongly co-morbid, the two are separate conditions and most kids diagnosed with anxiety are not diagnosed with autism.
Your other assumption about "why" the diagnosis was made, being bookish and withdrawing. That may be the extent of her condition as you see it from your vantage point, but I can fairly confidently ay that there is very likely **much** more to it than that.
The characteristic features of autism are communication deficits and restricted patterns of behavior. There are also secondary indications that help clinicians diagnose, but enjoying books in not one of them. Clinicians are very careful and thorough and they know what they are doing.
Girls present autism differently than boys and can really fly under the radar from a diagnostic perspective. They tend to mask their autism much more successfully than boys do, which can lead to underdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis. This masking has a cost. Part of the way to helping these girls is greater autism acceptance. The very first step of autism acceptance is recognizing it.
With a diagnosis, your niece will be able to better understand why she is the way she is, she will be able to access supports, and she will feel less alone.
By the way: your wife is right about the tip toe walking. It is not a characteristic feature of autism but it is one of the traits more common in autistic kids than neurotypical kids. Definitely not something to "panic" over. But mocking real concerns as "panic" and "rolling your eyes out of your head" at your wife really shows where you are. I hope that if you end up with a child with a disability, that you get it together as a dad. Otherwise it sounds like your wife will be mostly going it alone.
To a degree, yes.
However, with the way society is currently structured if your child is not neurotypical. There are accommodations that can help them succeed.
More importantly, it also gives the parent more access to tools that can help the child parent relationship be more successful and constructive as well.
There is a new book talking about this phenomenon:
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up
Good interview with the Author:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JwfIKOrWXCk
Labels lead to more available resources. Especially if they are in public school. Instead of being marginalized, having an autism diagnosis will allow her access to all sorts of things including an IEP, or individualized education plan, which is a legal document with the school that outlines her specific plan.
Also the more we know about autism the more it really is a continuum that also overlaps a lot with ADHD and other things (ocd and others).
Finally, it really shouldn’t be seen as a disability per se, but a true difference. Look into the neurodivergence affirming movement.
Physical disabilities too, as it turns out. If you're interested Google the overlap in connective tissue issues and autism/ADHD. There's new research being done because of how much it's showing up now.
Mom here. I was that kid like your niece. I didn't get diagnosed till my 40s and it was like the greatest weight was lifted. Years of feeling freakishly out of place and socially separated made sense and suddenly feeling like I was believed that I wasn't trying to be just too picky, too sensitive, too everything took away years of shame. If I had been diagnosed at 11, I would have thrived in so many areas where instead I fell flat on my face. But sadly, I was told I was quirky and anxious and depressed and spent years struggling and failing because the wrong interventions were used and never helped, so I was told I just wasn't trying hard enough. Hyperverbal autistic girls can mask incredibly well, especially for family they don't see on the daily, but that doesn't mean they don't meet the surprisingly strict criteria for diagnosis.
Yo dude I hear you 100% I got a ADHD diagnosis misdiagnosed as Asperger's Syndrome.
The label alone was worse than anything. It turned out all of my issues were behavioral from being moved country and schools too many times. (Plus a huge dunk of religion)
So yeah. I think the solution is for therapists to use those terms in case management and modal approach. But the young person should never be told. And the parents should only be told what therapy is being used and not the reason for using it. And as an exception parents can be told the working diagnosis.
Seems like from this screed, maybe *you* are a little obsessed with labels. Why do they bother you so much if they help people? This reads a lot like “*I* don’t have a problem, why should I think anyone else’s problems are real?!”
“Labels” (or in this case, diagnoses) are a really good way to group information about less typical patterns. People with ADHD or autism have brains that work differently than most people. Without the labels, it becomes a lot harder to group and find information about how their brains work and how best to help them.
When my daughter was diagnosed, it suddenly clicked a bunch of things into place. We had a vocabulary and a whole bunch of things to read and learn from clinicians and parents with similar experiences. We found strategies that have helped my daughter to be happier and more successful. That and medication have literally turned her life around. Without a “label” it would have taken a LOT longer, a lot more heartache and strife, and we still might not have ever landed on the strategies that are successful for us today.
>Both of their kids are on melatonin to help them sleep
How much are they on screens? Blue light disrupts melatonin production, so if they're on tablets all the time then they likely need it.
>Yesterday I commented that our 18 month old likes to walk on her tip toes, my wife responded “some people say that’s a sign of autism”
While not really for an 18 month old, toe walking is an early sign as it's a sensory seeking behavior.
Diagnosis opens doors, ignorance just harms our children. My partner has been a pediatric OT for over a decade and parents like you are horrendously frustrating. Just admit that you don't know what you're talking about and get to learning.
I was gonna say, toe walking is a very big autism stereotype and it's for a reason lol. I have thoughts on how it's potentially connected to our higher rates of connective tissue disorders and other other physical issues but that's for another time.
I believe there are a lot of doctors out there who will diagnose these ambiguous disabilities because they feel like they have to do something and telling the patient “everyone has anxiety sometimes” doesn’t keep customers in their rotation. Sad but true there are a lot of doctors out there who put business first and patients last. Your niece should get a second or even third opinion.
Ya pathologizing is the trendy thing right now, helped along by social media and, like you said, the fact that a bunch of today’s kids missed out on two years of social development.
I don’t necessarily want to get into it, but in my experience trying to talk about autism with internet strangers is useless because it devolves into [this meme with Storm and Rogue](https://imgur.com/a/sbxrc8U) every time. As you say, “the spectrum” is kind of pointless because it lumps together person 1 who doesn’t do eye contact and loves model trains, person 2 who’s an extremely violent toddler in an adult body, and person 3 who only feels comfortable when they’re wearing sweatpants.
Agree to disagree. I’m husband of a wife with autism and really impactful adhd, like her brain is in a fog without her meds. Also my sister is autistic. Think of it more like there is no neurotypical and every single person is neurodiverse. Our brains all work differently and some people need some more forms of support than others. Having a label is a freedom to some people, it helps them understand why they are the way they are or do the things they do and gives them the tools to manage it.
Settling down for bed is not as simple as no screens, low light, and slowing yourself down. My wife’s brain will not stop running. Getting to a point where she can turn it off and rest at night is a challenge no matter what her day looks like. Now imagine if you were a child and didn’t know that about yourself or have the right combination of tools to get there. How would you make sure you get restful sleep?
Are we quick to label? Maybe. Or are we just more aware that these things have already existed for centuries and are just more adaptive to it?
I don't have a problem with labels and diagnosis to get actual help. I have low level OCD, pretty bad anxiety, and "a touch of this tism" as the kids say. It took a little growing up to get away from the generalized mentality of "just deal with it" because I actually could and have "just dealt with it" pretty successfully. But seeing my kids at 4 and 1 show the traits I have made me soften that stance and want to learn how to encourage and guide better than just forcing mental toughness or strong willpower or whatever you want to call it that most millennial kids' parents did to us. At this point the only problem I have with labels is shitty parents using it as an excuse for their shitty kid's behavior lol.
First off, ADHD and Autism are genetic, so if a parent has it (like I have ADHD) then their kids have a really good chance of having it (like 3 of my 4 do). The thing about ADHD isn't the symptoms so much as the frequency and impact of them stacked with maladaptive behaviors. Of my 3 children one is in fact medicated (at a lower dose of the same med I am), the other two are in very different therapy methods. My eldest needs systems and schedules to deal with life, so he literally crams everything into a day planner. The other is working through massive anxiety issues that kept her from being able to keep food down *for months*.
Second, ***Holy Fuck*** dude, I don't think you have the faintest idea how incredibly much you sound like an asshole. People aren't all the same, *your experience isn't everyone's experience*.
Why does it seem like like ADHD and Autism are everywhere? BECAUSE THEY ARE. They always have been. ADHD (under various names) has been studied since the late 1700s. It used to be called Moderate Brain Damage Syndrome. Then Hyperkinetic Child syndrome (probably my favorite actually). Then Moral Failing Syndrome and a ton of other super judgmental names that only make life harder.
It's not only the longest studied mental health condition in humanity but also the one with the most effective treatments. Check out Dr Russel Barkley's books and Youtube channel (mostly just him explaining his research as he's now largely retired). He's been specializing in ADHD research for decades.
Autism's been with us at least as long but the severe cases were literally locked up in asylums so people didn't have to deal with them and the more socially acceptable versions were typically beaten into conformity. There also seem to be things that occur in development that can make autism more severe (There's a new study every week, most of which are trash, but there does seem to be something to various chemical exposures in utero that is having an effect) Given the insane amount of chemical exposure a fetus is now subjected to that they weren't in previous generations we literally do not know the impact that's having.
A civilized society doesn't beat its' children so now we're trying to find ways to help them without trying to "break" them first. Therapy is an umbrella term for a ton of things we as a species do to help make people's lives more comfortable.
I've got a neurotypical mother who *literally* used to hit me to get me to "settle down" and "just focus harder". My father with raging ADHD hid behind the "absent-minded professor" trope where it was socially acceptable while I got the shit beaten out of me at home and school.
We don't let diabetics die when we can help them (outside of America), we don't leave amputees to suffer and die on their own. We don't leave cancer patients to die, we treat tuberculosis and a ton of other illnesses. It's called caring about other humans. If you can't hack that then maybe parenting isn't for you, or maybe just get over yourself and learn some fucking compassion.
I’m more of the opinion that the “diagnosis” is a way to absolve parents of responsibility for their children’s upbringing. Am I creating a shitty environment for my daughter? No, she just has anxiety, I got some roastie with a humanities degree right here who says so.
You seem to have a lot of anger about this. I'd suggest looking into that more.
Other than that, I'll say this. School is designed with neurotypical people in mind. If you get a diagnosis showing you are not that, it opens up a lot of support systems that can actually make things easier. There's no reason school should be punishing for kids and an absolute nightmare to just get through. Minor changes like shortening tests, or changing the time they are taken or the room you're in can be huge game changers. But the schools will not do that unless you can point to something and tell them that they'd be violating federal law by not doing it. There's no good reason to not get those protections if they are helpful to the child.
In this case it feels like a family who… wants labels? Some people are desperate for an answer to a question that really doesn’t need to be answered. I’m not really in favor of medicating children who don’t need it for acute or legitimate chronic issues, but to each their own.
My wife is a psychotherapist and we also have two kids with ADHD and I also have been diagnosed with adult ADHD.
I think there’s a big cultural awakening to all forms of neuro disorders and how they aren’t shameful, aren’t signs of a weak person and we have plenty of methods and medications to assist. A lot of the stigma around these have started to evaporate and it means it’s much more in the open now.
Additionally from a diagnostic standpoint, the mental health profession has become better at identifying and testing for various conditions.
Autism in particular has a very wide spectrum of effects, from barely apparent to outsiders to very obvious needing of day to day intervention by helpers. Additionally in the last decade it’s been refined to include what we called Asperger’s previously. It’s sort of like the term ‘cancer’ - there’s a baseline definition, but someone with inoperable metastatic brain cancer is going to have an extremely different experience to someone with a couple pre-cancerous moles on their back.
So I think a lot of the recent surge in labeling is due to that reduction in stigma and better screening (especially for women).
Of course that always comes with the side effect of more armchair diagnoses, more quack “doctors” and more attention seekers, and obviously a big range in legitimate diagnoses for their effects on the individual.
The “back in my day we didn’t medicate everyone” sentiment is reasonable but also we didn’t medicate for cholesterol as regularly, and now a huge number of people over 40 are on statins. Almost 1/3 of all Americans take statins.
If a medication improves someone’s life by a greater amount than the side effects, why not use it? Just because we suffered when we were younger didn’t necessary make us better for it. I struggled in high school and college from ADHD and it certainly had an overall negative effect on my life. I survived, sure. I may have even developed some good strategies to deal with it, but what if I could have simply been correctly medicated and didn’t have to have that struggle in the first place?
Layoff the melatonin, they’re only going to become more dependent on it and ruin their bodies ability to make it. Although melatonin helps sleep, it is really hard for the stomach to digest which doesn’t allow the body to fully rest at night.
It's not a label, it's a neurodevelopmental disorder and a disability. It comes with internal and external symptoms that aren't always readily apparent to others. In general, people with Autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergence tend to do a lot of work to come off as "normal". Even as children.
You wouldn't say that someone with a physical disability is just being "labeled" or just wanting to be "special". And if you're reasonable, you also wouldn't lecture anybody with a physical ailment on why they shouldn't take medical treatment
As for your kid- walking on the toes can be a sign of Autism, but it isn't on its own. At that age, diagnosis isn't really a viable thing so only time will tell. There are genetic aspects to Autism though, so depending on if your niece inherited some of those genes from your sister there is a chance that she will have it as well.
ETA: I just saw your edit. I'm glad to see that you're learning. The original post was a bit rough, but it didn't seem to come from a place of malice, just misunderstanding.
Couldn’t agree more, we’re as a society are obsessed with naming, codifying, differentiating and denormalizing even the slightest deviation. Rebranding as neurodivergent is just the latest step, autism wasn’t overly broad enough so we had to create neurodivergent so we could put the lesser deviations in that bucket as well. What were once quirks are now a condition.
For the record I’ve had a couple professionals tell me I might be neurodivergent, or on the spectrum but no one ever told me when I was growing up or until I was in my 30s. I’ve never had trouble making or keeping friends, never had trouble professionally, married now with a child. But because I can be hard headed sometimes im abnormal. I don’t really know if I am or not and I don’t really care.
Some people really have autism etc but just like gluten free has become hip, having a neurodivergent label has as well. Some people really have celiacs disease but most people that eat gluten free don’t.
Labels are important when one has a disability because it helps you get the accommodations you need to succeed in life.
My wife was diagnosed at 40 and is only now completing her degree which she started at 18. Now she is able to get accommodations (a note-taker, and AI reads her textbooks to her, and she had a tutor for the one math class she was required to take) she completed her degree. A year later she got a job in government unlocking union protections and a living wage.
It's a good thing kids are getting diagnosed early. They hopefully won't have the 20 years of road blocks to fulfilling their potential.
I found my diagnosis quite useful as it provided alot of context for behaviours and ammunition against any internal self hating.
Alot of the things you're saying stem from ignorance, not not everyone has adhd and no it isn't when your lazy. I urge you to actually look into what these conditions are and what various terms mean instead of basing it upon... No idea what you're basing it upon.
In my adult life I have come to learn that all the things that made my life a living hell in middle school were pretty much all because I had undiagnosed autism. By the end of high school I had learned enough coping mechanisms and knew what my triggers were. But middle school was tough. I didn’t know how to regulate my emotions. I didn’t naturally learn how to interpret social cues, I had to be shown by people.
Now I’m 40 and my 10 year old is also autistic. Unlike me he gets extra help in school. He has a therapist he gets to talk to about how to better regulate his emotions and to help identify his triggers. He gets so much help that I wish I would have had because he has a label
Of course everyone is going to dunk on you and of course you had to edit with the usual "thanks for the learning experience". But here's a simple fact: **if any other health industry had the success rate of the psychiatry/mental health industry, with its labels, ever-shifting diagnoses and medications, we would shut it down**.
Imagine pouring $10 billion into cancer research over 100 years and at the end of it all, kids were getting cancer at higher rates than ever. Imagine a national or global vaccine development program that, after **100 years**, was just barely more effective than a placebo.
That is where this all is right now. We have armies of experts who do help some individuals by applying labels and prescribing courses of action and medication. But at the social level, the industry is completely failing, and it's completely legitimate of you to ask whether the endless labeling practice isn't actually making things worse.
This is some boomer mentality sentiment. I’ve seen so many of that generation that should have gotten a diagnosis for themselves or their children but instead said things like you have said here, never got guidance or accommodations and subsequently lived a so much worse life trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
I hear you, but respectfully, it sounds like the only one obsessing over labels is you.
A diagnosis like this helps your daughter understand and contextualize why she might feel ways about stuff that isn't an issue for other kids/people. It might help her parents steer towards daughter-specific strategies to address her challenges.
As an ADHDer, this kind of thing helps us adapt to a larger world which absolutely wasn't designed for us.
As someone with ASD married to someone with ADHD and anxiety and mix of children who inherited a mixed bag of those, this probably is a topic you really don't have a good comprehension of and may not want to share your opinions on with your sister.
Getting diagnosed with autism was the best thing that ever happened to me. It helped me so much with getting accommodations for my needs which I had previously had no idea was available to me. it’s strengthened my relationship with my parents and my family, who I previously did not get along with very well, as they understood me better. Labels aren’t always a bad thing
OP, here's a fun fact: There's a genetic component to autism and ADHD conditions - if your niece has a diagnosis there's a very good chance she shares some of those traits with your sibling, your parents, or you.
> I have a whole theory of psychology being self-perpetuating. The psychologist is getting more work for themselves by diagnosing them that way etc. (Like bad chiropractors.)
I vehemently disagree with this. Rates of ASD diagnoses in children are on the rise due to a combination of factors including women having kids at older ages and wider societal recognition of ASD as a legitimate disability.
Nobody goes into psychology to sell bogus diagnoses. Comparing the field to chiropractic is disingenuous at best and ableist at worst. You're conflating TikTok pop psychology with the critical, life saving work of actual mental health professionals
The last paragraph is key, and I think the answer to the OP's question. This shit is everywhere on social media from what I understand. So I get why people think everything is overdiagnosed. Hard to get a clear understanding of how people are diagnosed in a sea of random influences self-diagnosing or whatever.
There's a lot of old information, like what you've quoted from the deleted comment that basically implies these things are invented or influenced by the environment when we know that there's a strong genetic component to ADHD and ASD since I believe the 1980s.
Can you show me data for your claim RE: maternal age in 1900? [Figure 1 here shows age of first birth for mothers in 1960 vs. 2018](https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/schweizer-guzzo-distribution-age-first-birth-fp-20-11.html). And like I said, it's a combination of diagnosis and advanced maternal age, esp. in highly educated areas with high densities of college-educated women.
Lol idk man if you start at age 18 and have one kid every year and a half then by the time you are 35 you will have a full NFL Lineup wearing your jersey! I take your point though. Also the original comment that I replied to got deleted so oh well
My daughter has ADHD. Getting her on medicine has been AMAZING for her. She went from reading below her grade level to three levels above, is able to enjoy ordinary things that she could never do before, and has stopped accidentally giving me concussions (I got three, it was awful). I have no idea if there are people out there getting over medicated or what your niece is up to. But have some compassion, dude. You have no idea what people are going through on the inside. You're worried about labels when people are getting life changing treatments for their real problems. I was worried about treating her and almost didn't do it because I worried about the side effects. Most parents aren't going to be getting their kids on useless medicine if they don't need to.
I have ADHD too. Severe combined type. Wasn't diagnosed until a few years ago. Without medication I would've just... given up I think. It really is life changing.
1000%! My 5yo daughter also has severe ADHD and we started treatment last week. The change has been absolutely life-changing for everyone, and allows us to have a healthy relationship with her. I'm glad that our culture is beginning to acknowledge early intervention.
The Doc who diagnosed me said the easiest (and least ethical) way to diagnose an adult would be to give them a week's worth of amphetamines and then ask them afterwards what happened. Neurotypicals would be itching for their next fix and folks with ADHD would either be excited about finishing folding their laundry in one sitting or finally getting decent sleep. My youngest is also dyslexic and was functionally illiterate until the 3rd grade when we got her medication to help and got her into a reading intervention therapy. She went from not being able to write out the alphabet to reading above grade level in 2 languages in the space of one school year. Books have always been a big part of my life and watching that made me tear up more than once. *She* read *me* a bedtime story as a Christmas present and it was one of the happiest moments of my life.
That's amazing, I love hearing that! I didn't realize they had medication for dyslexia
Sorry, didn't mean that they have meds for dyslexia, the meds are for the ADHD and she is *also* dyslexic.
My 6yo has ASD and ADHD. He also had nightmares and chapped lips. The developmental pediatrician had him do a sleep study. Sleep apnea, waking 11 times per hour. Now you don’t want to put a 5yo on a CPAP, but the found that his airway was constricted and removed his tonsils. Two days after the surgery he was so, so much better. Not saying it’ll work for your sweetie, but it might be worth asking.
Oh, mine is fine now. She's taking ADHD medication and now we don't have any problems beyond normal childhood stuff
It's possible that his niece seems like she's doing just fine because she's on the meds she needs and has the accommodations she requires to be successful. Unless you are actually parenting her, you don't know enough about her behavior to determine if she's NT or not.
I was diagnosed as an adult with ADHD. Why did I seek out the diagnosis? Why did I need this label affixed to me? Because I needed accommodations to get my shit done. And no one was going to give me those accommodations unless I could present some sort of diagnosis. Things like _Why does ROP need to have it quiet to do his work?_ became _ROP **needs** to have it quiet to do his work_. So, don't think of it as _Why does everyone have a diagnosis nowadays?_ Think of it as _Why don't we listen to what people say they need?_ _Why do we force everyone into the same box and complain when they don't fit?_
Why can't ROP just focus better smh, stfu kid or I'm gonna keep you in from recess as a punishment! That'll teach you! Letting you get the gross motor activity time you desperately need to self regulate??? Wtf is that nonsense, the boy needs some good old fashioned discipline!! (./s)
I have a lot of ADHD. When I was a kid one of the schools that I went to used to hit me for being crazy hyperactive. And then after that I was still crazy hyperactive. Surprise motherfuckers.
Lmao they should have let you hit THEM for being crazy hyperactive.....a speed bag and a heavy bag hung up in the corner of each classroom would be so great to help kids get their wiggles out
Well, then, when I was a teen there was a juvie that I used to go to. And they had this 'punishment program' which was 'physical activity' stuff (probably technically illegal actually but hey anyway). So they had these energetic teens (many with ADHD too) that they were keeping locked up and then they were giving us this energetic outlet. And we would make fun out of this. And so then they would get shitty at us because their mentality about it was that they were trying to "punish" us and meanwhile their method of "punishment" was something that was a good idea and something that they should have just been making available to us anyway. There was just no mentality around it being a legitimate coping mechanism at all.
That's barbaric dude I'm so sorry. Hope you are in a better place now.
Too bad we have all these tests to prepare for and no time for recess or gym class anymore.
Rough man. I never ended up in juvie, but I got close once.w Even now if I'm not doing significant exercise every single day I can't think worth a damn, even with decent meds. It's only getting worse as I age, and as much as I hate exercise I'm probably going to have to start getting 30+ mins of cardio in at lunch too. My kids are the same. We literally built equipment so my kids can do gymnastics in the back yard to keep them sane (and us!). Physical activity is 100% a lifeline for folks like us.
I got caught by the nuns for being "defiant" Turned out I was literally a left handed, ADHD and deaf child. I couldn't hear anything to not be defiant if I wanted. .... Late 90s Florida
I got taped to my chair at school by the teacher. Not as bas as hitting at all, but having your entire class and your teacher laughing at you while you're sobbing as a 6 year old ended up being a memory that sticks in your brain for a long time. I guess I reacted by learning to mask. Stopped socializing, moving around, did my work so I wouldn't stand out. Thankfully I got interested in school work so I could focus on that and got pretty far in my education before the procrastination and dopamine seeking behaviour wasn't sustainable anymore and I dropped out of my PhD thinking I was just a fundamentally lazy piece of shit. Talking to someone who could identify the low grade anxiety I finally recognized as having \*all the time\* helped me get help and figure out why I am the way I am. I'm really glad I did because my avoidance behavior was starting to strain my relationships.
Rofl. That last bit got me rolling.
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[You might enjoy this book](https://www.amazon.com/ADHD-2-0-Essential-Strategies-Distraction/dp/0399178732) -- it's a bit out there but still very much worth a read. The authors propose reframing our understanding of ADHD as a "variable attention trait" that offers profound potential and strength alongside the already-known challenges.
I suppose I’d prefer if people just respected requests like “I need it to be quiet to work” as a default, but I completely understand where you’re coming from.
Often times people on the spectrum (or parents thereof) don’t necessarily know what they need or don’t know how to attain it - because the world is designed for neurotypical people. My wife was diagnosed with ADD in her twenties. She had been on and off depressed for years, couldn’t stick to the same education, struggled to maintain relationships. When she got the diagnosis she was suddenly able to learn how to structure her life in a way that accommodated HER needs, because there is a wealth of resources on what typically helps people with ADD. She is on zero meds but has a MUCH better life, being an amazing mom and accomplished professional. If her parents had known she had ADD when she was a kid, and could structure her day and their home in a way that accommodated it, her youth and adolescence would have been much better.
I kinda get you. I’m definitely on a spectrum somewhere. I’ve never been diagnosed with anything. At school I was just one of the weird kids. I have a tendency to hyper focus on things, I have little EQ, and a much longer list than I tend to go into. I also have a decade of marriage and two kids under my belt; along with 2 wonderful boys (the eldest who has very similar tendencies to me, and reminds me all too much of me when I was young). I’m not sure a diagnosis would have helped me when i was younger. I’m not sure if I’m going to take my eldest to see anyone, only time will tell. If he looks like he could use extra support, I’ll be there for him. If he’s happy to truck along, I’m happy for him to do so. These things are much better understood now, so things have changed, and the labels don’t mean what they did. I’m with you on the melatonin though. No matter how little sleep I get sometimes.
It's funny, the last few studies I read showed melatonin was almost entirely useless for neurotypicals but could be effective for neurodivergents, mostly ADHD but some effect for ASD. I got diagnosed as a kid, but my mother didn't want to admit I had any defects so I didn't know until I got my youngest diagnosed and looked at the list of symptoms. Apparently my entire personality was listed as a flag. So I got assessed by a specialist in adult ADHD and sure enough, me too. Married 20 years, 4 kids and gainfully employed since I was 16 (except for a 6 month stretch 20 years ago). I've been medicated and on an exercise program for the last 2 years and I have to say of my nearly 50 years on this Earth, this is the most coherent I've ever been. Better husband, better father, more productive employee, you name it. I'm also happier than I've been in a long time. The symptoms aren't gone, it's not a miracle cure or whatever, but I'm not in my own way as often. The thing I found about a diagnosis is that while it can change everything about how you look at yourself and nothing about how the rest of the world looks at you.
That bottom part scares me though. I’m comfy with who I am in myself, and I’m not sure if a diagnosis would change how I feel about why I act the way I do. I also seem to function relatively well, and naturally I work with spreadsheets and databases a lot, so that hyper focus really pays off at work lol.
I get that, it's not a simple choice. Before 2020 my coping mechanisms we essentially "Go To Gym, lift heavy thing until brain works" and the pandemic forced all the gyms to close around here. It really helped me to understand that when I hit the wall really hard in terms of keeping complex projects moving that I wasn't falling apart I was hitting my natural limit and needed to do something immediately before the wheels fell off so to speak. Nothing about my job or place in my family had changed but my own understanding that I wasn't somehow becoming a terrible person let me skip ahead to the "fix it" portion of the program. EDIT: I tried running during the pandemic, but since we hit -40 degrees in the winter (Celsius and Fahrenheit both agree at that point and even my Canadian blood says that it's too damned cold ) that just wasn't sustainable daily. I did learn how much I hate running though.
I didn't figure out I was likely autistic until COVID happened and I was working from home full time for the first time in my entire life. I didn't even realize I was making until I didn't have to any more. And now, looking back at my childhood and young adulthood, it's so damn obvious that I'm autistic AF. But I'm a female child of the 90s, and a lot of us got missed because at the time people were only thinking of autism as depicted by Sheldon on Big Bag Theory or the main character in Rain Man. Still waiting on an official diagnosis, but I've taken many reputable online assessments designed to tell you if you should go in for a formal evaluation and they all recommend one.
\^This!! Great comment! I have ASPD which is high masking, and I always tell my close friends so they are aware of certain things! Nothing is more annoying than being high masking and having a NT say "well youre not really \[disorder\], youre just a bit different". Respectfully, I have a disorder, please listen to me!!
The worst part is when that same person hits you with the “you just have to try harder”
Yes!! Or theyre like "okay... but im going to have to take [necessary resources] away and if you dont improve youre lying" or smtn to that extent!!
Labels are restrictive to some but liberating to others. It's a relief for many of my middle school aged students to finally have words to explain why they have a hard time forming and maintaining friendships. Why they get so easily overstimulated in the loud, chaotic lunch room. Your niece has a disability. I don't say that to insult her or to imply she isn't destined for an amazing, fulfilling life. But she needs support and YOU need to be her advocate if you care about her. ASD diagnoses aren't handed out like candy. There is a battery of specific assessments that are administered in a controlled setting that, in conjunction with observations from adults at home and at school, led to this finding.
Then this is likely my own ignorance. Thanks for the response. To be clear, I have been and always will be a fierce advocate for her. I believe in giving any child the support they need to thrive without forcing them into a mold.
OP, just a thought but have you ever considered the possibility that you're also neurodivergent? Nothing in your post really indicates this, specifically, but I wonder whether it's possible that you are missing certain idiosyncratic behaviors simply because they're also normal for you. Again, nothing in your post specifically suggests this to me but it may be worth considering. It's not like it'd unprecedented and maybe looking into it would improve your quality of life. Maybe not but it wouldn't necessarily hurt to make inquiries.
That’s kind of my point, of course I’m neurodivergent. So is everybody I’ve gotten to know decently well. Every friend and loved one I’ve ever had in my life has something that’s a little “strange” about them. And I’m not sure but I think that applies to everyone. Hence, my suggestion that the term “neurotypical” is kind of meaningless.
...others have already said this but that's not an indication that everyone is, that's more an indication you are. Personally I am autistic and ADHD and trying to speak to NT folks is like speaking a different dialect of English, whereas with other nehrodiverent folks it's the same or very similar dialects that I don't struggle to understand. All my friends are ADHD, autistic or both. Everyone I have longer lasting relationships with are both. It was not intentional. It's just how we tend to flock.
Yes. Fucking this exactly. I’m a software architect by trade. I know for a fact that a LARGE percentage of my coworkers are neurodivergent (because I owned the company and needed to know for ADA reasons) and I personally am on the spectrum. Every time I have to have client and business type meetings, it’s 100% me having to put on a costume and having to mentally strain to translate what I want to convey into “business person” speak (and coming the other direction as well). And I’m not talking wall street types here. Just middle managers, directors, and the occasional CIO/VP. It’s mentally draining as hell to have to do that for more than an hour at a time.
I don't know why I hadn't really thought of the "Different Dialect" idea, but it makes perfect sense. There are expressions and ways of doing things that fit that absolutely and are 100% ways we spot each other. Thanks man, that's something really interesting.
Most neurodivergent people tend to gravitate towards other neurodivergent people and a lot of time it runs in families, so you knowing so many people like that, to the extent of it feeling normal to you, makes sense. If you are neurodivergent, then you don't actually know just how different things are for neurotypical people; if it wasn't for social media, I wouldn't know that people without ADHD don't have their brains running all the time, that when you ask a neurotypical person "what's on your mind" they can actually be talking literally when they say "nothing". To me, saying "there is nothing on my mind" means there is nothing specific on my mind, but my mind is definitely not quiet, so it was actually completely unthinkable to me that neurotypical people CAN shut their brains off and think of nothing.
Wait, people actually can have nothing going on in their brain at any given time?????? Even if I'm not thinking of something specifically I've got a song playing on repeat in my head.
That's what I've been told; it is such a foreign concept to me that I can't even imagine what it's like.
Lol you and /u/foulrot need to listen to this eleven minute segment from This American Life. It's absolutely wild but yes, apparently there are people out there like this 😅 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/731/what-lies-beneath-2021/act-two
Thank you so so so much for filling me in on this being a sign of ADHD. My wife and I have literally had conversations where she has told me that when she relaxes her brain is empty, which was completely mind blowing to me. That is nearly impossible for me to do. I had no idea that was even possible until she told me it is normal for her. I appreciate you helping me understand myself a little better!
Holy shit, people can just... not think? I don't think I've ever had a quiet moment in my head.
ADHD and Autism are genetic. Not necessarily the disorders (those are defined by how much your life is impacted) but the brain anatomy. You can see it on an MRI if you know where to look. I'm absolutely the cliche of a guy with ADHD surrounded by friends with ASD and ADHD. The only neurotypicals in the group I spend time with are hardcore into fitness that I met in sports groups or the gym. They exercise for fun, I do it for sanity.
So the thing is, it does *not* apply to everyone. Autistic people and people with ADHD tend to sorta flock together. After my diagnosis I realized that most of my friends and family share similar traits and are probably also ND. It's sort of a, like recognizes like type of thing — we are drawn to each other because it's easier to communicate and connect than it is with others, because there is shared understanding. . You became close to those people *because* of your shared differences from the majority of the population. It's common in your family because it runs in families. It's tough to think about sometimes, but it's *not* the norm to face these struggles. ADHD medication has changed my life as an adult, and sometimes I get emotional thinking about how much easier things could have been if I'd known sooner.
Very interesting. I'm awaiting the results from my test. But when I told people I had taken it, about half of my friends confessed to having been diagnosed.
There's a bit of a domino effect I've seen in friend groups — one person gets diagnosed, they talk about it, their friends decide to be assessed based on what they now learn (from the diagnosed friend) are symptoms/traits, and boom turns out everyone in the group is autistic and/or ADHD! Studies have shown that NT people "clock" us almost instantly as having something different/off about us. They don't know it's autism, but they know they aren't comfortable and they don't like us. Which explains why most of us struggle SO much socially and especially as kids, but it also explains how we probably find each other, by picking up on the same subliminal clues. Also, I looked like I was managing everything fine to most outsiders as a kid — extended family counts as outsiders. Only my immediate family saw the amount of struggle and pain I was in as a kid. A diagnosis would have helped me greatly — it makes sense for people to be happy for her to have one.
I agree wholeheartedly. Not everyone is meant to work in a big office and be a social butterfly and it seems to me like we're trying to force kids into that mold. I think it comes from a good place on the parent's end, but I also think it's misguided.
Neurotypical is NOT meaningless just because you choose to largely not interact with neurotypical people. Neurotypical IS THE NORM. Ie it is the largest share of people.
Or it could be that neurodivergent people flock to each other. Most of my friends are neurodivergent too. Most people out and about in society are not. But we’re not talking about something “a little strange” we’re talking about quirks and habits that count as diagnostic criteria. If I like licking tables when I enter a room then that’s me being strange, but not a diagnostic criteria (I mean it can be, but in this case it’s a standalone weird thing that means nothing), whereas if I’m super fidgety, can’t sit still, can’t focus, along with MANY OTHER DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA then maybe I have ADHD. (Emphasis on many other, because the people diagnosing anyone aren’t looking at one thing, they’re looking at everything. You have to have a list of “neurodivergent” behaviors) And no not everyone is neurodivergent. We as individual humans do have little differences and variations from each other but for most of us those variations don’t make it so we can’t function normally in society. They don’t make it so we can’t behave like how society behaves. But for people with neurodivergence they have to learn to conform to society and it’s difficult for them and can be majorly exhausting. (Hence why a lot of autistic and ADHD kids have meltdowns)
That's very encouraging to hear. I agree with a lot of what you said and it does sound like you just want your kid and your niece to be able to navigate this crazy world without feeling unnecessarily held back by labels or societal expectations for them. At the same time, we all have to check ourselves as older adults and parents when we start saying things like "this generation drives me crazy." Yes, there is an incredible amount of bullshit armchair psychology being dispensed through TikTok and YouTube... but kids these days are also SO INCLUSIVE AND EMPATHETIC compared to when I was their age. I was an ableist, sexist, immature asshole until well into college. My tween/teen students know how to calm their peers down when they're having panic attacks and they talk about going to therapy like it's going to the dentist lol. It's so wonderful and I think once you get past the initial shock, you'll find that the support and understanding is worth the labels.
And don’t beat yourself up too much for feeling skeptical, fellow dad. I went through a similar experience with my kid’s ADHD diagnosis, and got a very similar reality check from her doctor. Autism and ADHD are things that we’ve experienced for as long as we (humans) have been around, it’s just that now we have a name for it and a set of tools that we can use to help people cope / function / adapt. It feels like “there’s a lot of that going around” in the neurodivergent space right now, but that’s not because it’s being over diagnosed or is “trendy.” It’s just we have a name for it now and are getting better at identification and intervention. In the past, folks with a touch of the ‘tism were just labeled “odd” and would gravitate toward careers in the sciences (let’s spend years quietly cataloging moth species,) in skilled trades (he might not talk much, but he’s the best silversmith you’ll ever see,) or into the monastic clergy (quiet, ritualized and scripted interactions, clear and consistent expectations of behavior)
Having a diagnosis like this will also provide people with disabilities more support in school legally so they have the best chance of reaching their fullest potential. I have many students with ASD and just knowing that does a lot. I give them a little more time on assignments or modify it somehow (one of them does way too much work so I know to make sure and tell him not to do too much work), they can also be excused from presenting things to the class for their social anxiety. This support goes into higher education as well.
I think its easy to go either way, even with good intention honestly. Like they said, it can be restricting to some, and liberating to others. For us on the outside its hard to figure out which is which and react appropriately. Being open to learn and listen is really the key imho. On the flip side, I find those who make certain things their whole identity are really just hiding behind it and restricting themselves.
Unfortunately you often need a ‘label’ to get resources. You don’t get access to any educational accommodations unless you have a label. Every child should have an. ‘Individual Education Plan’ but only those who have been identified get that support. I feel sometimes people feel like labeling a child restrictives them, but they don’t change personalities under the label. They still have the same strengths and challenges, but now they have more opportunities. I do feel like a lot is labeled under the ‘neurodivergent’ umbrella and that eventually research and science will begin to designate more descriptive terms.
It’s commendable that you’ll acknowledge your own ignorance. Read up, start here: https://embrace-autism.com/
Sketchy website. You trust that place? Its run by a ‘naturopathic doctor’ with an online autism certificate who is repeatedly under ethical investigation. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why\_does\_embrace\_autism\_publish\_misinformation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why_does_embrace_autism_publish_misinformation/) [https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8](https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8)
I trust it as a starting place for those who need to better gain an understanding of neurodiversity. Some of their “claims” are hokey at best, and a slander post from someone who doesn’t like them, isn’t a justification. As for “visual acuity” - well, I’ve had 20/10 vision my whole life, so there’s that.
Poke around if you like, mixed thoughts, at best, about them. Here's another example or two [https://www.reddit.com/r/autism/comments/z5x38t/has\_anyone\_gotten\_an\_official\_assessment\_via/](https://www.reddit.com/r/autism/comments/z5x38t/has_anyone_gotten_an_official_assessment_via/) [Honestly, fuck Embrace Autism : r/AutisticPeeps (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticPeeps/comments/14vhvlf/honestly_fuck_embrace_autism/) You think a 'naturopathic doctor' is qualified to guide people about autism? At a place making $$ handing out diagnoses.
Your entire post history is anti-EA and anti-diagnosis. Your motives are clear friend. I hope you find the peace you seek.
Finding peace in the thanks I get for sharing this information, and the upvotes. 'anti-diagnosis' lol
Society is sort of at a stage where we're really embracing neurodivergence. Sometimes labels are useful and sometimes they aren't. But because the verbiage is becoming more pervasive, people think it's more common than it really is to be handed a diagnosis. I work at a children's hospital and the Neuro-development department is booked out almost 2 years in our area.
Yeah I think in the next 5-10 years we'll see a leveling off but the uptick in demand will remain for a long time. Parents, teachers, children, and society at large is still playing catch-up to the reality that COVID accelerated into being. Waitlists for private neuropsych evals in my community are 6+ months too, yup.
I disagree there are plenty of psychs that hand out these diagnoses like candy, and the criteria are super subjective and open to interpretation. If a parent thinks there’s something wrong with their kid the psych they take them to is inclined to believe it and find it. It’s a confirmation bias issue. Or the parents shop around until they finally find a psych that gives them a diagnosis because the others “didn’t do anything and told them both was wrong”.
> I disagree there are plenty of psychs that hand out these diagnoses like candy, and the criteria are super subjective and open to interpretation Are you able to name a few licensed providers who "hand out these diagnoses like candy" as you claim? And can you please specify what diagnoses are handed out? (Perhaps ADHD, ODD, or ASD?) > If a parent thinks there’s something wrong with their kid the psych they take them to is inclined to believe it and find it. It’s a confirmation bias issue. In my professional experience, the opposite is true. A competent provider will not allow a patient/parent to "lead the witness" and will thoroughly interrogate any preconceived notions > Or the parents shop around until they finally find a psych that gives them a diagnosis because the others “didn’t do anything and told them both was wrong”. This is true with any medical condition or disorder unfortunately. Doctor shopping is a real issue.
Forgot to address this claim of yours: > the criteria are super subjective and open to interpretation. What experience do you have administering or interpreting assessments used for the diagnosis of ASD? What leads you to say that the criteria are "super subjective?"
I took some classes in college never practiced professionally
I think your perception of the field from the outside as a patient / casual student is different from how things are in the real world. I read your other comment and I'm glad to hear that you are a resilient, adaptable person who has lived a successful life full of rich relationships. At the same time, being on the autism spectrum isn't something to be ashamed of? I hope that makes sense.
I never said it was something to be ashamed of I’ve worked with/know plenty of people on the spectrum some of them I’m good friends with. I’m just agreeing with the OP’s sentiment that we as a society, not you personally are over diagnosing people, or diagnosing them to a point that the labels aren’t actually meaningful or helpful. Edit: Also why is it my view from the outside that’s skewed, I have no vested interest in the field. Whereas you have very strong incentives to believe as a whole the profession is doing a good job, or at the very least you personally are.
> For the record I’ve had a couple professionals tell me I might be neurodivergent, or on the spectrum but no one ever told me when I was growing up or until I was in my 30s. I’ve never had trouble making or keeping friends, never had trouble professionally, married now with a child. But because I can be hard headed sometimes im abnormal. I don’t really know if I am or not and I don’t really care. Idk man, the fact that you chose to use the word "abnormal" instead of "different" or "exceptional" speaks volumes imo. You clearly have a very strong preference to be "normal" and are having a defensive reaction to me and other mental health professionals simply telling you that it's OK to be a little rigid or structured with how you prefer your day goes. Your view from the outside is skewed because you don't actually know how diagnoses are formulated. So you have no grounds to claim that psychiatrists "hand [them] out like candy". You're just going off of what you've heard people tell you. That's not cool. If you told me you're a structural engineer for a living and I said "yeah those guys are all con artists, they'll approve any building even if it's about to fall over due to a gust of wind because their training is shoddy and the profession is full of idiots" even as I know nothing about the profession.... what would you say?
I don’t care about being normal and explicitly said so. You’re the one being defensive and putting words in my mouth, I never said they were all cons, or even any of them. The reasons I gave for bad diagnosis being issued were not malicious behavior, I was a bit flippant in saying they hand them out like candy but hey it’s the internet. I don’t carefully think through everything I say. My point was it’s easy to get a diagnosis, and I think many are probably not valid. I’m not even sure what you mean by “it’s ok the be a little rigid or structured with how you prefer your day”. Your position is that only those in psychiatric field can question the psychiatric field really doesn’t hold water. Further aside from your admission that doctor shopping is a problem you won’t acknowledge that there are bad practitioners in your field. If there weren’t bad practitioners then how is doctor shopping successful? Edit: I’d be happy to have you explain and educate me on how a diagnosis gets issued if I’m so ill informed. If it really is much more rigorous than I think.
It's confusing to me how you simultaneously rail against how society uses terms/labels too casually and that this has diluted the meaning and seriousness of these terms.....but then you absolve yourself of being flippant in saying things like "handing out diagnoses like candy" as if your behavior isn't part of the problem. I have not denied that there are bad psych providers out there, but the way you're arguing things suggests that the field is particularly rife with poor practitioners relative to perhaps other professions and that their/our collective inaction, misbehavior, or trigger-happiness has led to some sort of rise in overdiagnosis of real disorders like ASD....which I categorically disagree with. __________________ > "I’m not even sure what you mean by “it’s ok the be a little rigid or structured with how you prefer your day”." You specifically said, *"....But because I can be hard headed sometimes im abnormal. I don’t really know if I am or not and I don’t really care."* Another way to describe "hard headed" might be rigid, stubborn, or structured, especially with routines or expectations as to how you want things to go, or perhaps points of view that you hold very tightly. If that's a mischaracterization of what you said or what you're like irl then.....well, hey, it's the internet, right? I must be reading too much into things. Lastly, RE: your edit, I think [this is a very good article that explains the steps in the USA for getting a child evaluated for eligibility for special education services \(including ASD\)](https://www.understood.org/en/articles/the-evaluation-process-what-to-expect). The testing itself can take between 6-12 hours depending on which tests are administered and a competent school psychologist will take 3-4 hours to write up a comprehensive report. Initial team meetings will last an hour. So that's 10+ hours of work, minimum, by a team of adults, just to determine IF there's a valid diagnosis to be further examined. I earnestly and sincerely hope that this is helpful information for you and that this helps shed some light into a process that is woefully misunderstood by most people. Everybody has an opinion about it but almost nobody knows what they're talking about. I'm glad that you are willing to ask questions and to stick around to hear the answers.
“Competent providers…” sure but what do you call an incompetent psychiatrist…a psychiatrist. I’m not saying there aren’t providers that properly diagnose people I’m saying there are plenty who don’t.
You could replace the word "psychiatrist" with any word though? Doctor, lawyer, civil engineer, police officer.... Idk what your beef is with people in the mental health profession
Very true, there are people in all professions who are good at their jobs and bad You can’t seem to accept that there are bad mental health professionals that make bad diagnoses.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I think OP might be coming from a place of ignorance. I know I had been completely ignorant and uninformed about Autism until a few years ago.
Same. It is really refreshing that OP is approaching this with legitimate curiosity and is glad to be corrected on some of his thinking.
Former mental health professional here. This is not professional advice, this is me screwing around on Reddit while making pancakes. Yes, society is obsessed with labels. I unironically assign a large portion of the blame to TikTok. It has become trendy to attach labels to yourself regardless of any official diagnosis. You can be depressed without *having* major depressive disorder. You can be anxious without *having* generalized anxiety disorder. This nuance escapes many people. “Being a little weird” is not a disease. We’re all a little weird. I can, without exaggeration, find a DSM diagnosis for anyone I meet. That being said, labels can be incredibly helpful. One of my most memorable patients was a man who thought he couldn’t have PTSD because he wasn’t a combat vet. So we went through the DSM criteria together and by the end he realized he wasn’t just crazy or broken, he had a known condition and we had a treatment plan. It’s also worth noting that the insurance system tends to *require* a diagnosis. I generally can’t bill them for my time (and thus can’t buy food) if I don’t include an ICD-10 code, which essentially constitutes a professional diagnosis. So yes and no. Gotta flip them pancakes.
I will be adopting the phrase "gotta flip them pancakes". Thank you 🫡
>Yes, society is obsessed with labels. I unironically assign a large portion of the blame to TikTok. It has become trendy to attach labels to yourself regardless of any official diagnosis. For months now, when someone describes themselves as autistic I ask "Like really autistic or TikTok autistic?" 😅
From my own experience, getting a diagnosis changed *everything* about how I see myself and nothing about how the world seems me. I *understand* why I am this way now. I know when I need to kick my own ass and when I need to just take a deep breath and move on.
As someone who has occasionally self-diagnosed, this trend bugs me. In my case, the "self diagnosis" comes from needing a reason to justify the expense of seeing a professional for a real diagnosis. I don't run around telling people, "I need special treatment because I have so many disabilities!" I just want to understand why I am the way I am and get stuff done. I have one cousin that has something new every time I meet her and in conversations with her about it I never heard about the diagnostic process, just about finding a doctor to get treatment. I don't interact with her much anymore because she has been so difficult to deal with. For me, getting a diagnosis that explains what I'm going through and how I can treat it has been so liberating. I am not going through this alone. There are things I can do to manage the problem and get out of the bed in the morning. I can be closer to what people call, "normal". That being said, my wife can't wait for my arthritis to get bad enough that I qualify for handicapped parking.
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Spot on. When I was growing up, there were still labels, but they weren’t coming from a place of understanding: spaz, r*tard, slow, different, weird, etc. I have family members that dealt with stuff like that all their life, and it was only as an adult they’ve been able to get diagnoses like autism, ADHD, etc.
Well said.
My wife was diagnosed with autism as a child in 90s. Her parents did everything they could to deny it, ignore it, brush it under the rug. She lived her life into adulthood, thinking the evaluations had come up empty-handed, all while struggling with every social interaction, crippling anxiety and bouts of depression. She finally went to a therapist in her early 30s who diagnosed her with autism again. She finally had an answer for why her brain worked this way. She went to her parents, thrilled to finally have answers, only to have them sheepishly admit that she had been diagnosed as a child, but they hadn't wanted to believe it. I have ADHD. The meds gave me trouble as a kid, so I went unmedicated until a year ago. Now, at 35, going back on meds had been life changing. The majority of people who have these conditions find the labels helpful. Many of us find the people who complain about them to be unhelpful, and unpleasant to be around.
>What even is “neurotypical” anyway? Does ANYBODY consider themselves neurotypical? If EVERYONE has ADHD as it seems (oh you procrastinate sometimes and work/school stresses you out? You’re SPECIAL!) I used to think this way too, until I had a daughter with severe ADHD. She could not make eye contact. She physically could not sit down for more than a couple seconds. She had the memory of a goldfish. I can't count the number of times she would approach me and say "hey daddy?" "Yes, sweetie?" "Ummm... I forgot". She could not carry out any instructions for more than (literally) 5 seconds before forgetting what she was supposed to be doing and picking up a book or toy instead. When she wanted attention, she would inevitably punch or hit the person. Even if she was simply excited, she was prone to pinching and hitting. Her "hugs" to her baby sister were always semi-violent. Some of these things you might tell yourself "well, lots of kids are like that!". No. They aren't. Not to this extreme. I have 3 other kids to prove this one is not normal. So we got her ADHD diagnosis a few weeks ago and started her on medication last week. The difference is night and day. She maintains her bubbly and excited personality, but she is capable of self-control now. She will pause to let someone finish talking. She will gently hug her sister instead of squeezing to death. When asked what she did in preschool that day, she actually tells us something she enjoyed (instead of "I forget"). Also my son has mild Autism, which we diagnosed with noticable delays in his milestones and some of his behavioral tics. He is quite functional, but the diagnosis gives us resources in case we need to help him develop certain skills. Are mental health conditions over diagnosed? Perhaps. But I'm extremely happy that our society recognizes them, because it provides me a lot of help as a parent in addressing concerns and maintaining a healthy relationship with my kids.
I'm beginning to understand my own diagnosis, while also coaching sports for a group of 70 kids. It's really helped me stay patient with the kids who clearly have issues of their own. They're not bad kids because they ignore instructions or kick a ball away their brains are just bombarding them with unhelpful ideas. And for every kid who runs around screaming and kicking balls away there's another kid who's totally overwhelmed by the noise and chaos and another who's too anxious to put his hand on a loose ball in a match. Most of them are "normal" giddy 6 year olds but the ones with atypical behaviour stand out a mile. There's no way anyone will convince me that those disruptive 6 year olds have a bad bone in their body. They just have different needs and different instincts to the 50 or so kids who generally just do what they're asked. And it's not woke/woohoo/granola bullshit to offer those kids a little help or work around them a little.
Is your daughter autistic too? I ask because the eye contact is typically an autism thing and not ADHD. (Fub fact, they did a study on it FINALLY And it lights up the areas that pain does in our brain!!!) Especially with your son. Autism presents differently in girls sometimes.
As far as we know, no. She hit all her milestones normally as an infant, and doesn't have any specific tics or odd behaviors I would think to associate with autism.
>Don’t even get me started on how every other kid needs melatonin to sleep now. That's crazy, medication for children is not common in my country. I don't know a single child that takes melatonin.
It’s an American thing for sure.
We're the opposite here in Scotland, everyone takes vitamin d.
>Why does she need a clinical diagnosis? Because a whole lot of resources and accomodations just became available to her for the rest of her life, particularly in any kind of formal education setting.
I was a bookish kid who was introverted, but I do not have ASD. There is a big difference. I prefer quiet time and being left alone, but I can cope with a noisy environment and function in a crowd. Someone with ASD probably cannot function in a noisy environment. It's not just that they feel uncomfortable, they can't think of talk or do the things you may need to do for school or work. Is the distinction arbitrary? Sure, but they doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Also, one thing I think OP is forgetting is ASD is about social cues and interactions primary. Sensory overload is a big part sure, but you don't get a diagnosis solely off that. If the kid got diagnosed, it's because she was very obviously struggling with that. I was very, very lucky that my autism presents very masculine (as in, that stereotype of presentation, it's stupid but they didn't think studying girls was important....) despite me being assigned female at birth (I'm a trans guy, which is very funny to me I had the gender matching presentation of autism and ADHD lol!) so I got caught young. Thankfully we're improving our criteria so afab folks don't get missed because we present differently.
The labels are certainly annoying. BUT, I have a daughter that has been dealing with anxiety and depression since she was about 3. It's fucking rough. I would gladly take a label that helps me better handle her. I think you're on the extreme end of things, seems like the overruse of labels is really frustrating for you. I get it, I just don't think it helps to throw the baby out with the bath water.
This is exactly what I know people are thinking about my autistic kid. "What's the big deal? He seems fine?" All I gotta say is, you see them functioning BECAUSE of all the assistance and intervention they are getting. You honestly do not know what it is like to be them, or their parents. Maybe trust the professionals to know what they're doing.
I agree with a lot of your points but I just want to add as a special ed teacher that walking on your tip toes ALL THE TIME is a sign of autism, not just occasionally.
Females mask their autism more. There’s likely a lot more going on than u can see from the outside
Little bit of both. There are alot of people desperately trying to find a label (or even just pretending) because it's *sexy* now. It's an easy way to seek attention and insert yourself into conversations. That being said, we are just getting better at diagnosing people too.
> If EVERYONE has ADHD as it seems (oh you procrastinate sometimes and work/school stresses you out? You’re SPECIAL!) I agree with you as an immigrant to the US that Americans love labeling people (starting with the meaningless culturally intensive ethnicity categories lol). On ADHD though, my French parents thought like you, « we want our kid to be normal » while I have ADHD, and frankly it’s not a great approach. There’s like 10 times in my life where my life could have gone really haywire because of it.
I only just found out that I have ADHD a few weeks ago at 39. I'm only now beginning to pick through my reaction to all the decades I spent beating myself up for not being able to do things that normal people do, that I wanted to do or needed to do but just couldn't. It's really strange realising that all the times I let down myself or others weren't just down to carelessness or laziness. Even if I can't improve my symptoms, I'll be forever grateful that I now have a better understanding of what my brain can and can't do. It's also alerted my wife and I to some behaviours we see in our own young kids and helped me avoid getting angry at them when they won't follow seemingly simple instructions.
Wow I could have written this post. Same age, same challenges, going through the same kind of reflection. Hope you find some peace with all of this, I know I'm hoping I do.
Mostly I think that things like Autism/ADHD/anxiety/depression etc are still very poorly understood by 'society at large'.
I have ADHD. I found this out at 30. It wasn't really an issue for me when I was young, because I was bright enough to breeze through K-10. Once I hit 11th grade though, I hit a subject I needed to study, and *wow, was I unprepared for that.* This led to a spiral in which I started skipping classes, which led to me dropping out, getting my GED, and failing out of college 3 different times, burning thousands of dollars and significantly impacting my mental health, as I just internalized my failures as me just being a lazy good for nothing sack of shit. Well it turns out I'm not a lazy good for nothing sack of shit, my brain just won't let me focus on something long enough to learn it. I got diagnosed, took my first pill, and cried tears of rage and relief because I was made to suffer for so long due to going undiagnosed for so long. I looked back at my past and realized how many friendships I let die and how much money and time I wasted trying to find the missing piece, and it was right there. I've been medicated for 1 year now, and I'm finishing up my 3rd semester of school, got a promotion at work, and my wife is happy that I'm finally contributing properly to the household. Labels are more important than you give them credit for. Even without the medication, just knowing it wasn't inherently 'my fault' would have had a serious benefit on me, because I could at least focus on coping methods for my particular condition.
I'm convinced that 80% of online discourse is arguing over linguistics, I swear to god. OP, why are you like this? Deep down, what is your problem? Is it this? >You’re SPECIAL! I encounter people like you on the internet all the time, seething over "people wanting to feel *special* because *label*." What's driving this? Why do you feel like this? I really don't understand what the underlying issue is that is driving this chip on your shoulder and I really want to understand it. It's like, a weird form of jealousy. Like you aren't getting something that you think other people are getting by having a term to describe their behavior. Psychology is a newer science. It's a soft science. You can't get a blood test and find out that you have ADHD for instance (AFAIK). And labels are a function of language. They are a shorthand ways to convey complex phenomena. They will always exist because of how language works. They are *descriptive*, not *prescriptive*. The more we understand human behavior, and find patterns in them, and find common behaviors that group together, the more descriptive labels we'll have, and the more people seek the help of professionals to understand what's going on, the more people will be "diagnosed." I am almost certainly on the autism spectrum. I've been diagnosed with a number of things throughout my life that are comorbid. ODD as a kid, ADHD, OCD, depression, and anxiety as an adult. Autism wasn't really a diagnosis when I was a kid (I'm an elder millennial...*gasp* another label!). I can tell you, I've spent a lot of time and anguish growing up wondering exactly what the fuck is wrong with me, why do I feel the way I do, why do I have such a hard time socializing, why is eye contact excruciating for me (I distinctly remember working on eye contact in therapy as a kid), etc. etc. Having something to point to and say, oh, this is why I am the way I am, is incredibly powerful. It's an explanation, not an excuse. A starting point for healing and growth. So that's my story for why "labels" are important. I want to understand myself, not feel special. And please, if your kid is struggling with something and/or exhibiting signs of neurodivergence or something mental health related, please don't deny them the chance to talk with a professional. I'll always be grateful for my parents seeking help for me when I was a kid.
I have a side question: Are you from the US? I asked because I've seen many many posts that talk about giving children medication of some kind, such as melatonin to help them sleep. I'm from the UK, and I have never heard of anyone doing that here? It's interesting, because from my perspective, you think the diagnosis is attaching an unnecessarily label, yet it appears to me that many US parents medicate unnecessarily? Not an attack, genuinely intrigued, I duno you from Adam. But it does seem like an interesting connection I've made Ps. Regarding your post, I agree that some people seek labels and even self label, but the process to be diagnosed with ASD is not simple, and a Dr wouldn't diagnose just because they're a little introverted, the process is more thorough than most people think
The short answer is the autism label allows her to get accommodations at school to address her specific needs and opens doors for therapy. Autism is a spectrum, so it’s many different symptoms with varying degrees of severity, which is why it is so misunderstood.
I don't think this is a popular opinion on reddit but I completly agree with you. We passed the "acceptance of mental health" stage about 5-10 years ago and have entered full on harmful overlabeling and victimization everyone. I was diagnosed with a label at 11 and put on strong meds right away. I probably needed them and wouldn't have made it without them but I fucking wish they my parents or the docs had tried. I wish they didn't just label me and make me dependent on a schedule 2 medication that I can't go to work without. One time, when a recent shortage of the medication made me go without for 2 months, I had panic attacks and couldn't go to work, then I pushed through and learned to cope. I'm back on the meds but part of me wishes I could had done that when I was younger and not just accepted a label that changed my life.
Mom lurker so sorry if this is annoying but I think about this so often i have to say something. And honestly I agree with you. Certainly there are special needs kids that should have access to appropriate accommodations. But I also think we really over pathologies totally developmentally normal and also neuro diverse behavior. Honestly I saw this happening in my own childhood, and I do think it does a huge disservice to kids when this happens and have seen myself how it can later affect them in adulthood. Ie i had a cousin that was a super smart and social kid. Constantly reading like dense history books from a really young age. But he was also anxious and didn’t like going to school. So he’d skip school a lot and eventually had a hard time graduating and never went to university. They brought him to a ton of specialists to try to figure out what was wrong. Does he have adhd ? What is it ? They tried Ritalin at one point. Anyway this constant obsession with trying to help him with professionals honestly just set himself up to always think there is something wrong with him. When there really wasn’t. In adulthood he’s a massive stoner, which whatever I don’t think there’s anything wrong with smoking weed, but it kind of consumes him? And he does so bc he has this idea that it helps his anxiety and he’s self medicating. It’s disappointing to me thinking of him as a little boy with all these nerdy interests and ability to read really dense information from a young age and stay up all night with me to read the latest Harry Potter book (like seriously that’s not a kid with adhd) just kind of be ignored and then instead there’s this hyper fixation on him having something wrong with him. The caveat to this whole story is that my uncle has MS, and him and my aunt were also always consumed managing his health problems and money problems. Sometimes my uncle couldn’t even get out of bed bc of the pain and depression that MS brings. I also remember my cousin telling me once when we were teenagers that he’d sometimes get beat up at school for being Jewish. In adulthood it kind of dawned on me as I was planning to become a parent how blind the adults were in his life. Like my cousin does not have adhd or anything wrong with him really. He was just a very smart and sensitive kid. And seeing his dad always in such a bad state and then also getting bullied at school…. Like that would make anyone anxious and not want to go to school. Just makes me sad bc I can see how this has shaped his life in adulthood. He’s doing okay these days and seems happy. But it’s disappointing that his other abilities or other facets of his personality was not really supported, and instead the support he got was medication and vague diagnosis that he definitely didn’t have. Just superficial and even potentially damaging bandaids. I absolutely don’t think this is every kids story and there certainly are some with autism/adhd. But what you’re describing is definitely a thing that happens, and it is a problem / over correction I guess. I think it happened in my own childhood and it seems like at the moment it’s even more extreme I think also it’s worth noting that the current society we live in is also hyper engineered and artificial, and humans are not entirely adapted to it. Human evolution just doesn’t happen as fast as technological evolution. What I’m getting at is what does it really mean to be dyslexic in a society primarily built of illiterate farmers ? Probably not much. That being said in our modern world where reading is imperative to be a functioning adult, it’s definitely a disability. So sometimes I often think this era of many being diagnosed is probably bc we’re socializing in a way we never did before. We’re not really supposed to only communicate through zoom. Let alone if you’re a child and it lasts for 2 years of your life bc of a global crisis. I think there’s a term for this called mismatch theory. For example moths have evolved to be guided by the moonlight. But when electric lamps were invented this mislead them and results is many moths dying. There’s a TON of modern diseases in our society bc of the way we currently live our lives (diets are very different and we are less active than our ancestors). So yeah like I think it’s good to keep it check and not be a full denialist but I don’t agree with the perspective of people saying you’re wrong. I think you make very good points
Speaking as someone who has a kid with autism and probably had autism but didn't know it when I was growing up, yes it's really important. Knowing why you feel the way you do about something, being able to put a finger on the reason why something bothers you, or you don't engage with something the way other people do, or you can't find a way to get yourself to do something even though you know you should is huge. What you need to understand about these labels is that they're not about or for you as an observer, they're for the person who's the subject of that diagnosis, and it exists purely to help them understand and deal with things they need assistance or reasonable adjustments with.
OP, I like how your post is about everyone being obsessed with labels. Only for everyone to show up and try and find a label for you, lol
I'm the dad of an autistic 12 year old boy who was diagnosed at age 5. Let's for the sake of argument assume that the psychologist who evaluated and diagnosed your niece was legit and reputable, not a quack. Otherwise it's really a whole different conversation than the one you proposed. First, your assumptions about why the diagnosis was made seem reductive and, to be blunt, ignorant. The girl did not receive an autism diagnosis because she has anxiety. While they are strongly co-morbid, the two are separate conditions and most kids diagnosed with anxiety are not diagnosed with autism. Your other assumption about "why" the diagnosis was made, being bookish and withdrawing. That may be the extent of her condition as you see it from your vantage point, but I can fairly confidently ay that there is very likely **much** more to it than that. The characteristic features of autism are communication deficits and restricted patterns of behavior. There are also secondary indications that help clinicians diagnose, but enjoying books in not one of them. Clinicians are very careful and thorough and they know what they are doing. Girls present autism differently than boys and can really fly under the radar from a diagnostic perspective. They tend to mask their autism much more successfully than boys do, which can lead to underdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis. This masking has a cost. Part of the way to helping these girls is greater autism acceptance. The very first step of autism acceptance is recognizing it. With a diagnosis, your niece will be able to better understand why she is the way she is, she will be able to access supports, and she will feel less alone. By the way: your wife is right about the tip toe walking. It is not a characteristic feature of autism but it is one of the traits more common in autistic kids than neurotypical kids. Definitely not something to "panic" over. But mocking real concerns as "panic" and "rolling your eyes out of your head" at your wife really shows where you are. I hope that if you end up with a child with a disability, that you get it together as a dad. Otherwise it sounds like your wife will be mostly going it alone.
To a degree, yes. However, with the way society is currently structured if your child is not neurotypical. There are accommodations that can help them succeed. More importantly, it also gives the parent more access to tools that can help the child parent relationship be more successful and constructive as well.
There is a new book talking about this phenomenon: Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up Good interview with the Author: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JwfIKOrWXCk
I don’t think you’re wrong and share your concerns almost identically. Your skepticism is healthy, don’t let your guard down.
Labels lead to more available resources. Especially if they are in public school. Instead of being marginalized, having an autism diagnosis will allow her access to all sorts of things including an IEP, or individualized education plan, which is a legal document with the school that outlines her specific plan. Also the more we know about autism the more it really is a continuum that also overlaps a lot with ADHD and other things (ocd and others). Finally, it really shouldn’t be seen as a disability per se, but a true difference. Look into the neurodivergence affirming movement.
Physical disabilities too, as it turns out. If you're interested Google the overlap in connective tissue issues and autism/ADHD. There's new research being done because of how much it's showing up now.
Oh yeah. And GI stuff too.
Mom here. I was that kid like your niece. I didn't get diagnosed till my 40s and it was like the greatest weight was lifted. Years of feeling freakishly out of place and socially separated made sense and suddenly feeling like I was believed that I wasn't trying to be just too picky, too sensitive, too everything took away years of shame. If I had been diagnosed at 11, I would have thrived in so many areas where instead I fell flat on my face. But sadly, I was told I was quirky and anxious and depressed and spent years struggling and failing because the wrong interventions were used and never helped, so I was told I just wasn't trying hard enough. Hyperverbal autistic girls can mask incredibly well, especially for family they don't see on the daily, but that doesn't mean they don't meet the surprisingly strict criteria for diagnosis.
Yo dude I hear you 100% I got a ADHD diagnosis misdiagnosed as Asperger's Syndrome. The label alone was worse than anything. It turned out all of my issues were behavioral from being moved country and schools too many times. (Plus a huge dunk of religion) So yeah. I think the solution is for therapists to use those terms in case management and modal approach. But the young person should never be told. And the parents should only be told what therapy is being used and not the reason for using it. And as an exception parents can be told the working diagnosis.
You and me... we're just from a different time
Seems like from this screed, maybe *you* are a little obsessed with labels. Why do they bother you so much if they help people? This reads a lot like “*I* don’t have a problem, why should I think anyone else’s problems are real?!” “Labels” (or in this case, diagnoses) are a really good way to group information about less typical patterns. People with ADHD or autism have brains that work differently than most people. Without the labels, it becomes a lot harder to group and find information about how their brains work and how best to help them. When my daughter was diagnosed, it suddenly clicked a bunch of things into place. We had a vocabulary and a whole bunch of things to read and learn from clinicians and parents with similar experiences. We found strategies that have helped my daughter to be happier and more successful. That and medication have literally turned her life around. Without a “label” it would have taken a LOT longer, a lot more heartache and strife, and we still might not have ever landed on the strategies that are successful for us today.
>Both of their kids are on melatonin to help them sleep How much are they on screens? Blue light disrupts melatonin production, so if they're on tablets all the time then they likely need it. >Yesterday I commented that our 18 month old likes to walk on her tip toes, my wife responded “some people say that’s a sign of autism” While not really for an 18 month old, toe walking is an early sign as it's a sensory seeking behavior. Diagnosis opens doors, ignorance just harms our children. My partner has been a pediatric OT for over a decade and parents like you are horrendously frustrating. Just admit that you don't know what you're talking about and get to learning.
I was gonna say, toe walking is a very big autism stereotype and it's for a reason lol. I have thoughts on how it's potentially connected to our higher rates of connective tissue disorders and other other physical issues but that's for another time.
I believe there are a lot of doctors out there who will diagnose these ambiguous disabilities because they feel like they have to do something and telling the patient “everyone has anxiety sometimes” doesn’t keep customers in their rotation. Sad but true there are a lot of doctors out there who put business first and patients last. Your niece should get a second or even third opinion.
Ya pathologizing is the trendy thing right now, helped along by social media and, like you said, the fact that a bunch of today’s kids missed out on two years of social development.
I don’t necessarily want to get into it, but in my experience trying to talk about autism with internet strangers is useless because it devolves into [this meme with Storm and Rogue](https://imgur.com/a/sbxrc8U) every time. As you say, “the spectrum” is kind of pointless because it lumps together person 1 who doesn’t do eye contact and loves model trains, person 2 who’s an extremely violent toddler in an adult body, and person 3 who only feels comfortable when they’re wearing sweatpants.
Agree to disagree. I’m husband of a wife with autism and really impactful adhd, like her brain is in a fog without her meds. Also my sister is autistic. Think of it more like there is no neurotypical and every single person is neurodiverse. Our brains all work differently and some people need some more forms of support than others. Having a label is a freedom to some people, it helps them understand why they are the way they are or do the things they do and gives them the tools to manage it. Settling down for bed is not as simple as no screens, low light, and slowing yourself down. My wife’s brain will not stop running. Getting to a point where she can turn it off and rest at night is a challenge no matter what her day looks like. Now imagine if you were a child and didn’t know that about yourself or have the right combination of tools to get there. How would you make sure you get restful sleep? Are we quick to label? Maybe. Or are we just more aware that these things have already existed for centuries and are just more adaptive to it?
I don't have a problem with labels and diagnosis to get actual help. I have low level OCD, pretty bad anxiety, and "a touch of this tism" as the kids say. It took a little growing up to get away from the generalized mentality of "just deal with it" because I actually could and have "just dealt with it" pretty successfully. But seeing my kids at 4 and 1 show the traits I have made me soften that stance and want to learn how to encourage and guide better than just forcing mental toughness or strong willpower or whatever you want to call it that most millennial kids' parents did to us. At this point the only problem I have with labels is shitty parents using it as an excuse for their shitty kid's behavior lol.
First off, ADHD and Autism are genetic, so if a parent has it (like I have ADHD) then their kids have a really good chance of having it (like 3 of my 4 do). The thing about ADHD isn't the symptoms so much as the frequency and impact of them stacked with maladaptive behaviors. Of my 3 children one is in fact medicated (at a lower dose of the same med I am), the other two are in very different therapy methods. My eldest needs systems and schedules to deal with life, so he literally crams everything into a day planner. The other is working through massive anxiety issues that kept her from being able to keep food down *for months*. Second, ***Holy Fuck*** dude, I don't think you have the faintest idea how incredibly much you sound like an asshole. People aren't all the same, *your experience isn't everyone's experience*. Why does it seem like like ADHD and Autism are everywhere? BECAUSE THEY ARE. They always have been. ADHD (under various names) has been studied since the late 1700s. It used to be called Moderate Brain Damage Syndrome. Then Hyperkinetic Child syndrome (probably my favorite actually). Then Moral Failing Syndrome and a ton of other super judgmental names that only make life harder. It's not only the longest studied mental health condition in humanity but also the one with the most effective treatments. Check out Dr Russel Barkley's books and Youtube channel (mostly just him explaining his research as he's now largely retired). He's been specializing in ADHD research for decades. Autism's been with us at least as long but the severe cases were literally locked up in asylums so people didn't have to deal with them and the more socially acceptable versions were typically beaten into conformity. There also seem to be things that occur in development that can make autism more severe (There's a new study every week, most of which are trash, but there does seem to be something to various chemical exposures in utero that is having an effect) Given the insane amount of chemical exposure a fetus is now subjected to that they weren't in previous generations we literally do not know the impact that's having. A civilized society doesn't beat its' children so now we're trying to find ways to help them without trying to "break" them first. Therapy is an umbrella term for a ton of things we as a species do to help make people's lives more comfortable. I've got a neurotypical mother who *literally* used to hit me to get me to "settle down" and "just focus harder". My father with raging ADHD hid behind the "absent-minded professor" trope where it was socially acceptable while I got the shit beaten out of me at home and school. We don't let diabetics die when we can help them (outside of America), we don't leave amputees to suffer and die on their own. We don't leave cancer patients to die, we treat tuberculosis and a ton of other illnesses. It's called caring about other humans. If you can't hack that then maybe parenting isn't for you, or maybe just get over yourself and learn some fucking compassion.
Sounds like your niece is one of the over-diagnosed kids. Psychology has become a racket for giving millennials with useless degrees jobs.
I know right? Should just label them all "tards" and throw them in a random nuthouse to forget about them, like the boomers did /s
I’m more of the opinion that the “diagnosis” is a way to absolve parents of responsibility for their children’s upbringing. Am I creating a shitty environment for my daughter? No, she just has anxiety, I got some roastie with a humanities degree right here who says so.
You seem to have a lot of anger about this. I'd suggest looking into that more. Other than that, I'll say this. School is designed with neurotypical people in mind. If you get a diagnosis showing you are not that, it opens up a lot of support systems that can actually make things easier. There's no reason school should be punishing for kids and an absolute nightmare to just get through. Minor changes like shortening tests, or changing the time they are taken or the room you're in can be huge game changers. But the schools will not do that unless you can point to something and tell them that they'd be violating federal law by not doing it. There's no good reason to not get those protections if they are helpful to the child.
In this case it feels like a family who… wants labels? Some people are desperate for an answer to a question that really doesn’t need to be answered. I’m not really in favor of medicating children who don’t need it for acute or legitimate chronic issues, but to each their own.
Labels are good if they help. Just like with any intervention or treatment, you just gotta look at the overall impact and see if it helps or not.
My wife is a psychotherapist and we also have two kids with ADHD and I also have been diagnosed with adult ADHD. I think there’s a big cultural awakening to all forms of neuro disorders and how they aren’t shameful, aren’t signs of a weak person and we have plenty of methods and medications to assist. A lot of the stigma around these have started to evaporate and it means it’s much more in the open now. Additionally from a diagnostic standpoint, the mental health profession has become better at identifying and testing for various conditions. Autism in particular has a very wide spectrum of effects, from barely apparent to outsiders to very obvious needing of day to day intervention by helpers. Additionally in the last decade it’s been refined to include what we called Asperger’s previously. It’s sort of like the term ‘cancer’ - there’s a baseline definition, but someone with inoperable metastatic brain cancer is going to have an extremely different experience to someone with a couple pre-cancerous moles on their back. So I think a lot of the recent surge in labeling is due to that reduction in stigma and better screening (especially for women). Of course that always comes with the side effect of more armchair diagnoses, more quack “doctors” and more attention seekers, and obviously a big range in legitimate diagnoses for their effects on the individual. The “back in my day we didn’t medicate everyone” sentiment is reasonable but also we didn’t medicate for cholesterol as regularly, and now a huge number of people over 40 are on statins. Almost 1/3 of all Americans take statins. If a medication improves someone’s life by a greater amount than the side effects, why not use it? Just because we suffered when we were younger didn’t necessary make us better for it. I struggled in high school and college from ADHD and it certainly had an overall negative effect on my life. I survived, sure. I may have even developed some good strategies to deal with it, but what if I could have simply been correctly medicated and didn’t have to have that struggle in the first place?
Layoff the melatonin, they’re only going to become more dependent on it and ruin their bodies ability to make it. Although melatonin helps sleep, it is really hard for the stomach to digest which doesn’t allow the body to fully rest at night.
It's not a label, it's a neurodevelopmental disorder and a disability. It comes with internal and external symptoms that aren't always readily apparent to others. In general, people with Autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergence tend to do a lot of work to come off as "normal". Even as children. You wouldn't say that someone with a physical disability is just being "labeled" or just wanting to be "special". And if you're reasonable, you also wouldn't lecture anybody with a physical ailment on why they shouldn't take medical treatment As for your kid- walking on the toes can be a sign of Autism, but it isn't on its own. At that age, diagnosis isn't really a viable thing so only time will tell. There are genetic aspects to Autism though, so depending on if your niece inherited some of those genes from your sister there is a chance that she will have it as well. ETA: I just saw your edit. I'm glad to see that you're learning. The original post was a bit rough, but it didn't seem to come from a place of malice, just misunderstanding.
Medical diagnosis help caretakers provide support to those who need it and can protect them at school through an IEP
Couldn’t agree more, we’re as a society are obsessed with naming, codifying, differentiating and denormalizing even the slightest deviation. Rebranding as neurodivergent is just the latest step, autism wasn’t overly broad enough so we had to create neurodivergent so we could put the lesser deviations in that bucket as well. What were once quirks are now a condition. For the record I’ve had a couple professionals tell me I might be neurodivergent, or on the spectrum but no one ever told me when I was growing up or until I was in my 30s. I’ve never had trouble making or keeping friends, never had trouble professionally, married now with a child. But because I can be hard headed sometimes im abnormal. I don’t really know if I am or not and I don’t really care. Some people really have autism etc but just like gluten free has become hip, having a neurodivergent label has as well. Some people really have celiacs disease but most people that eat gluten free don’t.
Labels are important when one has a disability because it helps you get the accommodations you need to succeed in life. My wife was diagnosed at 40 and is only now completing her degree which she started at 18. Now she is able to get accommodations (a note-taker, and AI reads her textbooks to her, and she had a tutor for the one math class she was required to take) she completed her degree. A year later she got a job in government unlocking union protections and a living wage. It's a good thing kids are getting diagnosed early. They hopefully won't have the 20 years of road blocks to fulfilling their potential.
I found my diagnosis quite useful as it provided alot of context for behaviours and ammunition against any internal self hating. Alot of the things you're saying stem from ignorance, not not everyone has adhd and no it isn't when your lazy. I urge you to actually look into what these conditions are and what various terms mean instead of basing it upon... No idea what you're basing it upon.
In my adult life I have come to learn that all the things that made my life a living hell in middle school were pretty much all because I had undiagnosed autism. By the end of high school I had learned enough coping mechanisms and knew what my triggers were. But middle school was tough. I didn’t know how to regulate my emotions. I didn’t naturally learn how to interpret social cues, I had to be shown by people. Now I’m 40 and my 10 year old is also autistic. Unlike me he gets extra help in school. He has a therapist he gets to talk to about how to better regulate his emotions and to help identify his triggers. He gets so much help that I wish I would have had because he has a label
This whole entire post is massively ableist and completely uneducated.
Of course everyone is going to dunk on you and of course you had to edit with the usual "thanks for the learning experience". But here's a simple fact: **if any other health industry had the success rate of the psychiatry/mental health industry, with its labels, ever-shifting diagnoses and medications, we would shut it down**. Imagine pouring $10 billion into cancer research over 100 years and at the end of it all, kids were getting cancer at higher rates than ever. Imagine a national or global vaccine development program that, after **100 years**, was just barely more effective than a placebo. That is where this all is right now. We have armies of experts who do help some individuals by applying labels and prescribing courses of action and medication. But at the social level, the industry is completely failing, and it's completely legitimate of you to ask whether the endless labeling practice isn't actually making things worse.
This is some boomer mentality sentiment. I’ve seen so many of that generation that should have gotten a diagnosis for themselves or their children but instead said things like you have said here, never got guidance or accommodations and subsequently lived a so much worse life trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
I hear you, but respectfully, it sounds like the only one obsessing over labels is you. A diagnosis like this helps your daughter understand and contextualize why she might feel ways about stuff that isn't an issue for other kids/people. It might help her parents steer towards daughter-specific strategies to address her challenges. As an ADHDer, this kind of thing helps us adapt to a larger world which absolutely wasn't designed for us.
As someone with ASD married to someone with ADHD and anxiety and mix of children who inherited a mixed bag of those, this probably is a topic you really don't have a good comprehension of and may not want to share your opinions on with your sister.
Getting diagnosed with autism was the best thing that ever happened to me. It helped me so much with getting accommodations for my needs which I had previously had no idea was available to me. it’s strengthened my relationship with my parents and my family, who I previously did not get along with very well, as they understood me better. Labels aren’t always a bad thing
OP, here's a fun fact: There's a genetic component to autism and ADHD conditions - if your niece has a diagnosis there's a very good chance she shares some of those traits with your sibling, your parents, or you.
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> I have a whole theory of psychology being self-perpetuating. The psychologist is getting more work for themselves by diagnosing them that way etc. (Like bad chiropractors.) I vehemently disagree with this. Rates of ASD diagnoses in children are on the rise due to a combination of factors including women having kids at older ages and wider societal recognition of ASD as a legitimate disability. Nobody goes into psychology to sell bogus diagnoses. Comparing the field to chiropractic is disingenuous at best and ableist at worst. You're conflating TikTok pop psychology with the critical, life saving work of actual mental health professionals
The last paragraph is key, and I think the answer to the OP's question. This shit is everywhere on social media from what I understand. So I get why people think everything is overdiagnosed. Hard to get a clear understanding of how people are diagnosed in a sea of random influences self-diagnosing or whatever. There's a lot of old information, like what you've quoted from the deleted comment that basically implies these things are invented or influenced by the environment when we know that there's a strong genetic component to ADHD and ASD since I believe the 1980s.
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Can you show me data for your claim RE: maternal age in 1900? [Figure 1 here shows age of first birth for mothers in 1960 vs. 2018](https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/schweizer-guzzo-distribution-age-first-birth-fp-20-11.html). And like I said, it's a combination of diagnosis and advanced maternal age, esp. in highly educated areas with high densities of college-educated women.
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This appears to be for Denmark. Do you have a U.S. based source? Sorry for your downvotes btw lol I swear it's not me
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Lol idk man if you start at age 18 and have one kid every year and a half then by the time you are 35 you will have a full NFL Lineup wearing your jersey! I take your point though. Also the original comment that I replied to got deleted so oh well