Science is political.
(midwest.social)
fossilesque
Science MemesThe diagnosis was just a formality for me.
IMHO, in a way, it's the desperate, desperate, oh so desperate need of people who can't deal with the uncertainty of Probability and Statistics and thus require everything to be a clearly defined something, no variance, no deviations.
It's the same reason why some people simply can't accept the Theory Of Evolution: the idea that "countless" (not literally, but figurativelly) random variances will yield incremental changes which over time add up to major change is just beyond them, so better have a single (or a handful) of fantastical all powerful beings of unexplained (and never questioned) provenance be the designers and agents of creation of all we see.
As I see it, shit like this is mainly stupid people compensating (in the Psychology sense of the word) for their own inability to comprehend the World as is and without mentally simplify it down to a handful of little labelled boxes.
Isn‘t autism and many other psychological conditions under and over diagnosed at the same time? A friend of mine got her diagnosis at the age of 31 (under diagnosed) and her doctor talked with her about social media bringing more people to her, which think they have autism, but don‘t (over diagnosing).
I don‘t want to talk anyone out of their diagnosis or give them doubts. As long as there are tests there will always be false negatives and positives and so if you test more it will influence the outcome.
PS: The article is probably bullshit.
What you're describing isn't really an over-diagnosis thing though, it's more that visibility has increased and the stigma has been reduced, so more people go to a professional to have it investigated.
Over-diagnosis would be people who actually get diagnosed with autism but end up not having it.
I think the criteria and diagnosis evolving as the science gets better also has an impact. The idea that only young boys have autism was the prevalent one not that long ago, but we know better now so now more people are being diagnosed with it since we understand it better.
It is exactly what I am describing. In any test you will have false positives. Then the broader you test the more false positives you get. This was also a thing during Corona in Germany. At the start of the pandemic only people with symptoms should get tested, because with low case number and even a very good test and test procedure you can easily get more false positives than true positives. This is true for every test where true positives are rare. The math is pretty simple here.
Well, there's two things to consider.
One is just how many folks "self diagnose". Rather than a stigma being reduced, it's often held up as a trait of superiority to the "normies", so some folks will assert it. There's a fine line to walk between unfair stigma versus unjustified glorification. The internet is full of this.
Two is that ultimately, there's room for being subjective even among professionals. See the parents of a kid that my kid was friends with. They lamented they got told by 5 psychologists that their kid was not autistic before they finally found one that "correctly" saw the kid's autism. They were so excited to have proof that their kid was one of those autistic folks that are super smart...
I say we sick these cunts on the antivaxxer idiots and let them claw each other's eyes out over which logical fallacy is the true one lol
Let them gaslight each other to death as society slowly moves forward without them.
Im following here, I am getting that there islikely overlap in anti-lgbt and antivaxxers but what has one to do with the other in terms or people living their lives?
One is a diagnosis, the other is definitively not
Honestly, wouldn't be that surprised. There's like 30-50 people who are pushing the anti-trans narrative. Seems like you don't need a whole lot of people to build a conspiracy like this.
As with most writing it tells you more about the author than anything else.
In this case if you've got rainbow hair you're obviously an evil liberal who is on the take.
The free press
Look inside: paywall
They mean the government can't tell them what to print. Unfortunately the government also doesn't seem to tell them not to print lies either.
It seems like nothing they wrote supports their conclusion. I mean look, if you have some challenges, and you find ways to handle them, that doesn't mean you are (or aren't) autistic... But somehow they worked hard to ignore this key point that undercuts everything they wrote.
"I do not struggle with X. I got a system."
One of the most telltale signs of autism.
For me it was " I don't struggle with understanding people's emotions"
Then it was pointed out to me that I have spent years watching people and learning how they work.
Turns out people are my trains.
50 people with names and addresses, you say?
Sounds VERY solvable.
I have like 10 of those addresses and could get more. No I'm not going to get them for you or doxx them, there are other folk in here who have the same list in mind (associated with the same cult) because like, just having that kind of list makes you suspect for like blood crimes and I'm really more down for gay crimes and maybe a little international arms snuggling Steven call me
"international arms snuggling" <4
I'm not going to get them for you
Great, I’m not an American, not my job
or doxx them
Then you’re a coward. Doxxing them is step 1. You should be on step 5 if you give a shit about this.
Just say “I care about my own comfort more than I care about this issue.” And then don’t fucking bring it up again unless you’re willing to do something about it.
Are you unhappy that someone is not prepared to commit murder? It's a very weird worldview you've got there I suspect it's not actually well thought out.
I wonder if they have something big in the works for autistic people like they do for trans people
Autism (neuro divergence in general really) under capitalism, is the engineering equivilent to being a sacrificial gear in a gear box. You have your purpose, you do it well when placed in the proper gear set. But you wear out faster than all the other gears, not because you are a bad gear, but because the system itself was designed to crush you rather than crush the bigger more expensive gears. It was built for their longevity and success, not yours. This is them giving the squeeky wheel or "gear" "the grease" in a fucked up way.
They are trying to gaslight different groups into thinking they are just a regular normal gear, and they need to just work harder, even if it means the gear breaks quicker as a result. We are cheaper to replace than we are to repair, and that is the logic that makes capitalism unworthy of human participation, it is inherently anti human in all spectrums.
I don't think this is a Capitalist thing explicitly.
Being significantly outside the norm in visible ways is often a problem in any human societies, mainly depending on which traits one has which are most different from the masses and the time and society one is in. I mean, a highly intelligent woman with knowledge of herbal remedies in a 12th century European village would likely be deemed a witch, in a Native American tribe would be a healer and in present day society either nobody would notice or think her as old-fashioned "with all those teas".
I expect that Neuro-divergence, being behavioural, is one of the hardest to accept as "normal" things in any human societies since humans are generally social beings. I mean, in present day in most of the West even Introversion (which is much more prevalent) is often perceived as a problem that people must overcome ("You need to go out more") rather than just another perfectly normal way of being.
As I see it the neuro-divergent are just unlucky of living in an age of cities were it's pretty hard for people to just live away from the rest most of the time and being out of the norm behaviouralliy ratther than say, in terms of body shape or having a preference for unusual foods.
PS: Now that I think about it, the whole insane "grift everything" culture of the current Late Stage Neoliberal Capitalism probably makes life way harder than it need be for people whose more variant traits negativelly affect social interaction, since in so many areas where merit in that domain was usually enough, now one must "pitch" and "network" a lot to get ahead.
We're spelling it wrong. It's capitolizm.
I thought I was autistic but turns out I have a different set of things that manifest similarly on the screeners but have totally different origins and approaches.
I don't think that's what these folks are talking about though.
The Behind the Bastards episode on autism was fascinating.
I'm not going to do it justice but the tl;dr is that parents felt like it couldn't have been their fault or their genes that made their kid this way. That it must have been vaccines or trans frogs or whatever the fuck they can blame. Because blaming something else made them feel better. And it gave them an excuse to not deal with their kid that has real difficulty.
And, to a certain extent...I get it. I don't agree with them but having a child with a disability was not what they expected.
But you raise the child you have and not the one you wish you had.
It probably doesn't help that they may have an outdated image of autism. Their child does not have high support needs, so it can't be that. The doctor must be mistaken.
My mother grew up in a time where it was considered something a mother 'did' to cause it.
Which is why she denies and denies we're autistic.
I mean, everyone who meets the two of us together go "yeah you both are" soooooo.
That was the one about the "compression clinic" or whatever they were called, right? Where they put kids in hypobaric chambers? Sick fucks
I think so. It's been a while since I listened to it.
The sad thing about it is that like many conspiracy theories, they started from a well-meaning place. But the brain rot algorithm pushed them towards fringe theories because it would make people feel better.
everyone is different and unique but the DSM just categorises some patterns as "disorders" because.. well it doesn't make efficient workers in modern society.. kinda dumb if you ask me
Well it was causing me distress in my personal life, I was pretty successful at work.
I managed to get past the paywall on the article somehow, so here's the actually important stuff:
But for a community organized around social impairment, they maintained an astonishing number of social rules. Certain language and beliefs were treated as harmful, and activists policed them aggressively. Terms like high-functioning, low-functioning, severe, and profound were condemned as “ableist.” Again and again, I watched popular accounts direct their thousands of followers to comment sections so they could scold people for using the wrong language or expressing the wrong views about autism.
AKA "muh free speech"
Activists reserved particular contempt for anyone who upheld the medical understanding of autism spectrum disorder, targeting organizations, researchers, and universities that treated autism as a disorder and supported work on its causes, treatment, or cure. They compared that work to eugenics and tried to shut it down through petitions, harassment, and public pressure. Too often, they succeeded.
"We should 'fix' autistic people, why doesn't everyone agree with me???? 😢"
when I began referring to myself with the term Asperger,
The response was fierce. Activists rejected the idea that there was any sort of hierarchy in the autism spectrum.
"Why don't people like it when I use an outdated term, removed from the DSM-5, that is often used to imply low intelligence of autistic people and want me to use the more broadly accepted inclusive term instead????"
Then, my life changed. In 2022, after working for several years as an artist, I became a journalist. The career shift was spurred by my discovering the stories of detransitioners: mainly young women who had once identified as transgender and now no longer did, and whose experiences were largely ignored by mainstream media. I could relate to them; many of them, like me, had struggled deeply as teenagers and searched for a label that seemed to explain their suffering. As I learned more about their experiences, I was forced to think more critically about how activism and media shape cultural narratives around identity and diagnosis, and how perverse social incentives can lock those narratives into place.
"I saw people detransition and that means that means autism can be a social contagion and because I see it as debilitating I want a reason to believe I'm faking it"
I soon began taking on stories that required heavy reporting. As I spoke with sources, built rapport, asked sensitive questions, and earned their trust, I realized something that should have been obvious much earlier: I do not have a social communication deficit. Not only was I competent at socializing, I was good at it, and I improved the more I did it.
"I'm good at socializing therefore I don't have autism"
Which forced me to ask: What else could have explained my social discomfort? In retrospect, the answer was more ordinary than I wanted it to be. I was a sensitive, introverted child who felt social mistakes intensely. Instead of responding to them by becoming more resilient, I chose to retreat into my interests, because they felt safer than people. Over time, that withdrawal hardened into a pattern.
"Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" but applied to emotions. If she'd just responded better to mistakes, she'd never have been diagnosted as autistic, guys!
My diagnosis unraveled further once I started questioning the other traits I had come to see as autistic. Introversion, high sensory sensitivity, intense interests, and social camouflaging are not exclusively the features of an autist; they are widely distributed across the general population. But using the female autism framework, I came to see them as a meaningful pattern.
"I have a ton of heavily correlated traits that are all often linked to autism, but if I look at them individually instead of recognizing the actual pattern, and say that non autistic people can have them too, that means I'm 'normal!'"
This happened very swiftly, partially because an autism diagnosis is not especially difficult to obtain. The process, which has no objective medical test and relies primarily on self-reported traits interpreted by individual clinicians, leaves enormous room for confirmation bias and error. My own evaluation did not consider alternative explanations for my experiences, only that they had been present since childhood.
"We can't do a DNA test for autism, therefore doctors must be just guessing and patients must be making it up"
Research shows that more and more people, especially young women, are over-identifying with psychiatric diagnoses, desperate for some sort of label to explain their struggles or abnormalities.
"More people are self-diagnosing, therefore trained medical professionals using actual diagnostic methods will also be diagnosing a ton of people with autism that don't have it"
Losing the autism label allowed me to regain something more valuable than certainty: agency. My difficulties did not disappear, but they no longer defined the limits of who I could become. There is comfort in a story that shifts responsibility away from the self. Sometimes that comfort is almost irresistible. But in the end, it is better to believe in the possibility of change than to embrace a narrative that says you never had a choice at all.
"If you think you're autistic, you'll assume you have innate limits and stop trying hard enough." AKA "Autism stops you from reaching your full potential and is a crutch"
Wait, Asperger's is considered a bad term? I did not know that as someone originally diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome myself (but I did understand that it became incorporated as part of the spectrum).
Doing a bit more research, looks like it's because of its origins in WWII Nazi Germany (and therefore being linked to eugenics, white supremacy, etc., the idea that these people are better than those people). Dang, I definitely did not know that. I will try not to use it then.
Wow.
Per the article (thanks for posting it all!): autism is a social construct.
Do they just throw random things to the wall to see what sticks?
The whole thing is disingenuous. The use of "Aspergers" is partly discontinued because of fascist associations. It shouldn't be surprising that people don't want to use a classification termed by people who wanted to sort useful autistics from the disposable (as they saw it).
I'm on the autism spectrum. I'm high-functioning, what would have been called Aspergers prior to DSM-V. What that means is that I largely function in day-to-day life, and that I don't need significant supports. The term 'Aspergers' is helpful, because people have a rough idea of what you mean when you use it. Austism spectrum disorder is more nebulous. Treating differing levels of support as being 'hierarchical' is not useful, and will--in the long run--tend to mean that everyone gets the same levels of support, rather than people with greater needs getting more support. (Would it be nice to get therapy? Sure. Do I need it as much as other people might? Probably not.)
And fuck yes, if there was a magic pill that I could take and I'd suddenly be absolutely dead-average neurotypical? Yeah, I'd take it. I'd swallow a handful. I'm probably a lot older than a bunch of other people on the spectrum here, and lemme tell you, it does not get better. If anything, the older you get, the worse it is, because the friends you had in school drift away, and you don't make new ones. I know that social lives tend to get worse as people age, but at this point, the ONLY social life I have is two hours of church (non-denom universalist unitarian; I gave up theism years ago) on Sundays.
I have a degree, I have a job that I'm good at, I own a house and land, I have a ton of cats that mostly like me, blah blah blah. But goddamn, I feel very alone. I tried for YEARS to do what I thought you were supposed to do to meet people and make friends, and shit always fell flat. And now I know that yes, it IS me, I'm the problem. I'm the one that's fucking up. (And apparently it's really really autistic to send out questionnaires to ask people where I could improve in my social skills.)
And fuck yes, if there was a magic pill that I could take and I’d suddenly be absolutely dead-average neurotypical? Yeah, I’d take it. I’d swallow a handful.
As another on the "high-functioning" category (though not very high I guess since I've failed in life already), I find this always so heart-breaking. I understand exactly where it's coming from, but it is still so sad to me. We are conditioned to see ourselves so flawed, so unworthy, there's no understanding to be given. You look at the others and there's the glass wall you can't cross, and they tell you to come over as if it isn't there. We just can't fit in the narrow roles society has to offer without diminishing ourselves by masking, and that's just suffering alone in a different way anyway.
I can look at myself and think I wouldn't change a thing, since I'm selfish enough to see the problem to be how others treat and perceive me, and very scared of becoming someone else as changing myself on such deep levels would mean. But I also fully agree; it does not get better. Society will not change and people don't even want to, and you cannot change either, because you are you. The mismatch is always there.
I do hope you end up finding people that vibe with you, even if it's totally hopeless now. I'm deeeeep in depression so I have only kind words to offer anymore
The last part is actually a thing that can happen after diagnosis. But pretending to not be autistic isn't the fix.
BIG yikes. I hope they find themselves a deep, dark hole to crawl into and never come back out of.
brb I'm going to accidentally an origin server
Jesus fucking christ. "I don't meet the broadest strokes possible on interpersonal relationships it couldn't possibly be meee"
I'm fucking asd and i am spectacular at client relationships. You ask anyone who has met me and they will also say "oh yeah there's a spicy meatball". These two are not exclusive, humans spin in different directions.
The worst part about the article (see comment for source) is that in a sense, the author isn't wrong. Developing skills helps with challenges, whether they are caused by a neurodivergency or not. Also, labels can limit people and people can hold themselves back because of seeing their condition as innate and not changeable (which it is, but everything around it can change). I don't doubt that her autism diagnosis was not useful for her and she feels better letting it go. And there are very toxic elements in the neurodiversity community, just like in other communities.
The problem is that none of the above actually invalidates the diagnosis. It's all context in which the life of the person with the diagnosis plays out. So she may very well still be autistic by any reasonable definition. I don't know her. And the attitude which this kind of article permits others to take can be scary.
::: spoiler ADHD Sidebar Rant (This doesn't get into my big issue with a large swath of the DSM, which calls a bucket of symptoms a diagnosis without any understanding of underlying causes. With other medical fields we've often found that there are multiple diseases underlying the population of patients with a cluster of symptoms (e.g. recent discovery of multiple variants of Parkinsons with different origins). I personally suspect that there are multiple distinct conditions that underpin what we currently bucket as "autism", and same with many of the other conditions in that section of the DSM. The only one we understand even reasonably well is ADHD, AFAICT. We at least have brain differences and some genetic components mapped out, but we're still learning more all the time, e.g. recent study which suggests primary mode of operation of the condition is reward, not attention, which is why stimulants work.) :::
Just googled Christina Buttons 😬
So called “investigative” journalist who rails against what she calls pseudoscience while spewing pseudoscience
Stop making everything political!
The national anthem of people who love the status quo!
Everything is political.
Someone: stop "making" everything political!!
The national anthem of people who love the status quo!
Of 40 years ago.
I originally found and read this article on my RSS feed, and it actually pissed me off by how badly written it is and how many times it pretty much says “noooo, you don’t need a diagnosis, you’re just acting weird!”
Just somebody let me know when I can claim asylum in a more civilized country, as a persecuted class, where that class is 'I am Autistic'.
Till then, I'll continue not publically existing.
The US admin has already publically stated multiple times that they basically wanna holocaust us, send all the people with mental 'disorders', who use prescribed meds... to farm labor detox work camps.
Just go look for quotes from Health Minister Brainworm.
If you have a highly desired skill in developed countries, like medecine, engineering, highly skilled technician etc. it's a good way to get a long term visa supported by the hiring organization. Usually those countries will advertise the professions they want next to professional visa procedures. Otherwise you can try to marry someone from there.
Might want to look up your family tree. If you're related to any Canadian, at any point (think great great great grandparents), you can get a passport.
I actually did this, milked the shit out of a free ancenstry.com membership, before they charged me.
Long story short:
Traced my lineage back to the American Revolutionary War? 🇺🇲 ✅
Found out that I am apparently technically, literally an Italian by their blood right heritage laws, and the timing of when my ancestors had children vs got naturalized? 🇮🇹 ✅
(Do I speak any Italian? ❌)
Do I have any Canadian heritage? 🇨🇦 ❌❌❌
Nope. Literally none, back to ~1700 - 1800, through anyone.
So... maybe learning Italian is my future, idfk.
EDIT:
lol, welp:
https://italyget.com/decreto-tajani-on-italian-citizenship/
tl;dr nevermind , Italy can apparently just amend its law via the judiciary, at any time, so... I am not Italian.
perfetto, angry hand gestures
the most insulting aspect has got to be the idea that plainly bonkers people are the ones making these aspersions. RFK and Trump are nutbags.
So… I am unquestionably ADHD. Like diagnosed in kindergarten, “doctor sees I’m neurodivergent the instant I start talking.”
Maybe AuADHD, still figuring that out.
…But, while I am no doctor, there are almost certainly diagnoses just to get ADD meds or extra time for tests. It was quite rampant in my school.
What I’m saying is, the grain of truth they’re stretching here shouldn’t be forgotten. Misdiagnoses and “false diagnosis” for benefits is definitely a thing for ADD, and it might be one for autism at some point. And pushing back against shameless neurodivergence discrimination shouldn’t cross the threshold of pretending that doesn’t exist.
It's the kind of thing that haunts you and gives you impostor syndrome for the rest of your life
You can get Gold ADHD now?
I've already ranked up to Diamond /j
I've been hard stuck plat for 40 seasons...
And here I am in bronze league, thinking there was no hope.
Don't worry, at least you're not cardboard
Oh, good. We're doing this now... These people always have to be on the lookout for new groups they can punch down on just so they can feel big. They sneer at others for needing help, but they are the ones who well and truly need it themselves. Why do they feel this need to belittle others? Is it because they feel small in their own lives? Do they have some hatred that stems from past trauma that needs resolved? Who knows? But instead of working on themselves, whatever form that may take, they instead spend all their time and energy trying to tear down and destroy others. It's a sad thing in the end, but the damage they do to others can not be forgiven or tolerated.
They sneer at others for needing help, but they are the ones who well and truly need it themselves
but that help seems unreachable to them; that's the problem, they see others getting the help they need , don't think can get, or feel ashamed of needing.
I disagree. You imply they admit to needing help. I think they're all in denial. They have problems and want to blame everyone but themselves, and are unwilling to take any responsibility.
This is it. It's a bunch of angry people who think "Life is supposed to be hard! Deal with it."
They think their life experiences are comparable to everyone else, which creates a logical fallacy:
-
Successful people don't need help, but must obviously struggle just as much as I do.
-
I don't have it easy, yet don't need help, so people who ask for it are just being lazy.
They internalize the "life is hard" mantra and assume it's normal to be playing life on hard mode, not realizing some people have the difficulty slider set to very easy while others are on nightmare.
You have just described my father perfectly. He is precisely like this.
“I suffer from depression. Or, as my father puts it, no I don’t.”
-Tig Notaro
When sociopathy is normalized and idolized, that's exactly how it seems to be.
So I guess vaccines and Tylenol don’t cause autism anymore either right?
….
Right?
Something something stock market?
~~God, I hate looking at non-xkitted Tumblr.~~
Anyway, what terrible thing happened to the person who wrote the article? Were they systematically discriminated against for being autistic when that's something that should only happen to Those Other People or something?
They're just monumentally xenophobic and entitled.
Name and shame them
Same playbook, different target. People deserve support and self-understanding, not campaigns trying to shame them out of their own lived experience.
Given the same people are targeting both groups and the amount of overlap in the groups, it might not even be "different target." Could just be another way to try to convince people to not believe their own experiences and instead assume everything they know about themselves is actually a lie by society to trick them into believing they're autistic and trans.
Are they saying this is all part of an anti-trans campaign?
Nope. People are "leaving the autistic lifestyle" just like they "left the transs lifestyle" and earlier still "left the gay lifestyle "
They have one fucking move and it's "you're choosing to be a weirdo"
Can you choose to stop being a bigoted freak too?
I think this is the subject of a very good Onion article or mockumentary, if someone were to put in the effort.
you'd think so.....
Nah, I think the gist of it is more like there's a philosophy out there that has low empathy and pushes low comprehension victim-blaming type of logic, and encourages harassment and starting shit that actively makes the world worse for all kinds of people, but mostly punching down in insidious ways to make people disenfranchise themselves and others in order to justify their own being pieces of shit or something.
No. Basically the folks who have been pushing the anti-trans shit (about 50 or so people) have now started to move onto autists. Probably because your average autist is just as unobservant to their insipid power structures as your average trans, probably also due to the overlap between both groups.
Probably part of the larger end goal of wiping out basically all social progress made over the last 100 years or so, it's just that they are going after what they see as the weakest links. Because these people are a bunch of sub-human fascists, and I mean human in that in a Niezsche sense not a Nazi sense.
Seems very "conversation therapy" based. Including reversing diagnoses of mental health disorders.
Everything that isn't a perfect little Christian is a sickness or a lie.
Unpopular opinion in these circles I'm sure, but:
The US (and the west in general, but especially the US) has a genuine problem with overmedicalization, driven in no small part by for-profit pharmaceutical companies having a financial incentive to sell medication and treatments to people. Part of fixing this problem involves admitting that it also affects autism, ADHD, OCD, etc. diagnoses, and that saying this is not erasure of people affected by those conditions.
Another unpopular opinion: making a medical condition part of your identity is generally not healthy, and if you're upset about an "anti-autism diagnosis campaign", there is a chance you have made a medical condition part of your identity.
I say this as someone with a childhood Asperger's diagnosis who would no longer qualify for any kind of diagnosis.
This cuts both ways. As a person with extremely real AuDHD I actively hide that information from most people because so I don't have to have this exact fucking conversation with every person I meet. "ADHD huh, you know that's over diagnosed right?"
Thanks doctor, I'll make sure I write that information down so I can use it later.
Sometimes it's even worse, and people get actively hostile about it. "Yeah, I might have a PhD as well if I had an Adderall prescription."
It's just not helpful. Let the doctors do their thing. If we catch some false positives then so be it. You worry about you, and let other people worry about themselves.
If we catch some false positives then so be it.
I was one of those false positives as a kid. It led to me being not just unnecessarily medicated, but near criminally overmedicated. From age 7, I was put on ritalin because I couldn't focus in class (due to a combination of the fact that I had already learned most of what they were teaching me and some serious undiagnosed PTSD). At the worst, I was put on:
- 150 mg of Adderall XR
- 75 mg of Zoloft
- 600 mg of Welbutrin
- some equally ridiculous amount of Stratera
- A revolving door of antipsychotics, because my unstable mood had to be caused by bipolar disorder and not, you know, the incredible amount of unnecessary medication I was being force-fed every day
In the end, it turned out that I didn't have ADD, but actually had PTSD that presented as inattentiveness due to the constant flashbacks I was experiencing. A couple months' worth of EMDR treatments (which were very much a known technique when I was being medicated) got me to a place where I was able to function enough to hold down a job and take care of myself, but it took me a decade after getting off of those medications for me to be able to recognize that.
My point in all of this is that false positives aren't harmless, especially when it comes to minors. Yes, that doctor was giving me doses of medication that, today, would be considered criminal, but even being on a quarter of those doses caused significant damage to my long-term ability to function. Not to mention, I was treated as a lab rat the entire time. I was entered into trial runs of various medications against my will, and while some of them (such as clonidine) ended up being valid treatments, a significant part of me feels like the overmedication trend is just another excuse to treat children as science experiments.
That's honestly horrifying, and I'm so sorry you were subject to that. I'm glad you're doing better today though!
Well no, what's happening to you is also because of the general culture of overmedication. If there were less false positives, people wouldn't distrust your diagnosis. If anything, I'd argue the current culture hurts the people who have serious issues more than the people who have been given a shoddy diagnosis in order to peddle drugs, but both sides are pretty rough.
If there were less false positives, people wouldn’t distrust your diagnosis
Did you come to this conclusion by talking to diagnosed people? Because even in the decades where it was massively under diagnosed, I don’t think there’s any time period I could point to and say ‘oh yeah, nobody questions autism diagnoses because they’re so rare!’ It just changes what they say: ‘oh, are you sure? That’s so rare, it’s probably something else!’
I have experienced both sides of this over the decades, and as far as I’m concerned I’d rather cast too wide a net than too small of one, because at least that way more people that need support get it. Being told you’re making it up sucks ass no matter which direction it’s coming from.
You hear people say the same thing about fake service dogs, but they only ever wind up harassing anyone with a service dog because they think it’s their responsibility to be a disability cop.
On one hand i clearly agree with you about the overmedicalization issue, on the other hand there also was an undermedicalization going on for centuries, especially in the autism/ADHD/etc fields. It's a tough balance to get, cuz the rise of diagnoses may not indicate an overmedicalization, but rather a correction of the undermedicalization (though the risk of overmed. is real, clearly).
And on the medical condition being part of an identity, i also get your point, but it's also important to consider that making your differences part of your identity makes perfect sense, and for a lot of people their differences come from medical conditions. Conflating the two may be slightly unhealthy, but far less than repressing it as non-subject.
There's a pendulum swinging towards the middle. Under diagnosis, and then ultra trendy diagnosis, huge self-diagnosis, general personality trend to align with. Now it's going to swing back, likely towards biomarkers, as the DSM VI is trying to focus on. Can we see this on a scan? If so it exists. And then the DSM XII will be like "fuck that." Mental health has always wobbled between extremes and somehow found the truth in the middle.
Paradoxically, I think we have both overmedicalization and a lot of people going untreated who need it. We are still pretty bad at identifying issues early and our for-profit healthcare system blocks a lot of people from being treated who need it. Often having mental health challenges itself limits people's ability to access treatment.
What's the source on significant over diagnoses?
Also, how can sacountry workout universal healthcare have such excessive diagnoses when so many aren't even getting the healthcare at all?
What's the source on significant over diagnoses?
I don't believe I said the words "significant over diagnoses". However, for example for ADHD there was a pretty good article in the New York Times last year (scroll down, the page has a bunch of whitespace at the top): https://web.archive.org/web/20250414202754/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html
Also, how can sacountry workout universal healthcare have such excessive diagnoses when so many aren't even getting the healthcare at all?
These conditions are often diagnosed during childhood and youth, where most Americans are AFAIK covered by national programs as well as their parents' insurance.
For adult diagnoses, there's a selection bias towards people who have self-diagnosed and seek confirmation, which will logically lead to a diagnosis rate among patients that exceeds the true incidence of the condition in the general population (due to the selection bias), as well as a slightly or somewhat increased apparent incidence of the condition in the general population (due to people who self-diagnosed without actually qualifying for a diagnosis, but read enough about the condition to effectively lie their way to a diagnosis).
So weighted blanket companies are conspiring to get doctors to diagnose autism?
I don't know about autism, but there is definitely some of that going on with ADHD for which medical treatment is much more common than for autism.
Autism patients do get prescription meds too, not for autism per se but for the various associated comorbidities (depression, anxiety, sleep meds, etc.). That's all fine and good when there's a genuine need for them; the problem is that big pharma has a business interest in making the barrier of prescription as low as possible.
Did you know water drinkers also get prescription meds too? Not for drinking water per se but for the various associated comorbidities with living....
I'm still confused how this is some indictment of autism diagnosis when it seems your issue has nothing to do with autism? Yet the campaign is specifically about autism. Not over-diagnosis of ADHD or depression or anxiety. Why does the one "mental disorder" that doesn't actually have medical interventions seem to have some of the strongest negative reactions?
This exact same phenomenon applies to almost any mental disorder. And I use the term mental disorder loosely here, as I'm one of the people who doesn't believe mild cases of autism are even worth diagnosing.
The reason it applies to autism too is that any diagnosis makes you a customer of the medical industry; the customer relationship doesn't end when you receive a diagnosis, that's when it starts. They may not be able to sell you autism medicine (yet), but they can sell you all sorts of other medicine and therapy.
So autism diagnosis are bad because they're trying to hook you on the drug of getting diagnoses and eventually given people medications maybe decades after their diagnosis?
They may not be able to sell you autism medicine (yet)
Medical marijuana is prescribed to people with autism in my state, so I don't give it much longer before they can.
Individuals should not be making their own medical or psychological diagnoses. Correct.
Perfectly fine statement to make in a vacuum, but in the real world there are massive hurdles and downsides to getting diagnosed. I’ve interacted with more than one psych who has basically said that of those who have sought an adult diagnosis with him, they’re rarely wrong. Any image you have in your mind of hordes of neurotypical people making up that they’re autistic is based on prejudice, not reality.
There’s also not a single way to determine if someone is on the spectrum; a psych can run a test wrong or make wrong judgements, and a person doesn’t need a degree to know they have sensory meltdowns or can’t keep up socially to save their life. The idea that doctors are the only ones with insight into health (ESPECIALLY mental health) is something best left in the first half of the 20th century.
I also feel that making me self-diagnose with a disorder would be very useful for keeping me small and powerless. If the specific way my mind works doesn't please late stage capitalism, late stage capitalism and its 'helpful' disgnoses can fuck right off while I go take a nap as nature intended.
I also feel that making me self-diagnose with a disorder would be very useful for keeping me small and powerless
That’s a valid way to feel, but for many people on the spectrum it’s the exact opposite. A diagnosis is an answer for why in NT spaces we often feel constantly misunderstood and out of place, and reassurance that we aren’t the only people like ourselves in the world. It’s also an amazing way to connect with others for tips on how to manage symptoms or other issues; if I wasn’t connected to other autistic people I never would have discovered there are tools to reduce my sensory problems, or found the ability to advocate for myself and what I need rather than shutting up and feeling inadequate for needing help.
Yeah particularly with ADHD I feel like many diagnoses are really "incompatible with wageslaving for 40 hours a week" rather than a condition that would, in a vacuum, affect the patient's quality of life.
Of course many ADHD patients do have real issues with their quality of life even outside of societal obligations (read: work, studies) in the form of e.g. not getting chores done, but as a former "problem child" who nearly had this forced on him back in the day, I firmly believe that there's a lot of pressure from the school system to get kids on meds just so they'll sit pretty in class even though the real problem lies in the system.
I don’t really see how it affects autism. I guess maybe ABA? I don’t know of any current treatments for it. If anyone’s making real money off of autism, it’s probably fidget toy and earplug manufacturers, and maybe some influencers. If there were serious money to be made then some big companies would likely be pushing back against a lot of the BS lately, but mostly it’s governments + news media (generally right wing) vs independent or small voices.
Sorry media campaign, I just checked and I did get vaccinated.
I'm Autistic, I swear! I have the vaccination card to prove it.
as a bi trans nonmonogamous audhder, fuck these people. all they really want is to kill us, and when they realize they can't do it by turning us into someone else they will reach for the camps and gas chambers. then they will destroy themselves because the great tragedy is that so many of them are neurodivergent too. rigid black and white thinking is one of the major pitfalls of humanity, and sadly is one far too many neurodivergent people fall into.
The modern human only exists because we kept changing the status quo
To be fair though, that’s just how large populations work.
If we there are lots of true positive diagnoses, then there is bound to be some false positives as well.
Christ in a buttons
Context?
This article: https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-autistic-i-was-wrong Since it's behind the paywall, a PDF copy should be available here.
It's fucking funny that even propaganda is behind paywalls these days.
It's literally all right there
Autism has been trending lately. A similar trend occurred with bipolar disorder; nearly 100% of people in rehabilitation clinics have this diagnosis. The most likely reason for this trend is insurance fraud. An insurance company will pay more to treat a suicidal bipolar autist then they will to treat an addict with a transient anxiety disorder.
Another factor is patient expectations. When a parent or patient pays for a psychiatrist, they expect a diagnosis. They don't want to be told that they are normal and fine.
Or... Orrrrrr... They stopped throwing people that needed help into torture asylums and instead took time to understand and diagnose more than just the most obvious cases.
Have you actually been a parent paying for a psychiatrist? Because I have. This would be laughable if it weren't so infuriating. You have no idea what you're talking about, and I pity any children you might have.
While I don't agree with the previous commenter's views, really at all, Mad in America does great reporting. They also have lots of personal stories that you can read.
I invite you to expand your awareness beyond your personal experience with psychiatry and come back and tell me if you still don't think there is abuse, negligence, and fraud in psychiatry:
https://www.madinamerica.com/
And yes, every field has bad actors. Anecdotes are not evidence of widespread corruption and profiteering. I definitely don't agree with everything that is posted there, but nonetheless there is still a treasure trove of information there to digest.
Do me a favor though, and let the personal stories, blogs, etc. paint a picture. Read until you can't read anymore. Read from the various accredited people (e.g. psychiatrists) who write on or contribute to Mad in America. Hear what they have to say. Really dig deep into the documented systemic abuse that is written about in detail throughout that website. See the face of activism in psychiatry and mental health. Understand the horrors of forced medication, polypharmacy, involuntary commitment, misdiagnosis, potentially permanent and relatively common side effects (iatrogenic illness) no doctor is able to help with properly (like tardive dyskinesia or akathisia - look at videos of the two conditions, it's heart-wrenching), and also the rampant sexual/other types of abuse in mental health institutions.
Psychiatry is in dire need of complete reform.
