I see this on Imgur and Bluesky as well. Here’s a great example, and the one that prompted me to finally ask. My daughter has autism and ADHD. She takes speed to slow down. Best friend is ADHD, same deal. But they’re basically “normal” people. I’m truly sorry is this comes off as insensitive.
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It’s normal to be aware of how people perceive us. We are apes. Need I elaborate?
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We ALL mess up more when someone is watching. Forget the word, but it’s a well-known psychological tic.
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Yes, we all conform and hide parts of ourselves in public, doesn’t mean you can’t “be yourself”. Want to see someone who doesn’t mask at all? Trump.
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If you’re not aware of threats, Darwin would like a word. And yes, many things we perceive as threats are dumb monkey perceptions. We’re all silly in this way.
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Uh, I double check my door locks. Not paranoid, but my situation in America makes that a simple, smart move. Some people live around lots of strangers, checking your private space is a normal thing.
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We all hate being stared at. That’s a monkey threat. We evolved that way.
The “suspicious sounds” thing is the only part I’d pick out as a bit strange. But who hasn’t jumped when the ice maker kicks in? I’ve often thought someone crawled in the dog door. (A bear did one time, a hybrid wolf another, so let me slide on that one.)
I can go on /c/autism and pick 100 other memes for examples. Almost every single thing I see there, “Yeah, we all go though that/feel that way/do that thing.” Here’s one:
https://piefed.cdn.blahaj.zone/posts/6k/Lb/6kLbDigyQuftk4k.jpg
Doesn’t everyone do that now and again?! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
Serious questions:
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Does lemmy have an above normal number of autistic/ADHD people?
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Is this perception a way for young people to feel special and different?
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Maybe young people don’t realize just how fucking weird growing up is and think they have a problem?
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Do people not realize that even after adulthood, we all have weird foibles?
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Are people so socially isolated that they think their weird thoughts are uncommon?
Just want to start the discussion. Help me understand.
These things happening once in a while is normal.
These things happening all the time is an issue.
For a lot of symptoms of adhd, autism and others it’s not what you experience, but the frequency at which you experience and how detrimental it is for you because of the frequency.
Like, everyone needs to piss and shit. But if you’re going 10 times every 2 hours, something is wrong.
That is starting to make sense. Yet I’ve never met a human that experiences these things non-stop. My daughter can be “off” sometimes, but she’s mostly not. And yes, I understand it’s a spectrum, there are degrees.
Intensity is also important. One symptom of autism for me is compulsive tendencies. The things on the shelf have a correct order and it bothers me if they aren’t in that order. Food has a correct order to eat it in and I don’t go back and forth between things or mix things together. Various daily tasks have to be done in a certain order.
I don’t have OCD. The difference is that I can still function if these things are done wrong, it causes anxiety and agitation but not beyond a level that I can deal with. Someone with OCD might have the exact same tendencies but not be able to move forward without “fixing” whatever is wrong even if fixing it causes them injury or prevents them from dealing with more important things. Everyone wants to wash their hands sometimes. People without strong compulsions stop before their hands bleed.
Have you also thought of the idea that maybe she’s masking some of those symptoms around you? A lot of the language in your post seems judgmental, if just ignorant. It could be she’s willing and able to internalize those symptoms around you or other people in order to make her life easier - lots of us do it around family because a LOT of parents wind up coming out of the gate sounding like you, and it’s easier to just go “look I’m fine” rather than have to justify our diagnosis constantly.
Autism, especially what used to be considered “high functioning” autism like Asperger’s, isn’t always a “constant” feeling of these symptoms anymore than an average schizoaffective person or someone with BPD or someone with bipolar is constantly experiencing their own symptoms. You have good days, you have bad days, and you have triggers and sometimes you can nut up even on the bad days and go to work or school or whatever. Autistic people aren’t constantly Rainman-ing their way through life, or constantly reenacting Sheldon from Big Bang Theory or whatever your popular conception is.
You’re already saying “she’s mostly not off”, so why is it so hard to believe that she has this disorder, or that it’s hard to take the next step and say “huh, she says that the medicine really helps and makes it easier for her, so I’ll believe her on that.”. I understand wanting the best and worrying about things like chemical dependency, but her doctor should be - and almost certainly IS - monitoring for this at regular checkups.
Social media in general attracts autistic people, because it’s much easier to socialize without being judged or excluded.
By definition Autism and ADHD are disabilities that negatively impact your life relative to other people.
It’s important to have a word to label what the issue is in a neutral way, because if you don’t use the word autism, you get called words like “weird,” “creepy,” “stupid,” or the r-word. When none of those things are true. Your brain just doesn’t intuitively understand things the way other peoples’ does.
The ADA defines a person with a disability as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity. Socialization is a major life activity. Loneliness is a major cause of depression of death, and not being able to socialize well impacts your ability to maintain employment. When these issues aren’t managed, your ability to function in society is significantly impaired.
To me, this post is no different from saying “You’re not dyslexic, you just needed to try harder in spelling class.” When people have an issue, telling them it doesn’t exist isn’t helpful.
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That first sentence tells me SO much. I never once thought of that.
Without commenting on any specific meme (if for no other reason than that imgur is booked the UK and i can’t see the image) and without meaning to disparage OP in any way, because i believe they are asking an honest question, i think that sometimes it’s a question of framing. I think of it like this:
Say you’ve broken your leg and it’s painful for you to hobble around on crutches. You get to work and find that the lift (elevator for the yanks) is out of order. You work on the 20th floor and have no choice but to take the stairs. You talk about how unpleasant this is going to be for you, and a colleague says “yes, everybody hates taking the stairs”. Maybe they do, but it’s not the same thing.
Which again isn’t to suggest that everybody posting memes about neurodivergence is talking about real traits, just that the idea that “everybody runs out of social battery sometimes and therefore everybody is on the spectrum somewhere” isn’t really accurate. It can be the difference between deciding to skip a party because you’d rather curl up with a book and spending 4 months not exchanging a single word with another human being. Or the difference between having a favourite film which you say you’re “obsessed” with and spending 9 days straight watching it on repeat while only sleeping 4 hours a night because the other 20 are you watching the film.
A decade or two ago people used to say “everybody’s a little bit OCD”. That seems to have fallen out of fashion now. I’m reminded of the meme which goes something like one person saying “I’m a bit OCD, i arrange my books by colour”, and the second person saying “cool. I think that if I don’t flip the light switch 40 times all my family will die”.
Please do not call ADHD medication “speed”. It is chemically different from what you would find on the street. (Methylphenadate != Methamphetamine)
Associating doctor-perscribed medication with illegal drugs perpetuates a stigma which creates many problems for people struggling with ADHD.
autistic people find talking online better than talking in person, it’s also not very safe to talk about autism IRL where people will judge you, so it’s not talked about as much IRL
Also as a sidenote, ASD has different symptoms for different people. I don’t relate to some of the things personally, but my sister (also with ASD) does.
source:
It’s almost like the whole thing is a spectrum, where people that have it feel the same emotions as neurotypical people, but they feel them more intensely.
There’s also something to be said for admitting 5hat if your child is neurodivergent then you as a parent are probably neurodivergent
Didn’t you know?
On Lemmy, everyone is a trans-feminine lesbian autist communist.
/joke
But seriously, doctors appointments are scary and time consuming and like half of Lemmy are Americans without healthcare.
Edit: a very good starter would be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1AUdaH-EPM
You have a scale of 0 to 100%. Mine is like 200 to 4000%. There is a lot of literature and research on autism. We work differently and the way your post starts made me feel very attacked. And suddenly completely out of energy, although I love informing about it.
I guess that’s because exactly that is our daily struggle. To all the damaging things we experience add on top that we’re accused of faking and also ‘that’s how it’s for everyone’.
If you want to get into it but not start reading books I can recommend the book ‘invisible differences’ very much. There’s a pdf on the internet floating around.
I know you wanted to ask innocently, however keep in mind asking about something and implicating something is not really a thing to people suffering massively exactly for that reason can be very hurtful.
Could be that everyone identifies with the same things that the group you’re referring to experiences. But that group often has it much worse than most people. Or that the vocal minority of that group misrepresents the hole.
What you see as “basically normal” is after they are medicated. Isn’t that the point of the medication? Maybe go look at someone who stops taking it for an experiment.
That first sentence is likely my answer! People are identifying with the memes, therefore they feel they belong to that group when they may truly not. I am not a smart man.
As to medication, LOL. My ADHD best friend and his ADHD wife brought some Ritalin home one afternoon. Very excited, they invited me to join in snorting a line. I was bouncing off the walls like I was on meth. They got calm and were very happy to just sit on the couch and talk.
Another funny one; When we were 17 a salesman in the department store offered us coffee he was selling. Gf: “No, that will put me to sleep.” Say what?! True enough. We met and lived with each other 10-years later, coffee knocked her out cold.
But what really turned my head was seeing my 6-yo daughter on medicine the first time. She never struck me as “abnormal” until I saw her on speed. We watched her literally stop and smell the flowers.
For adhd you will be diagnosed as either hyperactive, primary inattentive, or combined. The primary inattentive I believe is the type most often diagnosed in women if I remember correctly, it is what I was diagnosed with, though I am male. It is less noticeably disruptive to others and less likely to be diagnosed than hyperactive, though it is a spectrum. To that point, I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 35. You may not be bouncing off the walls and seem normal, but your thoughts are bouncing around in your head. It is hard to work if you can’t focus on the task at hand, it is hard to talk to people if you can’t focus on the conversation. Alternatively, that does go great if you hyper focus on the thing you are doing, but that’s the problem with it, you don’t choose to hyperfocus, it happens.
I have found medication exceedingly helpful in managing my symptoms, currently on 60mg of lisdexfetamine(sp?). It’s not perfect, but it is great. I wasn’t sure it was working initially, but after missing several doses close together it was apparent it had been working but became my new normal, because without it I slipped into that overstimulated thought chaos much more easily. Different medications work for different people and not for others. Some swear by some of the non stimulants, but they didn’t work for me, and one gave me mild ED while I was on it
I’m now amused at myself because my first comment was a flippant one liner and now this response is a run on word vomit
Typically the difference is that people with autism and or ADHD experience things more frequently or more intensely than others.
Yes, all these things are normal for most folks, but how often and the severity of these symptoms are diffrent.
For example, I have ADHD, and one of the symptoms of that is I’m easily distracted. For most people, this would sound fairly normal, but even when its something important, or something I want to do, my brain is moving on to a billion other things all at once rather than focusing on the task at hand. Medication helps immensely with this, but it still happens even on my meds at times. That is not normal.
Also the autism spectrum is a spectrum for a reason. Some people appear to cope better than others and some can’t cope at all. Masking is normal but for someone with autism it can be exhausting because some people with autism never stop masking. They are constantly aware they aren’t “normal” and it stresses them out.
Its hard to understand these kinds of feelings if you’re Neurotypical. Our brains work differently from others, which might sound like “I’m special” but honestly, I’d rather not have ADHD. Shit sucks dude. I fucking hate not being able to do things like a normal person. Its a curse.
People ive met with ADHD or autism, its just nice to be seen and feel like were understood which is why these memes are often posted or are popular with those crowds.
Dude with autism chiming in here. I often compare it to being “born without a user manual”. Ever since I was a kid it was like everyone around me just knew what to do without being told while I had to have even the most basic things explained to me. This is far worse in social situations because sometimes there are feelings on the line and often people just don’t think enough about social cues to properly explain them.
I’m the kind of autistic that can pass as neurotypical with relative ease, but getting there was a real trial and error kind of process and I can’t really say it was great for my mental health. The comment I’m responding to talked about how you never stop masking and how your constantly aware your not normal. That’s what’s fucked me up historically. “You’re not normal so figure out how to at least pretend” was the bat I used to beat myself with and among neurodivergent folks that’s probably depressingly common.
Sometimes when I talk to folks about this they’ll say something along the lines of “well if masking takes so much effort just stop doing it, I don’t mind”. And man do I wish I could sometimes. But when you learn how to do that basically from the start “masking”, or at least some of the tools and behaviors associated with it, become fundamental to how you interact with the world. This isn’t just something we can turn off or on like a lightswitch. This is something that we’re constantly locked into. Sometimes it feels like just existing takes effort. And when that’s your baseline? There’s just not space for a lot else.
Like Bluefruit said, it’s a matter of degrees. You can be neurotypical and feel this way sometimes too. At it’s core, none of these feelings are special or inherently neurodivergent. It’s the degree to which we feel them that’s different. That and frequency. Everyone’s had to preform for a job interview or something. But having to preform constantly, even for loved ones? It can get to be pretty rough.
It’s a pretty common thing nowadays to self-diagnose. Some understandably want an answer to why they are how they are, while others want to feel like they’re original and unique.
However, getting an actual diagnosis from a licensed psychiatrist is paramount to understanding and managing one’s behavior, emotional state, and well being. Self-diagnosis is dangerous to these same things.
Being autistic isn’t cute. It’s not silly and quirky. For many, it’s hell. And having ADHD doesn’t excuse poor decisions and bad behavior like a lot of people seem to assume it does.
Having said this- many people who self-diagnose try to see normal human behavior as being neurodivergent behavior when it’s not. Anyone who knows better would have learned this back with the basics when they were diagnosed by a professional.
I’m living with undiagnosed Adhd for all of my life. My son got a diagnosis when he was 6 or 7 - thus I know the symptoms, and frankly I know too much of the diagnosis method now to get myself an honest diagnosis. (I know how to answer to get the results I want). And I don’t need it anymore, I adjusted my life to play more into my strengths and less into my weaknesses. (And the last 10 years - in my 50s - I feel like symptoms are getting milder)
The complicated thing is: Every single symptom of adhd is being experienced by the majority of normal people. It’s just being “more” of that statistically.
It feels like setting the difficulty level on a video game, you’ll see the same things, you’ll see the same bosses. You play on hard while the guy how got to play life in story mode tells you how lazy you are because you didn’t fight all the bosses, yet.
A big part of dealing with adhd is accepting that my challenge is mine and is different from yours.
And that probably is why “being neurodivergent” is so “attractive”. It gives us the freedom of not being seen as lazy or stupid, and that’s something that I think should really apply to every single fucking human on this world.
We all have our challenges. You are OK as you are. You are worthy of love. And yes, life is hard, you’re not lazy.
If seeing people like this were the norm, “neurotypical” people wouldn’t need to see themselves as divergent. People just use “adhd” or “autism” to say “look, I have my challenges, too”.
The only thing in this list that I relate to is the masking, so I’ll address that
Yes, we all conform and hide parts of ourselves in public, doesn’t mean you can’t “be yourself”.
As I understand it, when a neurotypical person is hiding parts of themselves, it’s something like “I don’t want anyone to know I’m into Taylor Swift”. So just don’t talk about it. It’s that simple. For me, I have to think about every word I say because no one interprets things literally. If someone asks me whether or not I like Taylor Swift and I want to answer in the affirmative, can I just say yes? Or do I need to take note of the day of the week and say no while gesturing wildly with my left hand when it’s a Monday or look 15º to the left from Wednesday to Friday? When we talk about masking, it’s that, applied to every single sentence coming out of your mouth. Comparatively, never talking about Taylor Swift is a trivial task.
Masking is also exhausting because it takes so much energy to focus and process these things. If you are completely drained after every, even short, casual social interaction, that’s a sign there’s something going on. The diagnostic criteria apply when things that everyone experiences in some form are so overwhelming it is disabling.
there’s definitely a non-zero number of people who self-diagnose as something to feel “special,” but for every one of them there are five people who are autistic or ADHD and need accomidations but won’t get them because the people around them think they’re doing them a favor by insisting they’re not “broken.” you don’t want your kid to be the first thing, sure, but also make sure you aren’t causing the second thing- if you’re in doubt, the right person to ask is a psychologist or a psychiatrist. however, that can be very expensive, hence the whole self diagnosis to begin with
I feel like online spaces like lemmy over represent some behaviors.
Agreed. We congregate on platforms like this because we’re too weird for the normies in the real world.
They’re “normal human foibles” because it’s perfectly fucking normal and human to have ASD qualities.
