Majority in UK Now 'Self-Identify' as Neurodivergent (thetimes.com) 180
A majority of Britons may now consider themselves neurodivergent, with conditions such as autism, dyslexia or ADHD, according to a leading psychologist from King's College London. Professor Francesca Happe, an expert in cognitive neuroscience, said reduced stigma around these conditions has prompted more people to seek medical diagnoses or self-diagnose.
"Once you take autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia and all the other ways that you can developmentally be different from the typical, you actually don't get many typical people left," Happe told BBC Radio 4.
Autism diagnoses increased 787% between 1998 and 2018 in the UK, with estimated prevalence rising from one in 2,500 children 80 years ago to one in 36 today. Happe, who was appointed CBE in 2021 for her autism research, warned that behaviors previously considered "a bit of eccentricity" are now being labeled with medical terms.
"Once you take autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia and all the other ways that you can developmentally be different from the typical, you actually don't get many typical people left," Happe told BBC Radio 4.
Autism diagnoses increased 787% between 1998 and 2018 in the UK, with estimated prevalence rising from one in 2,500 children 80 years ago to one in 36 today. Happe, who was appointed CBE in 2021 for her autism research, warned that behaviors previously considered "a bit of eccentricity" are now being labeled with medical terms.
I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's an umbrella term for many different conditions, so it's entirely possible for the majority to have one of them, but no single condition to be a majority of the population.
I think the more likely explanation here is that people aren't diagnosing themselves correctly. I see posts on social media sometimes from people talking about feeling anxious in situations that would make most people feel that way, or getting hung up on mistakes made long ago that probably nobody else remembers. Those are just normal things, but there are some conditions that make them *much* worse to the point where they interfere with your life in very detrimental ways. It's that degree of severity that I think a lot of people under-estimate when self diagnosing.
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:3)
The world is at risk of being conquered by two egotistical madmen; its a lot to process.
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:5, Informative)
People also misunderstand this topic.
If you go through the DSM-5, you'll absolutely find something that describes something you do or something you believe.
However, it's not a diagnosable mental illness unless it is both uncontrollable and has a significant negative impact on your life.
But, if you read the DSM-5 (or look this stuff up online), you'll realize we're all fucking nuts - except we aren't, we're just humans.
At one point in my life, I was a bit concerned about my sanity. So, I went and got tested. This took the better part of several days as I did things like the MMPI, spoke to various therapists, and a couple of psychiatrists. I learned a bit, including the above. Also, I'm not crazy.
Well, that's not how they put it. The diagnosis was something like, 'You have no diagnosable mental illnesses negatively impacting your life.' (It was something like that.) I took it to mean that was as close as they were going to come to calling anyone sane.
They did suggest that I should seek therapy if I had future concerns or if I felt I needed to speak with someone. However, I was satisfied with the answers given.
Anyhow, I mentioned that to qualify the first part of this. I'm not an expert in the field. I'm just regurgitating what I was told by the professionals. Many people hear voices in their head but that doesn't make them schizophrenic. The above is how they explained it to me. They still happily took my money.
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:2)
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:2)
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:2)
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Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:2)
Yes
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:2)
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:2)
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:3)
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It's an umbrella term for many different conditions, so it's entirely possible for the majority to have one of them
If that is the really case then the medical profession have clearly defined the range that counts as typical far too narrowly and are treating what is actually a perfectly typical human as somehow "divergent" which leads to wasting medical resources.
However, I suspect your later reason is correct: people cannot correctly self-diagnose themselves. My brother was offically diagnosed with dyslexia when he was a kid and the doctor who made the diagnosis told my parents that it was uncommon for her to find s
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:2)
I see posts on social media sometimes from people talking about feeling anxious in situations that would make most people feel that way, or getting hung up on mistakes made long ago that probably nobody else remembers.
Those bloody adverts for Liven don't help.
"You don't procrastinate you have cortisol addiction."
"People with ADHD do this too".
A load of old bollocks, all of it skirting the rules on advertising healthcare services. Not that Google ever does anything about adverts that violate their policies.
Also you don't really realize (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the things I learned is that really really crazy people quickly learn that they are well, crazy. It doesn't make a lot of sense because if you know you're crazy you would think you just wouldn't be crazy.
But that's not how crazy works. Mental illness comes and goes. The mentally ill will have long stretches of perfect lucidity followed by stretches of complete Insanity.
You know that stupid meme, I cut myself to feel alive? A friend of mine that has mental issues explained it to me.
In most countries, especially america, there is absolutely no help for the mentally ill outside their immediate family and that quickly becomes too much for them.
So if you feel an attack coming on and you know you're going to be suicidal for a period of time you need to seek out help and you need 24/7 attention to take care of yourself and prevent yourself from doing something you know you don't actually want to do but for two or three days or maybe a week you're going to want to because your brain chemistry just goes ape shit.
However if you're not an immediate danger to yourself or people around you you can't get admitted to a facility. And even if your family wants to watch you 24/7 they just can't. They don't have the manpower. People have to work and sleep.
So you cut yourself. That shows you are an immediate danger to yourself and you get admitted to a facility and you hope that the attack passes before they are legally allowed to kick you out.
All that said has a relatively sane person I have to say crazy people are terrifying when you know about all these things. Because their time bombs waiting to go off. They will seem perfectly safe and saying it can be fun to hang out with and can seem great... And then the brain chemistry changes slightly and they're wrecking everything around them including you.
It's something that took me a long time to deal with and I'm not strong enough or together enough to hang out with and handle crazy people.
Re:Also you don't really realize (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not trying to single you out, but I feel the need to express my extreme disdain for the growing popularity of the term "masking". I have family members with autism and while I've never been diagnosed, I would be extremely surprised if I wasn't somewhere on that side of the spectrum. My childhood was extremely lonely because I was almost completely unable to socialize with the other kids. It was an incredibly difficult ordeal, but with a lot of work over a very long period of time I was eventually able to learn how to socialize. People who didn't know me as a child are surprised to hear how different I was since I'm at a point now where I can converse with just about anyone over almost any subject. Socialization is a skill and like all skills, it comes a lot more naturally to some. But just because someone overcomes challenges that were created by some form of neurodivergence doesn't mean that they're "masking". I understand that there are appropriate uses for the term, but I often see it used in instances where it's being applied to people who have put in the work to overcome the challenges of their neurodivergence and I hope people consider this more carefully before using this term that is rapidly gaining popularity.
FWIW, I agree with most of the rest of your post.
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I'm not strong enough or together enough to hang out with and handle crazy people.
Look at your screen, read the comments, do you know where you are? I believe the phrase is "One of us". So maybe freaks would be more accurate.
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This is stupid and ridiculous. When I got a job a well known management consultancy I had to spend a week on personality test, including "IQ test". I ended up in the 99th percentile (they didn't test it more exact than that, in other words, you wouldn't know if you were 99,0, 99,5 or 99,9). I spend a lot of time and energy when I socialise with more average people to dumb myself down as well as restrict myself from skipping ahead in the discussion. That doesn't mean that I have a "diagnosis", despite my "co
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I think that's the point here. That word/characterization has problems.
That isn't to say that the myriad of conditions don't exist.
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I certainly think that some people experience these things worse than others. I'm not an expert though so I defer to them.
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, psychiatrists don't always diagnoses people correctly either, and diagnoses don't really capture what's going on. Neuropsychiatric diagnoses are pragmatic, but often vague and always context-dependent. They do not require people sharing a diagnosis to have disorders with a common etiology.
Take Alice and Bob, both of whom have the requisite six symptoms to get a diagnosis of "ADHD, Inattentive presentation". The thing is, it turns Bob's symptoms are caused by sleep apnea. Since the Diagnostic and St
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As someone formally diagnosed, a lot of that social media crap makes my blood boil.
A lot of these people use a "self diagnosis" (of ADHD in particular) as an excuse for being, lazy, incompetent or a dick. For the most part, actual ADHD sucks. Why people who don't have it want the label, other than for a "free pass" is beyond me.
It's tough struggling with maintaining focus on what you should (lack of), hyperfocus (focusing too much on something, potentially becoming consumed by it), rejection sensitivity,
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Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:5, Insightful)
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One in 36 kids are being diagnosed with Autism today.
Unless you believe it's caused by some mystery environmental toxin (it's 80% genetic) then 1 in 36 kids born in the 70's and 80's probably had it, and it wasn't a diagnosable condition until 1994.
If you're that 1 in 36 and are over 40 years old, you were missed as a child. Or missed because you're a woman or a minority, which happens even today.
Have you felt fundamentally and profoundly different than other people for your entire life? Go take this test [embrace-autism.com]
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:3)
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I'm still waiting for someone who calls themselves "queer" to explain - to this actual homosexual - what it means
I don't call myself queer, but I've known a lot of people who did, and they seemed to use the description to mean that their proclivities were not considered normal. It was a pejorative which was generally used to encompass homosexual and transgender, and which was reclaimed starting in the late 1980s as a point of pride.
besides "look at meeee!".
A lot of people would say the same thing about you saying that you're homosexual. You're making enemies of your natural allies, especially if they are more visible than you are, and therefo
weird (Score:2)
I'm used to getting modded down for promoting human rights, but who modded me down this time? A homosexual who hates bisexuals? Or just some reich winger who hates everyone queer?
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["queer"] was reclaimed starting in the late 1980s as a point of pride.
Exactly. Except now it's been co-opted by straight people who just want to sound like they're special. If you were Jewish, for example, how would you feel about someone wearing a yarmulke as a fashion accessory?
A lot of people would say the same thing about you saying that you're homosexual.
I'm only saying it because it applies to the situation; I don't go around telling random people in the street, partly because I know that it could end very badly for me.
You're making enemies of your natural allies, especially if they are more visible than you are, and therefore attracting ire.
They're not "allies". Our struggle for equality and acceptance was largely won before the blue hair brigade was even born.
They are self-selecting to receive the same kind of abuse you do, and you're shitting on them.
People in
Re: I'm not neurodivergent... (Score:2)
"Our struggle for equality and acceptance was largely won"
No, it wasn't. Over a third of the country obviously still has a problem with you and the tide of fascism is rising. I wish you only the best, but there are clearly still many who do not feel the same way.
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When the standard to be diagnosed autistic has fallen from 1 in 3000 to 1 in 40, eith
Its almost like (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Its almost like (Score:5, Funny)
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It seems our idea of the mean, is meaningless.
It may also be due to multiple dimensions. That is, most people may be near the mean on many/most dimensions but away from the mean on one or a few dimensions.
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Not really. But "the mean" is an abstraction - it is very useful for some purposes, but only if it is clearly understood.
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It seems our idea of the mean, is meaningless.
The median is slightly more meaningful, as you are assured there is at least one sample in your set having that exact value,
Alternatively... (Score:5, Informative)
We can quote that British doctor from Jerome's "Three men in a boat, nevermind the dog".
He wrote a great prescription to the very sick gentleman from Chapter 1, which is no less helpful today as it was in 1889.
1 lb. beefsteak, with 1 pt. bitter beer every 6 hours.
1 ten-mile walk every morning.
1 bed at 11 sharp every night.
And don't stuff up your head with things you don't understand.
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I remember that the psychologist and statistician Kahneman had a story about how the Israeli air force decided to design a new "one size fits all" seat for its jet fighters. After many complaints and some injuries, a survey was done and it was discovered that this seat - painstakingly designed to fit the average pilot - did not in fact fit perfectly any one pilot in the whole air force. It was a perfect fit for the average pilot, but not for any real pilot.
I couldn't locate a reference, as the Web is chock
When everyone is neurodivergent.. (Score:5, Insightful)
When everyone is neurodivergent, no one is.
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People are just addicted out of their minds to fucking smartphones and social media. We are running this insane social experiment that is depleting everyone's dopamine and thereby their drive and attention span. Then everyone starts thinking they have ADHD when in fact their minds are being eaten away by the instant gratification of notifications, likes, news, engagement as big tech has monopolized their eyeballs and attention to their platforms, using real psychological tricks of addiction. Yes, these moth
Re: When everyone is neurodivergent.. (Score:2)
Yes, these motherfuckers have psychologists on their payroll whose job it is to make use of their apps as addictive as possible.
I guess I must be neurodivergent. Because I find this crap to be annoying as hell.
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Being human just means everyone is screwed up in unique ways.
Re: When everyone is neurodivergent.. (Score:2)
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When everyone is neurodivergent, no one is.
"Normal" is just the average of everyone's individual crazy...
No, just no. (Score:3)
The phrase neurodivergent covers so much ground it's almost meaningless. The value comes with understanding individual differences in human behavior and how complex they are so that we can get along better as a species.
Sociologists have basically shown that modern civilizations are too complex for our brains. We aren't capable of forming relationships with more than a handful of people but the modern civilization basically requires us to form complex rel
Why does this remind me? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm reminded of the 90s crisis where we put kids on Ritalin because they were being kids.
We'll look back on this in the future and say WTF.
Requisite South Park [youtube.com]
Drugs (Score:2)
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One of the things to notice is that playtime / the level of sport in many schools in many societies has reduced vastly since even the early 2000s, let alone, e.g. the 1950s. Playingfields and sports in UK schools have been cut vastly. Add that to kids using smart phones during breaks instead of running around. It's quite likely that a whole bunch of children who could sit still for 1 hour are now being asked to sit still for 4 hours.
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I'm reminded of the 90s crisis where we put kids on Ritalin because they were being kids.
We'll look back on this in the future and say WTF.
Requisite South Park [youtube.com]
I was expecting this South Park alternative to Ritalin for the treatment of ADHD https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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The whole episode is great. The Phil Collins scene was a double winner though. They dunked on Ritalin and Phil at the same time.
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Yeah.
Fundamentally, you can take any living human being, and find something 'neurodivergent' about them.
That kid twirling their hair while reading? Stimming, clearly. That kid who would rather go outside and play than read a book? ADHD, clearly. That kid who'd rather read than play football? Social anxiety, obviously.
When I was a kid, 'autistic' meant you flapped your arms, and screamed when somebody turned on the lights wrong. Behavior that nowadays gets labelled as 'ASD' was..weird. Awkward. Shy.
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I'm reminded of the 90s crisis where we put kids on Ritalin because they were being kids.
Tell us you don't understand the topic without telling us. No one was put on ritalin because they were being kids. They were put on ritalin to improve performance when identified as having ADHD. Guess what, ADHD is still a thing, as is ritalin, and it is distinctly different from "being kids". And it helped.
To your lay mind you may not understand the difference, but that's why we have professionals doing the work. Or let me guess, you did your own research?
Custom cockpits (Score:5, Interesting)
So, way, way back in the day, the Air Force (might have still been the Army Air Force - that's how old this anecdote is) decided to standardize cockpits. Making them highly adjustable is a huge pain in the ass, and very expensive.
So, they brought in thousands of volunteers for measurement. They measured torso lengths, the lengths of shinbones, the lengths of upper arms, the lengths of fingers, etc. Virtually every body part that had a length was measured.
They compiled tables of statistics for all of these data sets. As expected, each measurement had approximately a normal distribution - a bell curve. The plan was to build a cockpit with minimal adjustment that was still able to fit the vast majority of people in the wide middles of these bell curves.
Punchline: Their new cockpit didn't fit anyone.
That's an exaggeration, of course. It fit a few people. But not many, and certainly not the majority of pilot applicants like they hoped it would.
It turns out that even though almost everyone is basically normal in most measurements, almost everyone is also highly abnormal in at least a few measurements. You have stubby fingers. Joe has unusually long thigs. Bob has short forearms.
The moral of the story - and the way it ties in to the article - is that if you have enough dimensions, it is very normal for everyone to be abnormal in some way.
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So, way, way back in the day, the Air Force (might have still been the Army Air Force - that's how old this anecdote is) decided to standardize cockpits. Making them highly adjustable is a huge pain in the ass, and very expensive.
So, they brought in thousands of volunteers for measurement. They measured torso lengths, the lengths of shinbones, the lengths of upper arms, the lengths of fingers, etc. Virtually every body part that had a length was measured.
They compiled tables of statistics for all of these data sets. As expected, each measurement had approximately a normal distribution - a bell curve. The plan was to build a cockpit with minimal adjustment that was still able to fit the vast majority of people in the wide middles of these bell curves.
Punchline: Their new cockpit didn't fit anyone.
That's an exaggeration, of course. It fit a few people. But not many, and certainly not the majority of pilot applicants like they hoped it would.
It turns out that even though almost everyone is basically normal in most measurements, almost everyone is also highly abnormal in at least a few measurements. You have stubby fingers. Joe has unusually long thigs. Bob has short forearms.
The moral of the story - and the way it ties in to the article - is that if you have enough dimensions, it is very normal for everyone to be abnormal in some way.
I think this cockpit thing is urban legend. You are describing the analysis done by Gilbert S Daniels in December 1952 for the Air Force report "Anthropometry of Flying Personnel" report of September 1954. If you read the report they are talking about the new Air Force skin-tight garment being worn to counteract the physiological stresses of modern jet aircraft. It being about clothing makes sense when you look at the 10 measurements Gilbert Daniels surveyed: height, chest circumference, sleeve length, cr
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Except in this case, people are rewarded either formally (here's your government check, crazy person) or informally (you are so brave!) by their virtue signaling.
I think we're pretty nearly done as a species so (shrug).
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If we didn't, then how the heck do we drive cars?
We make them adjustable in a way you can't do with a jet with an ejection seat and controls attached to a fixed panel.
Modern society breeds neurodivergence (Score:4, Insightful)
I see it all around me, but I live near MIT and am a software engineer (most of my coworkers are problematically on the spectrum) my children are diagnosed with ADHD and ASD and I have Asperger's. My wife also has diagnosed and medicated ADHD...I'm more immersed in it than most of the world, but I think we're just the tip of the sphere.
You have infinite information for free on the web. You have infinite content to read, with no delay through your kindle. You have pretty much every TV show and movie ever created available for on-demand streaming, often for free. There's too many sources of information competing for your attention.
Even jocks are in on it. I have a literal degree in biochemistry. The average gymbro on Reddit knows more about cellular biology and nutrition than my professors in the late 90s. I've learned more from the internet in the last 5 years, for sure, than I did in my classes and I got straight As. That level of learning was an A on a curve in the late 90s...today, it's pretty standard from the roided out macho UFC-wannabes & insurrectionists with "interesting theories" on crypto and the age of consent (to steal 2 jokes from people funnier than me).
In order to adapt to the inflow of info and increase in expectations, you have to adapt...and that adaptation to information overload and insane expectations is to optimize your brain...focus your young plastic brain on learning (ASD) and ADHD is clearly a result of more demands on your attention than you have bandwidth to address.
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Modern society is broken. And the strain on people's time is breaking our brains.
If it was just information overload, I think we would be able to manage just fine. I recently got a diagnosis for ADHD in adulthood. I've had it my whole life (inattentive type, and there's no doubt about this even if I didn't know before). I had plenty of slack time and so it was well-managed for the most part until having kids. Once I had zero free time, I lost the ability to cope. With ADHD, stimulants make the mind se
If you take an average... (Score:2)
you'll find that the majority of numbers aren't average.
yay?
"Typical" (Score:2)
"Once you take autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia and all the other ways that you can developmentally be different from the typical, you actually don't get many typical people left,"
You keep using that word... I don't think it means what you think it means.
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It's hard to come up with a better term, though. Let's say there's four types of brain - A, B, E, F. The typical brain by averages is a C or a D but there are no C or D people in real life.
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"It's hard to come up with a better term"
"mean". Mean is a better term. Thought I was being pop-culture funny while also being "punny" -- I thought wrong. Typical would be a functional range where most people would fall. Literally, "not abnormal".
"Neurodivergent" is kind of meaningless when it appears that most people are (or at least believe they are) "Neurodivergent".
Thinking of oneself as "challenged" in some way because they don't have a brain like Einstein, Hawking, Penrose, Cox, etc is just wrong.
Middle-school phenomenon infects adulthood (Score:5, Interesting)
I mentor a bunch of high school students on a robotics team. One thing I've noticed, particularly post-COVID, is that the students have a tendency to stand around and tell each other their diagnoses, and each one gets some attention for it from their peers. If you're the only one in the group who doesn't have a diagnosis (even a self-diagnosis) then you can either stand there and be quiet (and watch while everyone else gets attention), or you can say you're "just normal" (which kind of comes off like an a-hole and gets you labeled an able-ist), or you can just say you're neurodivergent too, and join in with the fun. I do appreciate that mental health doesn't carry the stigma it once did, but it's clearly swung crazy in the other direction now.
It reminds me... in recent years in Hollywood, production companies apparently had a diversity quota on the films they were making. There's a story from a cameraman who said when the diversity person comes around on set and asks him if he's a part of any marginalized group, he just says he's "non-binary." It's impossible to prove otherwise, and doesn't require you to act any differently. He said he thinks it's stupid, but this makes sure he's not at the bottom of the list when they start calling people for the next production.
Its become pretty clear that this has all peaked with Gen Z and it's starting to wane. It's pretty easy to buy into that stuff when you're 14 years old, but a few years later in your 20's it's pretty easy to look around and roll your eyes at anyone still playing up their neurodiversity as a badge of honor. It doesn't garner as much attention once you're in adulthood.
You'd be stupid not to reflect on your identity (Score:2)
I mentor a bunch of high school students on a robotics team. One thing I've noticed, particularly post-COVID, is that the students have a tendency to stand around and tell each other their diagnoses, and each one gets some attention for it from their peers. If you're the only one in the group who doesn't have a diagnosis (even a self-diagnosis) then you can either stand there and be quiet (and watch while everyone else gets attention), or you can say you're "just normal" (which kind of comes off like an a-hole and gets you labeled an able-ist), or you can just say you're neurodivergent too, and join in with the fun. I do appreciate that mental health doesn't carry the stigma it once did, but it's clearly swung crazy in the other direction now.
It reminds me... in recent years in Hollywood, production companies apparently had a diversity quota on the films they were making. There's a story from a cameraman who said when the diversity person comes around on set and asks him if he's a part of any marginalized group, he just says he's "non-binary." It's impossible to prove otherwise, and doesn't require you to act any differently. He said he thinks it's stupid, but this makes sure he's not at the bottom of the list when they start calling people for the next production.
Its become pretty clear that this has all peaked with Gen Z and it's starting to wane. It's pretty easy to buy into that stuff when you're 14 years old, but a few years later in your 20's it's pretty easy to look around and roll your eyes at anyone still playing up their neurodiversity as a badge of honor. It doesn't garner as much attention once you're in adulthood.
No smart person knows who they are when they are young. Look at fucking white people...you ask their ethnicity and they give you a rambling TED talk about what type of white they are (ummm...yeah, my great, great, great grandma on my mom's side was welsh, but my on my dad's side....)...even when they're 3rd generation or more and have literally no connection beyond their facial features. That shit is older than me. Some of it is very American (according to my international friends)....that we aren't into
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"admitting you have a problem"
I'm pretty sure that showboating some sort of (likely invented, either by the individual for attention, or by a parent/counselor/medical "professional" as variously proxy-Munchausen, grooming, or political affirmation) self-diagnosis is the point of the comment, not a revelatory admission of a personal issue. "Look everyone, look how I'm sick like everyone else standing around here! I'm so brave!" is hardly the path to self-realization; more like the opposite.
" I am skeptical
Re: You'd be stupid not to reflect on your identit (Score:2)
lol, we triggered argstyopa, by pointing out that most of America has trouble putting a finger on their identity (which is undeniably true), of course he is offended by this reality.
Never fucking mind that every generation is more mobile and connected than the last and we're less Floridians and Wisconsins and more alloverans. The idea of a melting pot offends him too much. He's a little bit of a purist. If you know what I mean.
Re: Middle-school phenomenon infects adulthood (Score:2)
I mentor a bunch of high school students on a robotics team. One thing I've noticed, particularly post-COVID, is that the students have a tendency to stand around and tell each other their diagnoses, and each one gets some attention for it from their peers. If you're the only one in the group who doesn't have a diagnosis (even a self-diagnosis) then you can either stand there and be quiet (and watch while everyone else gets attention), or you can say you're "just normal" (which kind of comes off like an a-hole and gets you labeled an able-ist), or you can just say you're neurodivergent too, and join in with the fun. I do appreciate that mental health doesn't carry the stigma it once did, but it's clearly swung crazy in the other direction now.
That sounds _100%_ better than teens thinking they're broken, they will never be normal, and that's what things were like before all this, in the 90s. We just got different labels back then, none good, shy, goofy, really good on math tests, weird as hell. It's a little weird to wear a medical diagnostic label as a badge of pride, but whatever, maybe it helps to feel understood?
A high school robotics team is a literal freaking magnet for kids that are you know, different, in so many ways besides what we're t
We got a lot better at diagnosing ASD. (Score:5, Insightful)
ASD? Well, as most know, we got a lot better at diagnosing it. When I was a kid, only non-verbal children or those with knowledgeable and wealthy parents got a diagnosis. I grew up in poverty and my ASD WAS NOT high functioning back then....mine was treated with severe bullying by peers, including a lot of violence...like many kids my age who grew up in poverty. For my dad, his ASD was treated by the Marine Corp reshaping his habits and thus his brain.
If we had the same understanding in 1980 that we had in 2000 or 2010, I would have been diagnosed and put in ABA. Trained therapists would have explained to me that my harmless behavior was really off-putting and if I wanted to make friends, I would have to do things that are not very intuitive. It would have helped me drastically to make friends and understand my teachers better and learn more.
I am used to hearing people bitch about the explosion in ASD diagnosis. I get why they feel that, but they need to consider the alternatives.
Back in their day, it wasn't called ASD. Your peers just bullied the shit out of them. You made fun of them constantly and even if you were a "good boy" and weren't mean to them, your peers did. I was pretty suicidal because every day was being made fun of systematically, no matter what I did.
Kids need someone to make fun of to establish their identity...to define what they "aren't" with their friends as a bonding experience, so they project insults of their insecurities....thus some kid in you class was labeled gay, dumb, smelly, whatever the kid sending the insult was insecure about...regardless of their behavior. Typically that kid had some learning disorder and was identified by the group as safe to pick on. It's shitty, but natural...but because back then it was not only tolerated, but they weren't getting help from trained professionals to function in society better. Life was hell and never getting better until I moved from home.
So before you bitch about "back in my day...."...take a closer look at how shitty things used to be.
mod the parent up (Score:2)
Crazy! (Score:2)
We are all defective (Score:2)
So what? The only inacceptable defects are the ones that lead to intentional lack of respect for others.
It pays to be neuro divergent (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure there are people who suffer from being too far down the spectrum, so God bless them, and I wish no insult, I'm sure there are real challenges for some people, but as far as my life is concerned, all of those traits from the DSM that would make me "on the spectrum", were huge advantages over
It literally pays to be autistic.... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In order to get the $X from the Canadian government, you need a lot more than just a ASD diagnosis. You have to be affected to the point where it significantly affects your ability to live day-to-day life. It's not automatic based on the diagnosis - you have to have a Dr. fill out a huge form outlining exactly how you are affected and how your disability interferes with living. Things like being unable to feed or dress yourself, or challenges in doing normal life. Feel free to look over the form: https [canada.ca]
Re: (Score:2)
I have 2 psychologist friends, one in Corrections and the other in private practice. I'm relaying their percieved thoughts on this.
They were clearly in agreement however that the diagnosis based on DSM definitions were extremely broad and likely too broad.
A 2 grand tax credit is clearly nothing significant to people who are truly in need of help, but they also were pretty
80% (Score:3)
80% of people believe they are above average.
Re: (Score:2)
80% of people believe they are above average.
Even more shocking is that most people believe that it's impossible for that to be true.
Oblig. (Score:3)
Everybody is weird (Score:2)
Really, it's true: we are all weird. We all have our ticks and issues. Why do people need a label?
You are the way you are. Take other people the way they are. Get on with life.
The medicalizing of normal behavior (Score:2)
Neither ASD nor dyslexia have any drug (Score:2)
Turning normal personality traits or temporary struggles into lifelong conditions that require pharmaceutical intervention.
Good guess, but completely wrong. There's no medical treatment for autism or dyslexia. You can put children on various meds to tame some of the symptoms, but they're more general symptoms that apply to people without the diagnosis, like severe anxiety or irritability and in my experience, they don't work all that well. We wish we could get our kid on a drug that actually worked. Our lives and his would be so much better.
ADHD? That's got some FUUUN drugs. In reality, they're just cognitive performance
Perhaps non-neurodivergent needs re-examination? (Score:2)
Now, self-diagnosis doesn't mean a hell of a lot. But if this high a percentage feel that way... perhaps we need to reconsider exactly what's meant by "neurodivergent".
Perhaps, instead of representing the overwhelming majority, it's more of a median or average, and NO ONE fits it.
Would you say the same about aging or pain? (Score:2)
Perhaps, instead of representing the overwhelming majority, it's more of a median or average, and NO ONE fits it.
I get where you're going...but consider this. We ALL experience pain, fatigue, aging, inflammation, anxiety, etc. What if a factor of neurodivergence is just a condition to be treated, like back pain, rather than a unique identity.
I have asperger's. When I found out, it was a part of my identity for about a year or 2. It helped me make sense of my life and past and many patterns. Then I stopped considering it a part of my identity....its like how I know I am prone to knee pain when running for long
Maybe (Score:2)
Flaw of Averages (Score:2)
blah (Score:2)
I am convinced a lot of self-proclaimed neurodivergent people are just too lazy to actually learn social skills and want an excuse not to do so.
Understanding "Normal" (Score:2)
"Neurodivergent" simply means "works different from the expected norm". Acknowledging that this survey explicitly asked people to SELF-DIAGNOSE, then...
1. It's more likely that people have a severely distorted understanding of what "normal" brain function is. Being distracted by one's smartphone while on the couch or not being able to do trigonometric calculations in one's head are not conclusive evidence of mental dysfunction. That's typical function. Almost no one has perfect focus and very few people can
Impossible (Score:2)
If you diverge from the average, you can't be part of a majority.
Reminds me of high school (Score:2)
The rest just haven't discovered theirs yet (Score:2)
I'm guessing everyone is neurodivergent in some way.
Self identify?! (Score:2)
Shit.... I wasted thousands of dollars for a Psychiatrist to tell me why I was the way I was *facepalm*
On the positive side, I have legal access to amphetamines I guess /s
Stupidity (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think that the monarchy problems have more to do with inbreeding. [sciencetimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I think it has more to do with George Carlin's observation:
"Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!"
Re: (Score:2)
She departed, Zed, almost full three years ago. She must be approaching Alpha Centauri by now.
Re: Most people are height-divergent (Score:2)
Re: "I AM SPECIAL!!!!!!" (Score:2)