It’s obvious that this page was written by an autistic person because the top third is a fairly witty and insightful joke and the bottom third is an explanation of the joke.
As someone who relates to the article, it reads a lot less like humor. It's a grim reality.
Constantly being told there's something wrong with you, only to see clearly those around you, has a profoundly awful impact. Eventually it's replaced by more accurate internal modeling.
> Constantly being told there's something wrong with you
Worse yet, there's likely much less wrong with you than there is with those who feel they need to label you as somehow "less" to feel like "more" themselves.
I sometimes wonder if there are other possible neurodivergence, I'm not neurotypical, but I'm also not autistic (at least according to the criteria I've seen), just a bit odd or quirky doesn't seem to be enough.
Thanks for the links - from the OP post "Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity." I know this is a gag, but I see things like this and think oh maybe I'm autistic but no, I have the same complaints autistic people have, I just call it deathly dull, who knows.
See also "Am I German or Autistic?", which despite the cheeky title, does a pretty good job showing the balance between cultural and mindset patterns and autism spectrum traits. https://german.millermanschool.com
Thanks, I didn't really mean it was a negative, perhaps this is indicative of the problem - someone finds things odd, therefore here's a list of diagnoses. I should up my dosage of soma probably.
thats ok, I'm not really disturbed. I do wonder if there's evolving a restricted definition of 'normal' in some circles. I am older and it never used to be this way, it's the internet of course. People aren't that homogenised (imho).
It is quite funny and IMO in good taste (which is hard to do when diagnosing 9,625 out of every 10,000 as deficient). It probably works well as an in-joke for people who prefer critical thinking to social proof.
But it isn't really appropriate to fight fire with fire when it comes to calling people disordered and the people who need to hear the message won't understand it because they key off social proof. In fact, they may literally not understand the gentle ribbing and might respond poorly.
"They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me." - Nathaniel Lee, playwright, on being confined to a madhouse for 5 years.
Taking jabs at the majoritarian viewpoints enough to get noticed rarely ends well.
I don’t think it’s so much as fighting fire with fire, as just reframing and correcting the usual biased assumptions about what it means to be “typical”.
> wont accept clear straightforward plain language explanation of what others want
From experience this feels to me like a very NT thing to say (apologies if you're not NT, no context to determine either way) - it comes across as written: "Why can't you just do what I ask you".
Often it feels atypical people require a logical understanding from first principles of why something should be done.
Then, once they have that they need to come to the same conclusion of what the course of action is.
If they're aligned, awesome.
If not, then the work is to try to make them understand why, given the current constraints and cultural context, their optimal approach is suboptimal in this situation.
Something as simple as "yes your idea is great, it will work better then theirs, but sometimes others need to fail so that they can learn from their failure" - exact quote.
I'm speaking to a very limited subset here based on quite a bit of exposure in many contexts.
What? You try reading the actual written policies of any large organisation. Then find the places where they aren't following their rules, then point out with reference to the written rules what they're doing wrong. Then see what happens.
Obviously. It would come off as sarcastic humor if so many of the basic facts were correct. Neurotypical people are only just above 80% of the population, so the author is in more common company than they believe.
The scenario which drives me insane is; someone tells me some popular mainstream narrative about why we should do something in a particular way. Essentially just parroting expert consensus on a similar topic. I tell them exactly why this approach wouldn't work in that particular case and they concede to all my points. They fully agree and don't push back on anything.
But then a few minutes later, they're still pushing for the exact same mainstream expert consensus approach and ignoring all my earlier points which they had literally just agreed to. WTF.
The impression I get is that they liked how my arguments sounded superficially and felt that other people in the meeting also agreed but they didn't actually understand any of it! It's like they only absorbed it in a very superficial way; just enough to allow them to rephrase it or to add a few supporting points but somehow they really didn't actually understand the essence of the argument.
This kind of situation reminds me of the wordcel vs shape rotator discussion from a few years back. NT people are like wordcels.
This has been a theme for me over the past couple of years.
I'm noticing the limitations of words and language, including those that come out of my own mouth.
You can choose your words carefully, but it's useless unless your audience knows to look for those nuances.
Sometimes, in group meetings, I've caught myself repeating something twice in a slightly different way to increase the probability that people understood it correctly. But you can't repeat yourself all the time or else people will think something's wrong with you.
If peoples' attributes exist on a normal distribution and you keep coming up with new attributes to measure, eventually everyone will have at least one extreme attribute..
Oh yes and probably the authors themselves have a related form on neuro-atypical-divergence know as neuro-tragically-compulsive-analisys disorder, related to a quite common social-accademic-pressure about being in control and classificate all things they do not have in control and that they do not clearly can relate with, causing a pathology, relatively benign, consisting in create pseudo-scientific-terms to apply to all those things, and disseminate it at large for their inner-related causal-impulse of saving all the world, and their social-satisfied ego.
seriously (just a little): the world, the life, is way more various then all their philosopy.. live and let live is a good starting point for anything..
[Following note]: If the author's satire is (as it may seem, and perhaps even understandable) in practice it perfectly overlaps with truly serious "studies" (including his own?) that are the true object of various reflections and some counter-satire, a bit mimetic, a bit casual. It is the true "author" behind the author, the excuse for another reflection: on something as mysterious as the human mind, countless theories can be invented, current therapies, schools, and fortunes can be built upon it, which may perhaps interest and even help someone (really?). But none seems to go beyond that, on something (diversity, strangeness, pain, and joy, and even madness) that in ancient times were the sign of the divine, of everything that goes beyond comprehension.
Today, everything seems to be resolved by applying a "cure" to a more or less tailor-made "pathology," but this is a very narrow horizon within which we lock ourselves away from life and the mind, and it is easily abused and degraded in its socio-industrial theorizing and applications.
Therefore, in my opinion, particularly regarding "preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity" (avoiding laughing, because maybe someone is genuinely worried), I believe that we need to put the spotlight on other things, such as society, culture, education, and inner growth, and the "pathologies" will be reduced to the minimum real number, on which to then elaborate a deeper reflection.
After reading this several times, I've tried to identify if your satire is trying to meet the author's satire somewhere over the Atlantic, or if it's aimed at some kind of self-reference or in-joke that I'm just not parsing.
It demonstrates the author's point from back in the 1990s so well, but also makes its own biting social commentary on how often authoritative-sounding language gets weaponized by a majority to dismiss and mock that which they fail to understand.
Impressive level of historical continuity. The dryness nearly threw me.
maybe you are right, quite sure is all 3 things at the same time :) about something that, by my point of view, is -very- easy to understand, but, i know, ymmv.
I feel that in this kind of matter, demonstrations (an others things) are in the eye of beholder, and a language that has a specific weight much greater than what it seeks to represent, set afloat in the sea of life, runs the risk of capsizing and sinking (feel free to laugh here).
it's inevitable and i'm (partially) resigned to the implications it has on whole (modern) life, but anyone who wants to continue to pathologize vivisect and classify human experience is free to do so, but (for me) regarding life, true knowledge comes first over (presumed) academicism
The point is to parody the pathologisation of cognitive functioning that differs from the societal norm (see: “neuronormativity”). You’re just reasserting that pathologisation.
“Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.”
But then the author says:
“My brain is a jewel. I am in awe of the mind that I have.”
I lose respect when I see this kind of incongruency. If you talk about other people's delusions of superiority, then how is it possible to think of yourself as a jewel? I didn’t create the account to shit on the person; it’s just rare that I comment.
"Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.”
- Yeah, those people are super annoying!
“My brain is a jewel. I am in awe of the mind that I have.”
Given the author of the page, I would completely agree with her assessment-- especially given what's happened in the ~28 years that have passed since the site went up.
You "instantly losing respect" because an autistic person dares value her own mind when others pathologize is part of the point of why it was posted. The satire wasn't there to seek approval in 1998 in the first place, amazingly.
In my opinion, that’s just a victim mentality. There is a lot of suffering in this world. When you’re above average, like the author, you should be able to recognize that, put your own problems into perspective, and compare them to what’s happening around you. From there, the natural conclusion should be to stay quiet about it
what?? such an absolutely tone-deaf and privileged thing to say. just because there is suffering in the world means that the suffering that i and others experience isn't worth speaking out about? You do know that when people talk about their problems other people that have those same problems can relate to them, and it brings a sense of relief to both parties, right?
"What if I'm the normal one and the rest of society is wrong"
This kind of framing-inversion might work as a coping mechanism to get you through some dark times as a spergy adolescent. But eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the reality of autism: it really is a neuro-developmental disorder and you actually do have deficits in social understanding, which you might be able to improve with deliberate effort. You have a lot stacked against you, but if you're well into adulthood and still stewing in this self-defeating resentment, that is a moral failing.
The linked article is old so it pre-dates the "neurodivergence" idea, but the comments here are using it uncritically. "Neurodivergence" de facto just means "autistic and/or ADHD", usually with a particular kind of autistic taking a dominant role in discussions and advocacy. It has always been a political coalition (quite an esoteric one).
But when you take ADHD on its own terms, the social-model extremism of "neurodiversity" advocates is particularly silly and harmful. ADHD people are perfectly happy with the disability-model; there clearly is something wrong with our brains, it's measurable with brain scans, and the symptoms can be improved with drugs. Don't tell me that ADHD is some equally-valid "attention orientation" or whatever social-model pretzel phrase you might come up with.
As for autism: try telling someone with severe autism, someone who can't speak or clothe or feed themselves that what they are living with is just another perfectly valid neurotype. Try telling it to their caretakers. It's a risible luxury-belief enjoyed by autistics only slightly on the spectrum, and indulged by people who don't know better.
> "What if I'm the normal one and the rest of society is wrong"
You do realise they’re not saying that in earnest, right? The point is to demonstrate the absurdity of it.
> But eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the reality of autism: it really is a neuro-developmental disorder and you actually do have deficits in social understanding, which you might be able to improve with deliberate effort.
The reality is that what you just wrote is just as true in the non-autistic → autistic direction (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1362361320919286). Blaming one side for this bidirectional mismatch is not a universal truth.
“If we start from the assumption that neurotypicals are ‘normal,’ and Autistics are ‘disordered,’ then poor connections between neurotypicals and Autistics inevitably get blamed on some ‘defect’ or ‘deficit’ in Autistics. If an Autistic can’t understand a neurotypical, it’s because Autistics have empathy deficits and impaired communication skills; if a neurotypical can’t understand an Autistic, it’s because Autistics have empathy deficits and poor communication skills. All the frictions and failures of connection between the two groups, and all the difficulties Autistics run into in neurotypical society, all get blamed on Autism. But when our vision is no longer clouded by the illusion of ‘normal,’ we can recognize this double standard for what it is, recognize it as just another manifestation of the sort of privilege and power that dominant majorities so often wield over minorities of any sort.”
> As for autism: try telling someone with severe autism, someone who can't speak or clothe or feed themselves that what they are living with is just another perfectly valid neurotype.
As for womanhood: try telling someone with severe endometriosis or menstrual pain that what they are living with is just another perfectly valid gender.
>This kind of framing-inversion might work as a coping mechanism to get you through some dark times as a spergy adolescent. But eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the reality of autism: it really is a neuro-developmental disorder and you actually do have deficits in social understanding, which you might be able to improve with deliberate effort. You have a lot stacked against you, but if you're well into adulthood and still stewing in this self-defeating resentment, that is a moral failing
You do realise Neurodivergent people have spent their life trying to make sense of the rest of the world in a way that NTs don't need to.
You call it "deficits in social understanding" I call it not understanding why people lie, and not mean what they say.
Do you term it "deficits in social understanding" when someone thinks it's wrong to murder people?
Do you term it "deficits in social understanding" when you don't understand a Neurodivergent person?
You're just equivocating statistical frequency with 'normal' and then with 'correct'.
The point of the article is to point out those flawed assumptions. Obviously your 'deficits in social understanding' prevented you from realising that.
The neurodivergent label was always incredibly stupid though. It's an entire movement trying to make it sound that having a pathological condition is fashionable. Something like a super quirky, human difference, as opposed to a health problem. Even though the condition is defined in the context of reduced functioning in society. OPs site is a good example of that flawed line of thinking.
The bigger issue is that the various illnesses under the "neurodivergent" umbrella have wide differences in impact. So you might get people who function in society and others who can't do anything. The former of which wants to make it some quirky personality trait. They both still have the condition though...
> Mental disorders are clearly not “natural kind” categories that can be defined using polythetic symptom checklists, which assume that a symptom can only be “present” or “absent” (9). In fact, it is debatable whether any medical conditions have this property. […] Thus, clinicians use the DSM framework not as the final word on psychiatric nosology but rather as one tool among others for treatment selection and communication with patients and families (11, 12).
In fact, in the case of autism, and if autism is conceptualised as a lifelong neurodevelopmental difference, the criteria logically can’t be the definition since they reference “current functioning”, which could go one way or the other for the same person depending on their circumstances.
If you were immensely intelligent to the point that most of the population found your ground breaking insight boring. Would you think you were deficient? Or different? What would others think of you? If they don't appreciate your immense intelligence they'd just think you're boring because you talk about random maths nonsense.
Is the $SPORT fan that insists on discussing sport, in a group where no one else likes sport 'deficient'? What about the non $SPORT fan in a group of fans who insist on discussing the latest game?
It's not a health problem though. Neurodivergency (christ I hate that word) is far more prevalent than you'd expect, particularly ASD and ADHD, some 20% of the population. These traits have self selected for a reason, and any issues encountered are a fault of modern society not the individual imo.
> These traits have self selected for a reason, and any issues encountered are a fault of modern society not the individual imo.
I mean, quite apart from the fact that you can be so profoundly autistic that you are vulnerable and cognitively limited, and so profoundly ADHD that you are incapable of keeping yourself safe.
I am as yet formally undiagnosed ADHD; it is obvious, so obvious to me that either I am in later life finally unable to blunder through with the ADHD patterns that are evident throughout my life, or I have early onset dementia (which is how severe it often feels).
It is in no way society's fault that I am impaired. I have no special talents from my condition that other people with better time management could not also have acquired (and often do, better than me).
There may be a benefit to society from my profound inability to manage time leading to me productively hyperfocussing on something that society wants, but this comes at a cost to my health.
So I don't really care for the idea that these traits might "select"; it is a disorder.
Sorry for your struggles. Not to speak to your specific experience but in evolutionary terms there are other ways to look at neurodivergence besides the challenges: https://complementarycognition.co.uk/
Hyperfocus for example can be highly beneficial if you manage to point it in the right direction, and in general neurodivergence tends to specialise either into explorers or exploiters, that is, those who are good at exploring the space of possible solutions, and those who are good at applying a specific solution to solve the problem at hand. Such skills can be problematic in isolation (as you've described), but in combination can be very powerful and could've therefore been instrumental to our past success as a species.
I understand this is not much comfort for an individual who is struggling, but I second the GP in saying that many modern societies are not setup to provide the best environment for the neurodivergent among us to thrive, to the detriment of everyone.
> Hyperfocus for example can be highly beneficial if you manage to point it in the right direction
If you have the social support to cope with the costs of hyperfocus: forgetting to complete other tasks, losing track of broader priorities, and the risk of burnout.
Hyperfocus is dysregulation. It just looks productive to everyone so we trick ourselves into thinking it is a benefit. But it is stealing from your present (other tasks you are neglecting) or your future (burnout).
People who can manage their time can generally get the same work done in actually a similar span of time without the downsides. Take a bit longer maybe but then won’t have days of being distracted or exhausted or ill. Viewed over any longer span of time it is clear that hyperfocus is not really a benefit to the brain with ADHD.
The genes for ADHD and autism survive because their consequences do not kill all their bearers before they get a chance to breed.
The appalling thing for me is that I have spent my life telling myself there are upsides; I have now reached an age and a set of life experiences where it is very clear there never were.
Sure, there are autistic and ADHD traits that are primarily a problem because of the structure of our modern society.
But just you try being severely ADHD, and ending up with your yogurt going bad on the counter and growing mold because your clutter blindness made you not notice it was there for 3 weeks. Or you start reading a good book, and 10 hours later you realize that you haven't had anything to eat all day, and neither has your cat. Or you just literally cannot force yourself to do basic household chores, and because you're undiagnosed you don't know why, and your roommates/significant other just decide you're lazy and selfish and kick you out.
There are plenty of neurodivergent traits that have never been net-positive, regardless if they have some specific evolutionary reason for existing. (We don't even know that they do; they may just come along for the ride with the other traits. We don't yet understand the neurophysiology of these conditions well enough to say to what extent they're just knock-on effects of something deeper.)
> written by some "expert" from the perspective that neurotypical perception is correct, and my brain is a genetic mistake.
Well, it is a mistake. It is a deviation from the normal path. But so what? "Correct" and "mistake" are not antonyms. Without any mistakes, there would no be life in the world as we know. This is not a moral codemnation of any individual.
> I and my experience of life is not inferior, and may be superior, to the NT experience of life.
I am not quite able to put in words right now, but the sentiment expressed here seems like a perfect illustration of what happens when we let society become hyper-atomized and the fetishization of the individual.
If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself. If there is anything about this duplication process that has lead to the individual's brain development with difficulties to adapt to life with their tribe, socialization and chances of finding a mate are also hindered.
So if all the tribe goes to one water source because that's what they always do. And someone decides they want to try other water sources because they don't want to use the traditional source just because it's always been done that way.
What happens when the traditional source gets contaminated?
The outsider then has an advantage.
Yes tribal dynamics require people to act like sheep, but that can lead to getting stuck in local maxima, and not having any diversity.
" the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself"
You are talking about putting all your eggs in the tribal cohesion basket.
That doesn't deal very well with black swan events. Not putting all your eggs in one basket maintains the ability of the tribe to "duplicate itself".
So given that I have provided an mechanism for improved survival of the group, that doesn't require the group to be completely homogeneous, please explain how I strawmanned your argument.
Or maybe point out what point you were trying to make, as it evidently isn't very clear
> You are talking about putting all your eggs in the tribal cohesion basket.
Sorry, that's waaaay off the mark.
I am taking about OP's remark where he wants experts to not "talk about his brain (development) having a genetic mistake", and I am saying that any individual with a brain that has developed in a way that diverges from the norm (and consequently makes it more difficult to socialize, empathize and find a mate), then we can definitely say that this brain has a "genetic mistake".
So explain
"If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself"
That is your basis for 'mistake', and the general position that you are objectively right.
I am saying divergence from the norm can also be a benefit towards the goal of keeping the ability to duplicate. Therefore you can't say that the genetic imperative to duplicate proves you are objectively right. Therefore you can't really support the view that it is a "genetic mistake", unless you want to make the claim that everything thatmakes us different from our proto 1 celled ancestors is a "genetic mistake".
You are once again taking the worst possible interpretation: every mutation is a "mistake" in the process of cellular duplication, that's all I said. Whether this "mistake" will have good or bad consequences will depend on how this is manifested in the individual and how it will fit with the environment.
No. I don't think so. Your original comment is basically 2 parts.
"If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself."
We have already discussed the above. You then proceed on that basis.
"If there is anything about this duplication process that has lead to the individual's brain development with difficulties to adapt to life with their tribe, socialization and chances of finding a mate are also hindered"
You are basically restating evolution through the process of natural selection, with the implication that Neurodivergency is bad, because you are less genetically fit.
I have, I hope demonstrated that that isn't necessarily the case. Neurodivergency can make the tribe more genetically fit, therefore the inference we are meant to draw from your post is incorrect.
Unless we are expected to ignore the context, and you are just talking about evolution abstractly. But I would hope everyone here knows the basics of evolution, so why did you repeat them for no particular reason?
Edit. Ps. My first response was more than fair, and you accused me of constructing a strawman, so please don't accuse me of using an unfair interpretation.
> I hope demonstrated that that isn't necessarily the case. Neurodivergency can make the tribe more genetically fit.
You are conflating fitness of the individual with population robustness against systemic shocks.
> But I would hope everyone here knows the basics of evolution, so why did you repeat them for no particular reason?
Because (1) not everyone understands the basics of evolution, (2) to make my argument I wanted to establish where I am coming from and (3) this is a public forum and I am not addressing you in the particular, you might feel like I am "stating the obvious" but to other people this is a pretty standard and effective way to ensure the communication is clear.
> the implication that Neurodivergency is bad, because you are less genetically fit.
I am not implying anything and I tried to be clear that there is no "good" or "bad" when you have "experts describing what is normal/typical".
>You are conflating fitness of the individual with population robustness against systemic shocks
Yes and as per my first example, the ones who don't drink the contaminated water survive. The population robustness is people doing things differently and not dying. Fitness of the individual is population robustness where that individual does something different.
>(1) not everyone understands the basics of evolution, (2) to make my argument I wanted to establish where I am coming from
Right. So did you get past (1) or not? Your argument seems to be that neurodivergents are less likely to pass on their genes. I'm saying that isn't necessarily so.
That's not how genetics of sexual reproduction works. I think it's only fair to say that we can't truly do a qualitative measure of the impact of any condition on fitness.
1) Being a hinderance does not necessarily mean evolutionary dead-ends, and some traits can still be prevalent in populations because the diversity is what protects us from systemic environment shocks.
2) Perception and adherence of hierarchies and status symbols are things present in nature for millions of years. "Capitalist society" has nothing to do with it.
Is there value to people constantly self-diagnosing themselves or seeking clinical diagnoses for neurodivergency? I don't mean this in a disparaging way; but surely constantly seeking to remind both yourself and society of your neurodivergency and any shortcomings you have with that seems almost like a crab bucket mentality that you are enveloping yourself with.
I don't have a problem with people looking inwards, but surely to maintain any kind of rationality you need to balance it by also reminding yourself to look outwards.
I got more things done in one week on ADHD meds than in the three months before that. And the only reason I went out to get a diagnosis was an ADHD meme community that constantly made me go "haha, that is so me".
If I got diagnosed 10 or 20 years earlier, I wouldn't have dropped out of university and my life would have been profoundly different and better.
It’s not really about productivity. Consider productivity an unintended benefit of the medication.
Extreme ADHD is a constantly shifting quest for volatile stimulation. This results in poor diet (extreme sugar cravings all the time), short term memory loss, failure to achieve basic tasks, obsessive behaviors, poor social framing, and more. For these extreme cases medication provides clarity that allows for more rational control of basic cognitive decisions.
Yes. It tells you to stop trying to fit in with the NT world and get on with being who you are. It could save you from a neurodivergent breakdown in your 40s that could take years to recover from. I trivialise because my wife is pressuring me to get of hn and drive her somewhere.
For me I just kind of ignore the fact that I am neurodivergent, it really doesn't matter. I always refused in school to get any help for it since it really bothered me that I should be treated different. I haven't even gotten diagnosed since I wouldn't take any medications anyway.. But to answer your question it's extremely obvious if you are neurodivergent, it's not really a question that you have to ask yourself. If you need to research or seek answers you are probably pretty normal, there's things you notice in your day to day life that people around you do not have and over the course of your childhood you will have a pretty good understanding of it.
Obviously, this is a sample of 1 so take it with a grain of salt. I am just naturally stubborn which helped me learn to deal with these problems on my own.
Depending on your context professional diagnosis might be expensive and out of reach and more importantly not incentivized. It's a space where self-diagnosis is more often than not the only path to diagnosis and understanding.
I'm myself bipolar (diagnosed) and very likely autistic (undiagnosed) and having a base understanding on the why and how my brain works has been a significant improvement.
Is this actually happening widely, or just in some spaces and it blows it out of proportions?
> constantly seeking to remind both yourself and society of your neurodivergency and any shortcomings you have with that seems almost like a crab bucket mentality
Is this what's happening or what you believe is happening? To me, it however looks like much more people are getting the help and support they need for this, compared to when I was a teenager. To me it's not learned helplessness or what it is you're trying to describe, but learning how to navigate society, and society being more aware of other's struggles. In the same vein that learning about structural racism isn't about disparaging people, but lifting everyone.
"Shortcomings" may even be the wrong word, as for many it's just different, not worse or better. Hence educating people like you is good.
Some can be improved with meditation. For example there is a roughly 60% comorbidity of ASD and ADHD and the ADHD portion can be improved with certain nonstimulant medications. Another example is that some disorders like psychosis and schizophrenia could pose harm that demands intervention.
I wouldn't put ADHD and psychosis in the same bucket.
Some is being different to various degrees(with having more problems to adjust to modern life without medication), the other is having a mental illness where most cannot perceive reality undistorted anymore.
This appears to assume that seeking diagnosis is somehow self-limitation instead of functional troubleshooting.
In practice, understanding one's neurotype can provide the foundation necessary towards addressing friction, dealing with environments developed exclusively for a radically different baseline, and getting the support and care necessary to have a reasonable quality of life.
The alternatives often lead to massive dysfunction, especially since it compounds with systemic gaslighting and being told that the hell you're experiencing is normal and that it's a character flaw to have any difficulties or differences.
The satire of ISNT frames the very real negative framing that was already deeply pervasive 28 years ago.
Yes. We seek answers to why we feel so different or out of place socially living in a society. It has nothing to do with reminding ourselves of our shortcomings (although some do find humor in self-deprecation), but with the ways that society constantly reminds us that our brains are not wired the same way as everyone else. Frankly to even consider neurodivergency as shortcomings or a crab bucket mentality only furthers the narrative that neurodivergency is inherently a negative trait, when that is categorically false. It is much closer to feeling like a square in a world full of circular holes and the desire for diagnosis lies in understanding that.
Some folks won't get it, no matter how well you explain it, because they do not seek to understand in the first place. For them, being reminded that there is somebody out there that is somewhat different from them is already an annoyance, even before they realize they don't even understand you.
Whether you are neurodivergent, LGBTQ, or you get around on a bicycle, they treat you with the same derision and lack of sincere curiosity. Lindsay Gibson has written about these sorts of folks.
I'm 42. Autism as it applies to me wasn't really on the radar for most of my life. I have always had to deal with the majority of people thinking different to me. Knowing the label gives me access to tools and research, so I'm not just one weird individual.
What does your point look like when you remove the presumption of shortcomings? I feel that it’s you who might have missed the point of the original post, unless you were just making an unrelated point because neurodivergence happened to be mentioned.
> Neurotypical individuals often assume that their experience of the world is either the only one, or the only correct one. […] NTs are often intolerant of seemingly minor differences in others. When in groups NTs are socially and behaviorally rigid, and frequently insist upon the performance of dysfunctional, destructive, and even impossible rituals as a way of maintaining group identity.
What’s your point? I also don’t get it. Neurotypicality is by definition outward, neurodivergence is defined by your relation to the overall society expectations
It’s obvious that this page was written by an autistic person because the top third is a fairly witty and insightful joke and the bottom third is an explanation of the joke.
As someone who relates to the article, it reads a lot less like humor. It's a grim reality.
Constantly being told there's something wrong with you, only to see clearly those around you, has a profoundly awful impact. Eventually it's replaced by more accurate internal modeling.
> Constantly being told there's something wrong with you
Worse yet, there's likely much less wrong with you than there is with those who feel they need to label you as somehow "less" to feel like "more" themselves.
+1
I sometimes wonder if there are other possible neurodivergence, I'm not neurotypical, but I'm also not autistic (at least according to the criteria I've seen), just a bit odd or quirky doesn't seem to be enough.
Neurodivergent is absolutely not a synonym for autistic.
https://sherlocksflataffect.tumblr.com/post/121295972384/psa...
https://neuroqueer.com/neurodiversity-terms-and-definitions/
Thanks for the links - from the OP post "Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity." I know this is a gag, but I see things like this and think oh maybe I'm autistic but no, I have the same complaints autistic people have, I just call it deathly dull, who knows.
See also "Am I German or Autistic?", which despite the cheeky title, does a pretty good job showing the balance between cultural and mindset patterns and autism spectrum traits. https://german.millermanschool.com
Disappointing - it seems I'm neither German or Autistic, but normal, and yet my experience suggests otherwise
High level masking may be involved. "Non-autistic people don't spend time worrying if they are autistic." --sol smith.
Maybe, I do like trains, but apart from that...
I'm highly gifted, which has overlap with many autism traits. Maybe something to look at.
ADHD, OCD, BPD, bipolar are all forms of neurodivergent. I'm sure there are more too.
Have you looked into ADHD?
Thanks, I didn't really mean it was a negative, perhaps this is indicative of the problem - someone finds things odd, therefore here's a list of diagnoses. I should up my dosage of soma probably.
Ah apologies, didn't mean to pathologise you; for some, having a suitable label helps in understanding oneself and finding helpful accomodations.
thats ok, I'm not really disturbed. I do wonder if there's evolving a restricted definition of 'normal' in some circles. I am older and it never used to be this way, it's the internet of course. People aren't that homogenised (imho).
Well it is a spectrum.
I don't display the obvious traits, like stimming.
And then there's autistic burn out, where you can't concentrate on things anymore.
I found the Austistamatic YouTube channel quite helpful fwiw.
Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_parody
I'm torn on whether I like this parody.
It is quite funny and IMO in good taste (which is hard to do when diagnosing 9,625 out of every 10,000 as deficient). It probably works well as an in-joke for people who prefer critical thinking to social proof.
But it isn't really appropriate to fight fire with fire when it comes to calling people disordered and the people who need to hear the message won't understand it because they key off social proof. In fact, they may literally not understand the gentle ribbing and might respond poorly.
3/5 stars.
>In fact, they may literally not understand the gentle ribbing and might respond poorly.
That, IMHO, is what makes it so delicious.
"They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me." - Nathaniel Lee, playwright, on being confined to a madhouse for 5 years.
Taking jabs at the majoritarian viewpoints enough to get noticed rarely ends well.
It’s probably worth noting it’s (2002) too. The internet was a different audience.
I don’t think it’s so much as fighting fire with fire, as just reframing and correcting the usual biased assumptions about what it means to be “typical”.
I like to call NTs Neuro boring. Or 'Nobs' for short...
> t probably works well as an in-joke for people who prefer critical thinking to social proof.
Autistic and neuroatypical are not better critical thinkers. Fairly often they just ... dont understand certain things.
And wont accept clear straightforward plain language explanation of what others want, because in their heads they should not.
> wont accept clear straightforward plain language explanation of what others want
From experience this feels to me like a very NT thing to say (apologies if you're not NT, no context to determine either way) - it comes across as written: "Why can't you just do what I ask you".
Often it feels atypical people require a logical understanding from first principles of why something should be done.
Then, once they have that they need to come to the same conclusion of what the course of action is.
If they're aligned, awesome.
If not, then the work is to try to make them understand why, given the current constraints and cultural context, their optimal approach is suboptimal in this situation.
Something as simple as "yes your idea is great, it will work better then theirs, but sometimes others need to fail so that they can learn from their failure" - exact quote.
I'm speaking to a very limited subset here based on quite a bit of exposure in many contexts.
"Neuroatypical" shows up in many, many ways.
Allistic and neurotypical people are not better critical thinkers either. Fairly often they just… don't understand certain things.
And wont accept clear straightforward plain language explanation of what others want, because in their heads they should not.
What? You try reading the actual written policies of any large organisation. Then find the places where they aren't following their rules, then point out with reference to the written rules what they're doing wrong. Then see what happens.
> This site is an expression of autistic outrage.
Obviously. It would come off as sarcastic humor if so many of the basic facts were correct. Neurotypical people are only just above 80% of the population, so the author is in more common company than they believe.
Well the original is more than 20 years old; hopefully they are feeling a bit happier now.
Being somewhat odd is normal.
agree, as being normal is somewath odd.
So true. NT people are so frustrating!
The scenario which drives me insane is; someone tells me some popular mainstream narrative about why we should do something in a particular way. Essentially just parroting expert consensus on a similar topic. I tell them exactly why this approach wouldn't work in that particular case and they concede to all my points. They fully agree and don't push back on anything.
But then a few minutes later, they're still pushing for the exact same mainstream expert consensus approach and ignoring all my earlier points which they had literally just agreed to. WTF.
The impression I get is that they liked how my arguments sounded superficially and felt that other people in the meeting also agreed but they didn't actually understand any of it! It's like they only absorbed it in a very superficial way; just enough to allow them to rephrase it or to add a few supporting points but somehow they really didn't actually understand the essence of the argument.
This kind of situation reminds me of the wordcel vs shape rotator discussion from a few years back. NT people are like wordcels.
David Chase(the wonderful creator of The Sopranos) has said on more than one occasion that people don’t say what they mean.
I think in your scenario that’s applying both ways.
This has been a theme for me over the past couple of years. I'm noticing the limitations of words and language, including those that come out of my own mouth.
You can choose your words carefully, but it's useless unless your audience knows to look for those nuances.
Sometimes, in group meetings, I've caught myself repeating something twice in a slightly different way to increase the probability that people understood it correctly. But you can't repeat yourself all the time or else people will think something's wrong with you.
If peoples' attributes exist on a normal distribution and you keep coming up with new attributes to measure, eventually everyone will have at least one extreme attribute..
Oh yes and probably the authors themselves have a related form on neuro-atypical-divergence know as neuro-tragically-compulsive-analisys disorder, related to a quite common social-accademic-pressure about being in control and classificate all things they do not have in control and that they do not clearly can relate with, causing a pathology, relatively benign, consisting in create pseudo-scientific-terms to apply to all those things, and disseminate it at large for their inner-related causal-impulse of saving all the world, and their social-satisfied ego.
seriously (just a little): the world, the life, is way more various then all their philosopy.. live and let live is a good starting point for anything..
[Following note]: If the author's satire is (as it may seem, and perhaps even understandable) in practice it perfectly overlaps with truly serious "studies" (including his own?) that are the true object of various reflections and some counter-satire, a bit mimetic, a bit casual. It is the true "author" behind the author, the excuse for another reflection: on something as mysterious as the human mind, countless theories can be invented, current therapies, schools, and fortunes can be built upon it, which may perhaps interest and even help someone (really?). But none seems to go beyond that, on something (diversity, strangeness, pain, and joy, and even madness) that in ancient times were the sign of the divine, of everything that goes beyond comprehension.
Today, everything seems to be resolved by applying a "cure" to a more or less tailor-made "pathology," but this is a very narrow horizon within which we lock ourselves away from life and the mind, and it is easily abused and degraded in its socio-industrial theorizing and applications.
Therefore, in my opinion, particularly regarding "preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity" (avoiding laughing, because maybe someone is genuinely worried), I believe that we need to put the spotlight on other things, such as society, culture, education, and inner growth, and the "pathologies" will be reduced to the minimum real number, on which to then elaborate a deeper reflection.
After reading this several times, I've tried to identify if your satire is trying to meet the author's satire somewhere over the Atlantic, or if it's aimed at some kind of self-reference or in-joke that I'm just not parsing.
It demonstrates the author's point from back in the 1990s so well, but also makes its own biting social commentary on how often authoritative-sounding language gets weaponized by a majority to dismiss and mock that which they fail to understand.
Impressive level of historical continuity. The dryness nearly threw me.
maybe you are right, quite sure is all 3 things at the same time :) about something that, by my point of view, is -very- easy to understand, but, i know, ymmv.
I feel that in this kind of matter, demonstrations (an others things) are in the eye of beholder, and a language that has a specific weight much greater than what it seeks to represent, set afloat in the sea of life, runs the risk of capsizing and sinking (feel free to laugh here).
it's inevitable and i'm (partially) resigned to the implications it has on whole (modern) life, but anyone who wants to continue to pathologize vivisect and classify human experience is free to do so, but (for me) regarding life, true knowledge comes first over (presumed) academicism
"tragically, 9625 out of 10'000 don't have issues"
is it only me or this sounds crazy evil?
The point is to parody the pathologisation of cognitive functioning that differs from the societal norm (see: “neuronormativity”). You’re just reasserting that pathologisation.
It started well. I laughed at the first sentence:
“Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.”
But then the author says:
“My brain is a jewel. I am in awe of the mind that I have.”
Lost all respect instantly.
You lost respect for a person and their writing because they like their brain and how it works?
How so? Why? What drove this comment? Zero karma account; did you create it just to shit on this person?
I lose respect when I see this kind of incongruency. If you talk about other people's delusions of superiority, then how is it possible to think of yourself as a jewel? I didn’t create the account to shit on the person; it’s just rare that I comment.
I see no incongruity. If the other people are deluded it doesn't mean that the op isn't superior.
Let me try to explain
"Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.”
- Yeah, those people are super annoying!
“My brain is a jewel. I am in awe of the mind that I have.”
- Yeah, those people are super annoying!
Given the author of the page, I would completely agree with her assessment-- especially given what's happened in the ~28 years that have passed since the site went up.
You "instantly losing respect" because an autistic person dares value her own mind when others pathologize is part of the point of why it was posted. The satire wasn't there to seek approval in 1998 in the first place, amazingly.
> Lost all respect instantly.
Just imagine there’s a cult that tells everyone that you and people like you are a mistake that should have been killed or “fixed” in the womb.
I maintain respect for the author, they have a good attitude in a grim reality.
In my opinion, that’s just a victim mentality. There is a lot of suffering in this world. When you’re above average, like the author, you should be able to recognize that, put your own problems into perspective, and compare them to what’s happening around you. From there, the natural conclusion should be to stay quiet about it
It’s not the “natural conclusion” at all; it’s a fallacy of relative privation.
>stay quiet about it
what?? such an absolutely tone-deaf and privileged thing to say. just because there is suffering in the world means that the suffering that i and others experience isn't worth speaking out about? You do know that when people talk about their problems other people that have those same problems can relate to them, and it brings a sense of relief to both parties, right?
"What if I'm the normal one and the rest of society is wrong"
This kind of framing-inversion might work as a coping mechanism to get you through some dark times as a spergy adolescent. But eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the reality of autism: it really is a neuro-developmental disorder and you actually do have deficits in social understanding, which you might be able to improve with deliberate effort. You have a lot stacked against you, but if you're well into adulthood and still stewing in this self-defeating resentment, that is a moral failing.
The linked article is old so it pre-dates the "neurodivergence" idea, but the comments here are using it uncritically. "Neurodivergence" de facto just means "autistic and/or ADHD", usually with a particular kind of autistic taking a dominant role in discussions and advocacy. It has always been a political coalition (quite an esoteric one).
But when you take ADHD on its own terms, the social-model extremism of "neurodiversity" advocates is particularly silly and harmful. ADHD people are perfectly happy with the disability-model; there clearly is something wrong with our brains, it's measurable with brain scans, and the symptoms can be improved with drugs. Don't tell me that ADHD is some equally-valid "attention orientation" or whatever social-model pretzel phrase you might come up with.
As for autism: try telling someone with severe autism, someone who can't speak or clothe or feed themselves that what they are living with is just another perfectly valid neurotype. Try telling it to their caretakers. It's a risible luxury-belief enjoyed by autistics only slightly on the spectrum, and indulged by people who don't know better.
> "What if I'm the normal one and the rest of society is wrong"
You do realise they’re not saying that in earnest, right? The point is to demonstrate the absurdity of it.
> But eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the reality of autism: it really is a neuro-developmental disorder and you actually do have deficits in social understanding, which you might be able to improve with deliberate effort.
The reality is that what you just wrote is just as true in the non-autistic → autistic direction (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1362361320919286). Blaming one side for this bidirectional mismatch is not a universal truth.
https://neuroqueer.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools/
“If we start from the assumption that neurotypicals are ‘normal,’ and Autistics are ‘disordered,’ then poor connections between neurotypicals and Autistics inevitably get blamed on some ‘defect’ or ‘deficit’ in Autistics. If an Autistic can’t understand a neurotypical, it’s because Autistics have empathy deficits and impaired communication skills; if a neurotypical can’t understand an Autistic, it’s because Autistics have empathy deficits and poor communication skills. All the frictions and failures of connection between the two groups, and all the difficulties Autistics run into in neurotypical society, all get blamed on Autism. But when our vision is no longer clouded by the illusion of ‘normal,’ we can recognize this double standard for what it is, recognize it as just another manifestation of the sort of privilege and power that dominant majorities so often wield over minorities of any sort.”
> As for autism: try telling someone with severe autism, someone who can't speak or clothe or feed themselves that what they are living with is just another perfectly valid neurotype.
As for womanhood: try telling someone with severe endometriosis or menstrual pain that what they are living with is just another perfectly valid gender.
>This kind of framing-inversion might work as a coping mechanism to get you through some dark times as a spergy adolescent. But eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the reality of autism: it really is a neuro-developmental disorder and you actually do have deficits in social understanding, which you might be able to improve with deliberate effort. You have a lot stacked against you, but if you're well into adulthood and still stewing in this self-defeating resentment, that is a moral failing
You do realise Neurodivergent people have spent their life trying to make sense of the rest of the world in a way that NTs don't need to.
You call it "deficits in social understanding" I call it not understanding why people lie, and not mean what they say.
Do you term it "deficits in social understanding" when someone thinks it's wrong to murder people?
Do you term it "deficits in social understanding" when you don't understand a Neurodivergent person?
You're just equivocating statistical frequency with 'normal' and then with 'correct'.
The point of the article is to point out those flawed assumptions. Obviously your 'deficits in social understanding' prevented you from realising that.
.... Or is that a moral failing?
The neurodivergent label was always incredibly stupid though. It's an entire movement trying to make it sound that having a pathological condition is fashionable. Something like a super quirky, human difference, as opposed to a health problem. Even though the condition is defined in the context of reduced functioning in society. OPs site is a good example of that flawed line of thinking.
The bigger issue is that the various illnesses under the "neurodivergent" umbrella have wide differences in impact. So you might get people who function in society and others who can't do anything. The former of which wants to make it some quirky personality trait. They both still have the condition though...
^ Bulverism.
> Even though the condition is defined in the context of reduced functioning in society.
Diagnostic criteria are not a definition. Even the organisation that publishes the DSM acknowledges it: https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.20250876
> Mental disorders are clearly not “natural kind” categories that can be defined using polythetic symptom checklists, which assume that a symptom can only be “present” or “absent” (9). In fact, it is debatable whether any medical conditions have this property. […] Thus, clinicians use the DSM framework not as the final word on psychiatric nosology but rather as one tool among others for treatment selection and communication with patients and families (11, 12).
In fact, in the case of autism, and if autism is conceptualised as a lifelong neurodevelopmental difference, the criteria logically can’t be the definition since they reference “current functioning”, which could go one way or the other for the same person depending on their circumstances.
This kind of reaction is exactly why the ISNT page appeared in 1998.
It's understandable though. Would you like to think of yourself as deficient, even if you really are?
But you're kind of missing the point.
If you were immensely intelligent to the point that most of the population found your ground breaking insight boring. Would you think you were deficient? Or different? What would others think of you? If they don't appreciate your immense intelligence they'd just think you're boring because you talk about random maths nonsense.
Is the $SPORT fan that insists on discussing sport, in a group where no one else likes sport 'deficient'? What about the non $SPORT fan in a group of fans who insist on discussing the latest game?
It's not a health problem though. Neurodivergency (christ I hate that word) is far more prevalent than you'd expect, particularly ASD and ADHD, some 20% of the population. These traits have self selected for a reason, and any issues encountered are a fault of modern society not the individual imo.
Do you think there was ever a time when systemizing type thinking was more beneficial than now?
> These traits have self selected for a reason, and any issues encountered are a fault of modern society not the individual imo.
I mean, quite apart from the fact that you can be so profoundly autistic that you are vulnerable and cognitively limited, and so profoundly ADHD that you are incapable of keeping yourself safe.
I am as yet formally undiagnosed ADHD; it is obvious, so obvious to me that either I am in later life finally unable to blunder through with the ADHD patterns that are evident throughout my life, or I have early onset dementia (which is how severe it often feels).
It is in no way society's fault that I am impaired. I have no special talents from my condition that other people with better time management could not also have acquired (and often do, better than me).
There may be a benefit to society from my profound inability to manage time leading to me productively hyperfocussing on something that society wants, but this comes at a cost to my health.
So I don't really care for the idea that these traits might "select"; it is a disorder.
Sorry for your struggles. Not to speak to your specific experience but in evolutionary terms there are other ways to look at neurodivergence besides the challenges: https://complementarycognition.co.uk/
Hyperfocus for example can be highly beneficial if you manage to point it in the right direction, and in general neurodivergence tends to specialise either into explorers or exploiters, that is, those who are good at exploring the space of possible solutions, and those who are good at applying a specific solution to solve the problem at hand. Such skills can be problematic in isolation (as you've described), but in combination can be very powerful and could've therefore been instrumental to our past success as a species.
I understand this is not much comfort for an individual who is struggling, but I second the GP in saying that many modern societies are not setup to provide the best environment for the neurodivergent among us to thrive, to the detriment of everyone.
> Hyperfocus for example can be highly beneficial if you manage to point it in the right direction
If you have the social support to cope with the costs of hyperfocus: forgetting to complete other tasks, losing track of broader priorities, and the risk of burnout.
Hyperfocus is dysregulation. It just looks productive to everyone so we trick ourselves into thinking it is a benefit. But it is stealing from your present (other tasks you are neglecting) or your future (burnout).
People who can manage their time can generally get the same work done in actually a similar span of time without the downsides. Take a bit longer maybe but then won’t have days of being distracted or exhausted or ill. Viewed over any longer span of time it is clear that hyperfocus is not really a benefit to the brain with ADHD.
Do you not think that if your life consisted of chasing a gazelle once or twice a week you'd be suited to it? Evolutionary timelines are long.
More suited to it than others? No.
There is no upside to what I experience.
The genes for ADHD and autism survive because their consequences do not kill all their bearers before they get a chance to breed.
The appalling thing for me is that I have spent my life telling myself there are upsides; I have now reached an age and a set of life experiences where it is very clear there never were.
You can accept yourself though, which seems to be the important element.
If you can't walk you have a disability, but that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't live a fulfilling life.
I do have Autism, rather than ADHD, so I appreciate we probably have different viewpoints on this.
This is absolutely untrue.
Sure, there are autistic and ADHD traits that are primarily a problem because of the structure of our modern society.
But just you try being severely ADHD, and ending up with your yogurt going bad on the counter and growing mold because your clutter blindness made you not notice it was there for 3 weeks. Or you start reading a good book, and 10 hours later you realize that you haven't had anything to eat all day, and neither has your cat. Or you just literally cannot force yourself to do basic household chores, and because you're undiagnosed you don't know why, and your roommates/significant other just decide you're lazy and selfish and kick you out.
There are plenty of neurodivergent traits that have never been net-positive, regardless if they have some specific evolutionary reason for existing. (We don't even know that they do; they may just come along for the ride with the other traits. We don't yet understand the neurophysiology of these conditions well enough to say to what extent they're just knock-on effects of something deeper.)
> written by some "expert" from the perspective that neurotypical perception is correct, and my brain is a genetic mistake.
Well, it is a mistake. It is a deviation from the normal path. But so what? "Correct" and "mistake" are not antonyms. Without any mistakes, there would no be life in the world as we know. This is not a moral codemnation of any individual.
> I and my experience of life is not inferior, and may be superior, to the NT experience of life.
I am not quite able to put in words right now, but the sentiment expressed here seems like a perfect illustration of what happens when we let society become hyper-atomized and the fetishization of the individual.
> Well, it is a mistake.
If you say it is a mistake, then you must know what the goal is.
If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself. If there is anything about this duplication process that has lead to the individual's brain development with difficulties to adapt to life with their tribe, socialization and chances of finding a mate are also hindered.
So if all the tribe goes to one water source because that's what they always do. And someone decides they want to try other water sources because they don't want to use the traditional source just because it's always been done that way.
What happens when the traditional source gets contaminated?
The outsider then has an advantage.
Yes tribal dynamics require people to act like sheep, but that can lead to getting stuck in local maxima, and not having any diversity.
Amazing strawman you built here. Very impressive. Now try to argue the actual point, maybe?
" the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself"
You are talking about putting all your eggs in the tribal cohesion basket.
That doesn't deal very well with black swan events. Not putting all your eggs in one basket maintains the ability of the tribe to "duplicate itself".
So given that I have provided an mechanism for improved survival of the group, that doesn't require the group to be completely homogeneous, please explain how I strawmanned your argument.
Or maybe point out what point you were trying to make, as it evidently isn't very clear
> You are talking about putting all your eggs in the tribal cohesion basket.
Sorry, that's waaaay off the mark.
I am taking about OP's remark where he wants experts to not "talk about his brain (development) having a genetic mistake", and I am saying that any individual with a brain that has developed in a way that diverges from the norm (and consequently makes it more difficult to socialize, empathize and find a mate), then we can definitely say that this brain has a "genetic mistake".
So explain "If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself"
That is your basis for 'mistake', and the general position that you are objectively right.
I am saying divergence from the norm can also be a benefit towards the goal of keeping the ability to duplicate. Therefore you can't say that the genetic imperative to duplicate proves you are objectively right. Therefore you can't really support the view that it is a "genetic mistake", unless you want to make the claim that everything thatmakes us different from our proto 1 celled ancestors is a "genetic mistake".
You are once again taking the worst possible interpretation: every mutation is a "mistake" in the process of cellular duplication, that's all I said. Whether this "mistake" will have good or bad consequences will depend on how this is manifested in the individual and how it will fit with the environment.
No. I don't think so. Your original comment is basically 2 parts.
"If we are talking about genes, the goal is to keep the ability to duplicate itself."
We have already discussed the above. You then proceed on that basis.
"If there is anything about this duplication process that has lead to the individual's brain development with difficulties to adapt to life with their tribe, socialization and chances of finding a mate are also hindered"
You are basically restating evolution through the process of natural selection, with the implication that Neurodivergency is bad, because you are less genetically fit.
I have, I hope demonstrated that that isn't necessarily the case. Neurodivergency can make the tribe more genetically fit, therefore the inference we are meant to draw from your post is incorrect.
Unless we are expected to ignore the context, and you are just talking about evolution abstractly. But I would hope everyone here knows the basics of evolution, so why did you repeat them for no particular reason?
Edit. Ps. My first response was more than fair, and you accused me of constructing a strawman, so please don't accuse me of using an unfair interpretation.
> I hope demonstrated that that isn't necessarily the case. Neurodivergency can make the tribe more genetically fit.
You are conflating fitness of the individual with population robustness against systemic shocks.
> But I would hope everyone here knows the basics of evolution, so why did you repeat them for no particular reason?
Because (1) not everyone understands the basics of evolution, (2) to make my argument I wanted to establish where I am coming from and (3) this is a public forum and I am not addressing you in the particular, you might feel like I am "stating the obvious" but to other people this is a pretty standard and effective way to ensure the communication is clear.
> the implication that Neurodivergency is bad, because you are less genetically fit.
I am not implying anything and I tried to be clear that there is no "good" or "bad" when you have "experts describing what is normal/typical".
>You are conflating fitness of the individual with population robustness against systemic shocks
Yes and as per my first example, the ones who don't drink the contaminated water survive. The population robustness is people doing things differently and not dying. Fitness of the individual is population robustness where that individual does something different.
>(1) not everyone understands the basics of evolution, (2) to make my argument I wanted to establish where I am coming from
Right. So did you get past (1) or not? Your argument seems to be that neurodivergents are less likely to pass on their genes. I'm saying that isn't necessarily so.
The prevalance of these traits shows that it wasn't always a hinderance. Capitalist society predominantly valuing conformity is the issue.
That's not how genetics of sexual reproduction works. I think it's only fair to say that we can't truly do a qualitative measure of the impact of any condition on fitness.
1) Being a hinderance does not necessarily mean evolutionary dead-ends, and some traits can still be prevalent in populations because the diversity is what protects us from systemic environment shocks.
2) Perception and adherence of hierarchies and status symbols are things present in nature for millions of years. "Capitalist society" has nothing to do with it.
> Well, it is a mistake. It is a deviation from the normal path.
This is a non sequitur. Why do you assume variation is a “mistake”? And how do you define “normal”?
Is there value to people constantly self-diagnosing themselves or seeking clinical diagnoses for neurodivergency? I don't mean this in a disparaging way; but surely constantly seeking to remind both yourself and society of your neurodivergency and any shortcomings you have with that seems almost like a crab bucket mentality that you are enveloping yourself with.
I don't have a problem with people looking inwards, but surely to maintain any kind of rationality you need to balance it by also reminding yourself to look outwards.
I got more things done in one week on ADHD meds than in the three months before that. And the only reason I went out to get a diagnosis was an ADHD meme community that constantly made me go "haha, that is so me".
If I got diagnosed 10 or 20 years earlier, I wouldn't have dropped out of university and my life would have been profoundly different and better.
Productivity is not the most important thing to me— because it’s too easy to get the wrong things done.
It’s not really about productivity. Consider productivity an unintended benefit of the medication.
Extreme ADHD is a constantly shifting quest for volatile stimulation. This results in poor diet (extreme sugar cravings all the time), short term memory loss, failure to achieve basic tasks, obsessive behaviors, poor social framing, and more. For these extreme cases medication provides clarity that allows for more rational control of basic cognitive decisions.
Yes. It tells you to stop trying to fit in with the NT world and get on with being who you are. It could save you from a neurodivergent breakdown in your 40s that could take years to recover from. I trivialise because my wife is pressuring me to get of hn and drive her somewhere.
For me I just kind of ignore the fact that I am neurodivergent, it really doesn't matter. I always refused in school to get any help for it since it really bothered me that I should be treated different. I haven't even gotten diagnosed since I wouldn't take any medications anyway.. But to answer your question it's extremely obvious if you are neurodivergent, it's not really a question that you have to ask yourself. If you need to research or seek answers you are probably pretty normal, there's things you notice in your day to day life that people around you do not have and over the course of your childhood you will have a pretty good understanding of it.
Obviously, this is a sample of 1 so take it with a grain of salt. I am just naturally stubborn which helped me learn to deal with these problems on my own.
Why do you think this person is self diagnosed?
Depending on your context professional diagnosis might be expensive and out of reach and more importantly not incentivized. It's a space where self-diagnosis is more often than not the only path to diagnosis and understanding.
I'm myself bipolar (diagnosed) and very likely autistic (undiagnosed) and having a base understanding on the why and how my brain works has been a significant improvement.
> people constantly self-diagnosing
Is this actually happening widely, or just in some spaces and it blows it out of proportions?
> constantly seeking to remind both yourself and society of your neurodivergency and any shortcomings you have with that seems almost like a crab bucket mentality
Is this what's happening or what you believe is happening? To me, it however looks like much more people are getting the help and support they need for this, compared to when I was a teenager. To me it's not learned helplessness or what it is you're trying to describe, but learning how to navigate society, and society being more aware of other's struggles. In the same vein that learning about structural racism isn't about disparaging people, but lifting everyone.
"Shortcomings" may even be the wrong word, as for many it's just different, not worse or better. Hence educating people like you is good.
Some can be improved with meditation. For example there is a roughly 60% comorbidity of ASD and ADHD and the ADHD portion can be improved with certain nonstimulant medications. Another example is that some disorders like psychosis and schizophrenia could pose harm that demands intervention.
I wouldn't put ADHD and psychosis in the same bucket.
Some is being different to various degrees(with having more problems to adjust to modern life without medication), the other is having a mental illness where most cannot perceive reality undistorted anymore.
They are not similar yet it’s all neurodivergence.
This appears to assume that seeking diagnosis is somehow self-limitation instead of functional troubleshooting.
In practice, understanding one's neurotype can provide the foundation necessary towards addressing friction, dealing with environments developed exclusively for a radically different baseline, and getting the support and care necessary to have a reasonable quality of life.
The alternatives often lead to massive dysfunction, especially since it compounds with systemic gaslighting and being told that the hell you're experiencing is normal and that it's a character flaw to have any difficulties or differences.
The satire of ISNT frames the very real negative framing that was already deeply pervasive 28 years ago.
Yes. We seek answers to why we feel so different or out of place socially living in a society. It has nothing to do with reminding ourselves of our shortcomings (although some do find humor in self-deprecation), but with the ways that society constantly reminds us that our brains are not wired the same way as everyone else. Frankly to even consider neurodivergency as shortcomings or a crab bucket mentality only furthers the narrative that neurodivergency is inherently a negative trait, when that is categorically false. It is much closer to feeling like a square in a world full of circular holes and the desire for diagnosis lies in understanding that.
Some folks won't get it, no matter how well you explain it, because they do not seek to understand in the first place. For them, being reminded that there is somebody out there that is somewhat different from them is already an annoyance, even before they realize they don't even understand you.
Whether you are neurodivergent, LGBTQ, or you get around on a bicycle, they treat you with the same derision and lack of sincere curiosity. Lindsay Gibson has written about these sorts of folks.
I'm 42. Autism as it applies to me wasn't really on the radar for most of my life. I have always had to deal with the majority of people thinking different to me. Knowing the label gives me access to tools and research, so I'm not just one weird individual.
Neurodivergence does not require a diagnosis. https://sherlocksflataffect.tumblr.com/post/121295972384/psa...
And looking outwards is exactly what it does since it references societal neuronormativity. It’s not about the “shortcomings you have”.
> Neurodivergence does not require a diagnosis.
It does if you require to be treated specially.
If you're looking outwards merely just to look inwards again, then you're missing the point of what I'm trying to say.
What does your point look like when you remove the presumption of shortcomings? I feel that it’s you who might have missed the point of the original post, unless you were just making an unrelated point because neurodivergence happened to be mentioned.
> Neurotypical individuals often assume that their experience of the world is either the only one, or the only correct one. […] NTs are often intolerant of seemingly minor differences in others. When in groups NTs are socially and behaviorally rigid, and frequently insist upon the performance of dysfunctional, destructive, and even impossible rituals as a way of maintaining group identity.
What’s your point? I also don’t get it. Neurotypicality is by definition outward, neurodivergence is defined by your relation to the overall society expectations