# For the Neurodivergent Folks **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 7, 2025, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602 "2025-07-07T18:47:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![MW\_Degen\_Gamblr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ec9cab/32.png) [@MW\_Degen\_Gamblr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MW_Degen_Gamblr)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/162 "2025-07-13T02:58:26Z")
I’m probably the most neurodivergent person you’ll meet in a space like this. Diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school, I’ve spent most of my life living inside a brain that doesn’t always cooperate. In the past, I’ve been pretty candid about my diagnosis. I believed that honesty was the best way to avoid misunderstandings and get ahead of awkward situations. Lately though, I’ve hesitated to share. The reactions aren’t always what I hoped for. Sometimes people judge me. Worse, my allies pity me. And then there are the armchair psychiatrists who show up uninvited, insisting I must have something “more serious” than ADHD—usually based on symptoms they don’t understand or don’t expect from someone with ADHD alone. That’s part of the problem. My symptoms tend to be more severe, and many of them go beyond the simplified ADHD “quirks” you might see on TikTok or in influencer content. There’s a survivorship bias in how we talk about neurodivergence. People with less disruptive symptoms—who can hold down a 9 to 5 or play the social media game—are more visible. Those of us who function less “smoothly” are pushed to the margins, and it creates this false perception that there’s a typical or tidy way to be neurodivergent. Sometimes I wonder if I’m also autistic. I scored a 129 on that test above, which raises questions. I don’t mask well—sometimes I can’t, sometimes I just won’t. I get imposter syndrome when I try. Masking feels like I’m pretending to be someone I’m not, and I worry that if people see the “real me” later, they’ll feel misled. So I usually just lay it all out up front. Better to be unapologetically real than get hit with a nasty surprise when people realize I’m not who they expected. My social anxiety plays into this too. I’ve found that being irreverent—helps me push through the awkwardness. In real life mostly, I mean. I have less social anxiety online and the irreverence is much more natural. Another thing I think about a lot: how neurodivergent people relate to animals. Most of us have some form of sensory sensitivity. Being around a large, energetic dog can be a full-on sensory experience—like a 9 out of 10. I like dogs, but only in small doses. Cats and parrots are more my speed. I’d love to know how other neurodivergent folks navigate the intense sensory input that can come from our furry friends. ADHD has impacted my life in deeply negative ways. I want to pursue more than just medication. The side effects can be brutal, and medication alone doesn’t feel like enough. I’m craving real, comprehensive support—psychotherapy, yes, but also every effective tip, trick, and hack professionals can throw at me. When I say I want to be treated holistically, I don’t mean I’m looking for crystals and shit. I mean I want a trained professional to look at the full picture and go all-in—kitchen sink style. I’m game for anything that works. If you relate to any of this, I see you. And if you don’t—maybe this helps you understand someone in your life who lives a little louder, struggles a little more, and still shows up every day trying to figure it out. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/163 "2025-07-13T03:26:35Z")
I’m not super worried about RFK Jr. in a way where I would try to do something about it (and my kid’s therapist hasn’t said that they’re worried either) but it does sort of cross my mind from time to time. Hm. The life coach you looked at may have been 100% grifting, but they aren’t all. We used a life coach for my daughter for a while who was trained as a therapist but had set up as a life coach, and yeah, it did allow her to be more flexible. I’m pretty sure she didn’t bill to insurance either but she did have a generous sliding scale (which we didn’t take advantage of because we’re lucky enough not to have to). But she was really excellent, one of the two mental health people I’ve seen (for either my child or myself) that I super respect and thought was amazing and actually useful, whereas I was very underwhelmed by the rest of the ones we have used. But we also got that life coach’s info through personal recommendation (not just, idk, advertisement) so we knew that she wasn’t a grifter. I have no idea how you would find a life coach without a personal rec, and I’d totally believe that the vast majority are either grifters or incompetent. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/164 "2025-07-13T03:29:22Z")
Great post. > [@MW\_Degen\_Gamblr](#): > > Another thing I think about a lot: how neurodivergent people relate to animals. Most of us have some form of sensory sensitivity. Being around a large, energetic dog can be a full-on sensory experience—like a 9 out of 10. I like dogs, but only in small doses. Cats and parrots are more my speed. I’d love to know how other neurodivergent folks navigate the intense sensory input that can come from our furry friends. Dogs freak me out. Totally unpredictable from a sensory perspective. They freak out my son even worse. When they lick him: “It’s wet. Make it not wet!” I’m not saying I haven’t enjoyed any dogs in my lifetime but my default with any dog is wariness. I adore cats. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/165 "2025-07-13T03:36:10Z")
I actually got a lot of traction out of the I Have ADHD Coaching program run by Kristen Carder. But she’s not a therapist. However some of the tools were like _old school_ cognitive therapy techniques and I’ve seen in later episodes of her podcast she started talking about trauma and stuff that in my opinion she had no professional business giving advice for. It’s just important to keep in mind that coaching is not licensed, nor regulated on anywhere near the same level as a mental health clinician. It doesn’t mean it can’t be helpful but someone going in has to understand the risks and limitations. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/166 "2025-07-13T07:47:15Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > The expectation for narrower sustained focus at earlier ages is much higher now than it was throughout most of our species evolutionary history. Many kids are having their lives interfered by their inadequate sustained focus on the subject of the class. They are not abnormal. They are to my mind not disordered. But the classroom and the workplace are the world in which they need to function … so we treat to the degree that allows it to not handicap them. That doesn’t change the fact that the brain processing style has strengths that just aren’t well highlighted in the classroom. I don’t think there has ever been a time in evolutionary history when the ability to read others and to work with them hasn’t been important. Autistic traits can be an advantage; diagnosable autism is what you get when a person has too much of them for their own good, IMO. Some of that is societal: I was going to say to @Dinsdale that I believe most people with level 1 autism can work, but it requires finding the right niche, and an understanding boss and coworkers. Many don’t find it. I have friends and acquaintances who could have done so much more with their lives if they just had a little support. The waste of talent, people living less fulfilled lives and being unable to contribute to society, all for lack of a small amount of help makes me angry. And I’m close enough to that edge myself that I could easily imagine having entered a downward spiral and become unemployable. As it is, I’m doing okay in life, but never reached my potential. What’s the point of having unique strengths if you can’t make use of them because of the areas where you have weaknesses? And it isn’t all a mismatch between individual and society. It’s probably easier for neurodiverse people to find each other than it has ever been, and that’s an opportunity to make friends who actually understand you that didn’t always exist in the past. It’s still a hard and lonely life when you desperately want friendships and a romantic relationship, but can’t connect with people. Human relationships are so fundamental to happiness, nothing else can make up for lacking then. In some ways my ‘diversity’ _is_ a strength, but I don’t think it’s worth the suffering it’s caused. If there was a cure available, I’d most likely take it. Not only for myself, but so I could be a better partner for my husband and a better mother for my daughter. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/167 "2025-07-13T08:40:27Z")
> [@On another topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1020887/40): > > Is neurodivergence a mental illness or just a personality type? Neither. ASD and ADHD are developmental disorders. The brain develops differently from normal in some way. > [@Duckseason](#): > > I don’t think it’s a “personality disorder” either. Some people are meticulous about being on time. Some people are “Ha ha always late but worth the wait”. I think the ha ha people have a personality disorder. I have struggled with being on time since I was a very small child. It’s not that I don’t care: I’m even later when no one else is depending on me. So late I usually end up missing half the thing I wanted to do, or miss out entirely because it would no longer be worthwhile to go. Don’t assume someone else is neurotypical just because their issues manifest in a different way to yours. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I’m sometimes late but never cavalier about it. It’s almost always due to time blindness. But 95% of the time, I am on time. > > I have always thought I had some peculiar characteristics for an ADHDer. Fond of administrative tasks, great attention to detail in my work, never missed a deadline. I have no burning need for “novelty” which is something we’re supposed to love. Give me same. Same, same, and more same. Give me quiet, and same, and I’ll be happy forever. I have the opposite list of symptoms that don’t fit. Perpetual lateness, inability to focus, I’m untidy and disorganised, I can’t maintain a routine. I hate administrative tasks with a passion. I enjoy the familiar comforts of home, but I like seeing new places, and (since I’ve been an adult) trying new foods. I wish I could have done more foreign travel, but it’s daunting planning it, and I don’t think I’d have coped well alone in a foreign country when I was younger. I tried to get assessed for ADHD, but the doctor told me he couldn’t refer me unless I endorsed all the items on the screening form (which is wrong according to the internet, only 4 of 6 should be needed) and I don’t really have symptoms of hyperactivity. He implied I could redo the form and just lie, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that. So I kind of gave up on doing anything about it. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/168 "2025-07-13T08:52:25Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > the great therapists we’ve found (always by word of mouth, never by just looking them up by “specialization”) have specialized enough that they do have a lot of experience (and some training) with that cohort. That would be my expectation. > [@DemonTree](#): > > Autistic traits can be an advantage; diagnosable autism is what you get when a person has too much of them for their own good, IMO. I would modify that statement: Autistic traits can be an advantage; more severe autism, the only sort that was labeled such back in say the 80s, before the so called “epidemic”, is what you get when a person has too much of them for their own good. It is definitely possible to identify those individuals with autistic traits and to “diagnose” them as being on the “autism continuum”, on the spectrum, to attach that label to them. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/169 "2025-07-13T10:10:34Z")
I’ll double down on the positive aspects of these traits across history in the context that we function as part of social groups. An individual who has a great fund of individual facts, for example, which many with autistic traits do, was always useful to the group, even if they weren’t the person best at reading others. And a role for the person whose attention was not so focused but then noticed someone coming … Many great teams have had the front facing negotiator, salesperson, and the team member with the big creative ideas, and the person who actually designed the product. There were always different roles in a tribe, on a team, that best suited some with some strengths over others. > [@DemonTree](#): > > developmental It is worth emphasizing this aspect. Attentional variations can be thought of core to these diverse developmental trajectories. Obviously the variation most classically associated as ADHD is more broadly divided attention, with several streams of processing sharing center stage simultaneously more often. Advantage there of course includes making connections between those different streams. Noticing things going on that others were too focused to have seen. But the first major variation in the developmental trajectory of autism is attentional as well: less “shared” or “joint” attention with the caregiver, which more “typically” emerges by nine months. More attention on other aspects of what is going on around them. And _of course_ when a child from that age on is focusing their attention differently than others are their development will follow a divergent trajectory. Attentional differences as a key feature in those diagnosed with autism is not a new recent thing. Moreover someone who has great difficulty focusing more of their attention on one thing for sustained periods of time can look for much the same as someone who is focusing their attention exclusively on one thing but that thing is something in their head, not what the parent or teacher is wanting them to focus on. There are many different developmental trajectories and many different combinations of traits. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/170 "2025-07-13T11:42:54Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > I’m untidy and disorganised, I can’t maintain a routine. Same. I mostly fixed the problem at home by getting rid of a ton of stuff, but the domestic sphere is my weakest domain. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to find a system or routine that worked. I have initial progress and then take a nosedive. ---
**Author:** ![TheBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@TheBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBryan)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/171 "2025-07-13T14:15:06Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > If I found broad advice useful I wouldn’t be paying out the asshole for therapists my whole life. You’re talking to a woman who has read almost every popular self-help book out there - nasty habit, I know. But there’s nobody’s life advice I haven’t considered. Problem is I’m not like most people, so their advice doesn’t really help me. One thing that may help is that a lot of the time, what I get out of those self-help books is validation that “this is how neuro-typical people should act”. This isn’t necessarily to place judgment on them as much as it is about whether or not I should blame myself for an interaction that has gone poorly. > [@](#): > > The stuff that has really helped me is a) existentialism, particularly Nietzsche and Frankl and b) Zen Buddhism. I wish I had never read Nietzsche. But Frankl has had a profound impact on me. > [@](#): > > I have ADHD and I am in the somewhat miserable position of having to work with other people with ADHD. But they don’t have the thing where they must meet deadlines or maybe they will die or something. I have intense anxiety about missing deadlines. And I work with people who treat them as suggestions. It’s maddening. All I really want is for people to follow the systems and do the things I tell them to by the requested deadline. That’s all I fucking ask. Just do the thing. I couldn’t make it more clear or easy. Big bold letters in my emails. Calendar reminders. Texts. I’m at my wit’s end. > [@On another topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1020887/41): > > I don’t think it’s a “personality disorder” either. Some people are meticulous about being on time. Some people are “Ha ha always late but worth the wait”. I think the ha ha people have a personality disorder. Lack of punctuality is not a cut-and-dry issue. I personally think it’s just a sign of disrespect, but I’ve learned recently that some of these norms are cultural. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/172 "2025-07-13T14:50:25Z")
> [@TheBryan](#): > > I wish I had never read Nietzsche. But Frankl has had a profound impact on me. That’s interesting because Nietzsche clearly influenced Frankl. I got into existentialism in college when I was having a really hard time. I had lost my religion and Nietzsche just nailed how it felt at the time. My husband thinks he may be autistic, too. I think he’s got some strong arguments. He’s got way less social anxiety than I do, but he’s been clueless in ways I’m not. He’s a frequent interrupter, not on purpose but he gets so impassioned he has to finish his train of thought. He’s extremely mentally rigid, often comes across (to me) as condescending, adds excessive detail to every conversation, he’s your typical "spreadsheet for everything "guy, and he is excellent in a crisis because he’s not overwhelmed by his own or others’ emotions (unlike me.) And then there are the X-Men. The first day I met him, 24 years ago, he told me about the X-Men. He has never stopped. So the two of us are kind of exploring this together. I’m continuing with _Unmasking Autism_ which is helpful in some ways, though I dislike the broad brush approach. I have to figure out how I mask/compensate/camouflage because I feel mostly myself around my friends. But they are like me. My problem particularly when I’m around groups of people is if I start to get too comfortable I will inevitably say something idiotic. I don’t know what “myself” is, I guess. When I was a kid I was goofy and melodramatic and very exuberant and highly confident. Most peers didn’t like me and I couldn’t have cared less. Somewhere along the line that little girl became a woman who is wry, self-deprecating, low energy and at times very reserved and serious. And _incredibly_ self-conscious. I don’t really understand how we got here from there. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/173 "2025-07-13T14:52:38Z")
I tend to be pathologically punctual. If I have to be awake at an earlier time than my normal routine will allow, I _will not be able_ to sleep the night before, because I might wake up too late. The way I have my life arranged, this is seriously the largest source of stress I encounter; thankfully, only two or three times per year. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/174 "2025-07-13T16:17:43Z")
93 on the RAADS-R. Make of that what you will. I found many of the options suboptimal; I felt some ranking of “degree” might have been useful. Not sure many of my answers changed over time. So “Sometimes” might have been a good alternative to “Never.” ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/175 "2025-07-13T16:45:22Z")
I’ll eat my hat if you aren’t autistic. I was also frustrated by the forced choice. I am worried I filled it out wrong the first time. After I finished it, it brought up a lot of memories. I retook it and got 114. So my score is between 97 and 114. I read that the higher the score on the CAT-Q, the lower the score for tools such as the RAADS-R. I had a pretty high CAT-Q score. Usually with combined autism + ADHD one or the other tends to dominate. For me it appears to be ADHD. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/176 "2025-07-13T16:56:20Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I actually got a lot of traction out of the I Have ADHD Coaching program run by Kristen Carder. But she’s not a therapist. However some of the tools were like _old school_ cognitive therapy techniques and I’ve seen in later episodes of her podcast she started talking about trauma and stuff that in my opinion she had no professional business giving advice for. > > It’s just important to keep in mind that coaching is not licensed, nor regulated on anywhere near the same level as a mental health clinician. It doesn’t mean it can’t be helpful but someone going in has to understand the risks and limitations. Oh absolutely. Our life coach, since as I said she was a therapist, used a lot of therapist tools, and I believe used the lack of licensing restrictions to do things like see people from different states (she worked over zoom). But yeah, I wouldn’t have done it, especially with my kid, if I hadn’t done a lot of homework first (and the life coach herself was very open about the limitations – we were there for help with a specific problem, and she strongly encouraged us to find a different provider for the stuff that she wasn’t trained in). ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/177 "2025-07-13T17:11:53Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I’ll eat my hat if you aren’t autistic. > > I was also frustrated by the forced choice. I agree with the first line, @Dinsdale ! It’s interesting to me how many people are complaining about the forced choice. I didn’t have any issue with that. But I might have had when I was younger, and I bet my daughter would, she almost always has a very hard time with taking multiple choice personality tests like that (she’s at camp so I didn’t ask her about it). I wonder if being thrown by the forced choice is itself a sign of the rigid behavior that I was told was the hallmark of the diagnosis. In which case maybe I really don’t make the threshold! ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/178 "2025-07-13T17:39:31Z")
But over in the Pit, a lot of folk have no difficulty just calling me a dick and an asshole. Of course, I assume I might be both. Personally, I’m not sure I see a benefit to saying I’m on the spectrum, as opposed to I have certain personality traits. Many of the questions were expressed as absolutes. I ALWAYS or NEVER experience xyz. I wonder if that has selective value, as (just spitballing in my ignorance) neurodivergent folk may describe themselves in absolutes, and neurotypicals might “under-report.” Or something else. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/179 "2025-07-13T18:31:47Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > It’s interesting to me how many people are complaining about the forced choice. I didn’t have any issue with that. There are many questions on there that need a \*sometimes" or a “does not apply” option (for one instance, “I’d rather go out to eat in a restaurant by myself than with someone I know.” I don’t like eating out at restaurants _at all_. Hate it. Hate being “waited on”. I only eat takeout from resturants. There are other questions there that make assumptions of things being universal that aren’t). But I gave it a go again and chose the least wrong ootions for the poor questions, and got a score of 42. Which pleases me and the mice. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/180 "2025-07-13T19:29:11Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > But over in the Pit, a lot of folk have no difficulty just calling me a dick and an asshole. Of course, I assume I might be both. Yeah, I’m not generally regarded as an asshole, but I’ve learned through the years lots of things you can and can’t say without offending or hurting people. And if me refraining from that kind of behavior is “masking” I’m not sure I want to unmask. And least not in that way. Because I don’t actually want to hurt people’s feelings. There can be a tendency for some neurodivergent folks to assert that people should just accept the totally unmasked version of themselves, whether that version is hurtful or not. I can’t get behind that. I’m not blameless in this regard, but I am contrite. My demeanor in person is very candid, but I wouldn’t say rude. I could be rude in the past. I come from a long line of direct women. It’s like with my kid. I can’t be anything but honest with him and I’ve never been able to sugar coat harsh truths. He told me he was afraid to die, I said, “So am I.” The other day he wanted to crawl into the front seat of the car and get into the backseat from the front. He disobeyed me and I was very upset. He asked me why. I told him my mother and her siblings as children were once in a parked car screwing around in the front seat and knocked it into neutral. The car ended up on top of my mother. She stopped breathing because of her crushed ribcage but was eventually resuscitated. So we don’t screw around in the front seat. But you know what? He accepted it. He’s a lot more likely to accept my reasons for things when I just explain them outright. Which in my opinion is how all things should be. Which is one reason I tend toward oversharing. I don’t really understand why people want to keep certain things private. I have accepted it but I still don’t understand it. I also don’t understand why learning private details makes some people uncomfortable. Don’t get it at all. But I have learned to go along with those rules because I don’t want to hurt people. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2025, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602/181 "2025-07-13T21:33:02Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > over in the Pit, a lot of folk have no difficulty just calling me a dick and an asshole. Of course, I assume I might be both. Of _course_ you may be both a dick and an asshole! Or did you mean both those and ASD … 😀 I will be that guy here - The RAADS-R initial validation study, in which they came up with the cut offs, explicitly states that the test is _not_ meant for use online or self-administered, but only in office with a professional available to clarify the question. Use on-line, and worse, use online with discussion introducing it that explains in advance that these are the features these questions are intended to measure, is _not_ what the instrument was designed to do or tested as. As an instrument it was designed as a screening tool and a diagnostic adjunct. Subsequent studies using the instrument have been mixed. Of most concern is [one by Jones et al](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354562549_The_Effectiveness_of_RAADS-R_as_a_Screening_Tool_for_Adult_ASD_Populations). Using it as a screening tool ( in this case sent to their home and also not done with trained staff available to clarify) they found “no association between RAADS-R scores and clinical diagnostic outcome, suggesting the RAADS-R is not an effective screening tool …” 34% of the referred population _did_ end up with an autism spectrum diagnosis at the end of the multidisciplinary comprehensive evaluation. The RAADS-R just did a poor job predicting whom. It did have excellent negative predictive value; just crappy positive predictive value. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-neurodivergent-folks/1020602.md?page=10)