It’s a nice thought but it sort of ignores the fact that some people have “neurodiversity” to the point it’s disabling. If you go too hard in that direction you erase people with disabilities.
As mentioned upthread I really don’t like the term Neurodivergent to include mental illness. There needs to be some way to differentiate neurodevelopmental disorders. ADHD and autism in particular are considered sister disorders because of their development in early childhood, overlapping presentations, and high rates of comorbidity. They are so similar that prior to, I believe 2011, you weren’t allowed to be diagnosed with both. It was one or the other. The research changed this, when it became clear that there were people who satisfied the requirements for both.
It’s for the better, and I think what you’re going to see in the future is a more cohesive understanding of the characteristics of people with both. I have seen some licensed psychologists try to specialize in this, but it’s really still a niche endeavor.
Until that day it’s kind of a no man’s land.
ETA: speaking of trans kids, autistic people are significantly more likely to be genderqueer or trans. I think that’s interesting because gender is so much a social construct. My son is five and still can’t tell the difference between a man or a woman (he must sense it on some level though because he adores men.)
I will make a little more of an effort to be clear on one point, but if what I am saying is not understood my saying it over again won’t help. The thread does not benefit from me saying much more than the perspective I’ve already said. This is MPSIMS not a GD or IMHO about these identity issues and what I see as the myth of the “neurotypical.”
Pretty close to it. “Certifications” that don’t mean much, less specific experience than a general therapist who just deals with people often has.
I’ve seen this and agree with your point generally. I think for people with any issue it really falls in our hands to learn enough that we can tell if our therapist is full of shit. Because a lot of people claim expertise they don’t have. And even working with a high volume of clients with a specific disorder doesn’t mean you’re well grounded in the research. This is a problem in every medical field, though. Psychology just gets singled out because of the stigma.
And unfortunately with ADHD and autism the bulk of the research that was put together to create the characteristics of either disorder was based on boys and men. Well a lot of women don’t look that way. When I was first diagnosed with ADHD I was initially stymied by the lack of recognizable models, until I read Smart But Stuck: Emotions in Teens and Adults with ADHD.
I’m going through a similar thing now. I complained to some autistic women that I don’t fit the stereotype. I’m not an engineer, I am deeply empathetic, I have friends. I described my issues. The said, “you are exactly the stereotype… For a woman.”
You know how many specialists are aware of this or accepting of the gender differences in presentation, despite all of the research coming out? Very few.
I was diagnosed with ADHD by an experienced PhD-level ADHD specialist who did a full differential diagnosis. I received a several page written analysis with my diagnosis and the justifications for it, results, presence in childhood, etc. The first psychiatrist I went to refused to give me any medication, because I am a woman, I have a Masters degree and I’m not hyperactive. He also refused to read the specialist’s diagnosis even though I sent it in advance of our meeting.
This psychiatrist ostensibly medically trained and prescribing ADHD meds didn’t know anything about it.
(Fortunately the next psychiatrist I saw didn’t hesitate, and she continues to be excellent.)
I see your point. The last time I saw a doctor, and the reason that it was the last time I saw a doctor, is because he was absolutely insistent that you couldn’t get addicted to Vicodin if you followed the prescription he gave (for chronic sciatica). I knew he was wrong and full of shit, so I didn’t visit a doctor again until they came to me twenty years later.
There are bad actors out there who cast a pall across their entire fields. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so judgemental, but at least I didn’t tell other people not to go to doctors or question the medical field in general.
That may be the case for many (and has been the case for the not-so-good therapists we’ve found), though 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. The one we stayed with longest (and are still associated with) has a practice built on basically seeing 2E kids, and because the practice sees so many she has a lot of intuition about how these kids work that has been way more helpful than the therapists we saw who didn’t have that experience.
This is an interesting post to me, because I feel like for myself, my “autistic-ish” (Asperger-ish?) tendencies are by and large a superpower for me (given that I don’t suffer from many of the issues that other people have spoken about). Like, I’m pretty good at logical thinking/analysis and (even though I’m natively pretty bad at social processing) I can consciously analyze social situations and get better at them which most people don’t do, that’s pretty cool actually!
But I think that – and I think this is what you are saying – being able to identify that a certain kind of label describes us (particularly as kids, but also as adults) and that embracing that this means some strengths as well as some weaknesses is key. I think that has been super helpful for my kid, that we don’t treat it as “you have a disorder” but more like “your brain works differently from a typical one and so some things are easier for you and some things are harder for you than for typical brains, and we gotta work on the hard stuff while we can enjoy that the easy stuff is easy – just like someone with a typical brain has to do – only we have to dig a little deeper to find resources because it isn’t quite as obvious as for the typical brain.” I think that this is by and large the way I see parents I know approach these labels with their children these days, even if the DSM is kind of behind on its only-disorder-based language (or maybe I just know cool parents, lol).
I mean, it’s also the case generally speaking that it’s much easier to pick on what needs to be improved than to celebrate strengths! I’m certainly guilty of doing that as a parent from time to time. My kid had a great teacher for 7th and 8th grade who started every parent-teacher conference by both teachers and parents speaking about the kid’s strengths, which I thought was great.
You and me both. Mostly I learned about the autistic presentation of women through my husband. After our son was diagnosed he decided to educate himself about non-stereotypical presentations of autism so that he could better serve his clients. He’s the one who sent me information about autistic burnout, and I was like, “Oh.”
I’d say he was somewhat agnostic about whether or not I might have it, given he’s not an expert and there are confounding variables. And he’s wondering if he’s autistic in a more stereotypically feminine way. Once I told him what my therapist said, that she’s identified these specific issues I’m dealing with as stemming from autism, he accepted it readily and I think it sealed the deal for him in terms of him probably having it.
Of course my husband can’t take the ADOS because he’s administered it so many times.
I also talked with him about whether I really needed the ADOS and he thought not. Especially with the RFK Jr nonsense and trying to create a database of autistic people, there are some real risks to being formally diagnosed. My therapist’s clinic now refuses to bill for autism.
I’m really struggling right now, with executive function and sensory problems, and it isn’t depression. I remember saying to my husband, “For months I’ve been behaving as if I’m severely depressed, but I’m not depressed. What the hell is wrong with me?” Struggling just to get dressed or shower in the morning. Entire days going by where I do nothing. Times when just the sound of my kid’s voice makes me cringe.
Then I was listening to Neff’s podcast last night and her co-host said, “It looks a lot like depression from the outside.”
(I did get to the library. My son was a perfect angel up until we had to wait in line. First he ran all the way around the front desk, into their work area and up to the staff member before I could grab him, then he realized we’d lost our place in line and was headed toward a meltdown. First I said we were going to have to put the books away if he didn’t get it in line, then he started to escalate by repeatedly hitting himself in the face with a stuffed animal, and by that point I was like, “Okay, let’s take a breath. Take it easy. Let’s go over here to calm down.”
I can only imagine what people thought of my parenting. I’m sure to some it looked like coddling a tantrum. But they had no idea how distressing it is for him when people don’t take their turns when they are supposed to. Most of his meltdowns have been related to turn taking in some way. So I knew how bad it could get and needed to turn that train around.
The first thing I said was because he ran off we never had a chance to get in line, which he started to compute as it wasn’t really a violation of the rules.
Once I pulled him aside and we just breathed for a short time, he did calm down and then he was okay and I’m still thinking he did pretty good overall.)
But this is a good example of how my son’s disability is invisible to most people, and it isn’t Level 1. He’s fine and fine and fine until he’s not.
I do not perceive myself as being symptomatic of being anywhere on the spectrum, but I was going to take that test out of curiosity. But it was asking for nothing but black and white answers about nuanced topics and none of the available answers allowed for anything but binary answers so after 10 questions I abandoned it in disgust. Maybe if someone is on on the spectrum the questions will seem reasonable, with simple answers?
And now I looked at this one, which does allow for graduations in answers. I got a Compensation 26, Masking 25, Assimilation 28, total 79. I see that autistic males get an average score of around 110 and neurotypical males an average of around 97. Not sure what my much lower than average score reflects on.
I’ve noticed the increasing medicalization of the human condition over the past few decades. The end point, as I see it, is… everyone getting the advice and tools they need to perform at their best1. As opposed to advice and tools that help most people or even nearly everyone. Broad advice is helpful. But so is narrower advice.
1 (Or at least better - I meant best in an aspirational sense.)
I think “personality disorder” is probably the best label for neurodivergence.
I agree with you on punctuality. The thing that drives me crazy is when meetings run late. A well run meeting is a beautiful thing. One would be amazed at how much more one can get out of a meeting if the meeting is well planned in advance. People who intentionally let their meetings run long are being disrespectful of others in the room.
When it comes to start time at work, though, I’ve come to be pretty flexible. If someone is getting all of their work done at an A level, and we are never looking for that person when that person is needed, then I’ll let a few tardies slide. If it comes down to it, the thing I’m going to address is the work not getting done. Not necessarily the “tardy”.
I have one team member who logs in about 4-5 minutes late every day, but I think the only person who ever notices is me. But we are never lacking as a team from him not pulling his weight, so I don’t really care.
In my opinion, this has been a major breakthrough for me personally, so that’s why I share it. Honestly, I think the biggest value I bring to my team is helping the folks who are on the spectrum understand these nuances.
One other thing that I’d like to point out is that there are people I work with who I wish would go in to get some kind of evaluation because it would probably make them a lot easier to work with. I can only imagine what kind of a pain in the ass I was to work with before I started to learn to understand myself.
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.
When I posted recently about my difficulty with compulsive Internet use, for example, I was regaled with such useful advice as “turn off your phone.”
The stuff that has really helped me is a) existentialism, particularly Nietzsche and Frankl and b) Zen Buddhism. That’s not counting the wide array of evidence-based therapies that have made a difference in my life, including CBT, ACT, behavioral activation, prolonged exposure and EMDR.
After being helped in countless ways by clinical psychology for 20 years of course I’m going to go back to that well. Pathologize me, baby!
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.
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.
Makes more sense now I’m dealing with both. Unfortunately I now have severe executive function problems. I couldn’t even tell you what happened most of today. I remember I took my kid to the library but the rest is a blur. Now that I’m in perimenopause I think my ADHD now affects my life, on average, once every five minutes.
I haven’t read it, but a friend of mine recommended Is This Autism? (Henderson, Wayland) for reading about non-stereotypical versions of autism.
Ugh, I sometimes worry about my kid and this whole database nonsense too, as it’s right there on her medical profile, even though she doesn’t get any services anymore for which the diagnosis would be required.
My husband recommended that one to me. It’s on my list.
I’m not sure how much to be worried about RFK Jr.
The clinic I’m using has an aggressive and forceful take on their blog that strains professionality, IMO. They actually drop the f-bomb in their assertion that they will not share medical records under any circumstances.
What this means functionally is they’re no longer willing to provide diagnosis “on the record,” which is annoying to me, but it’s not like I have a vast range of alternatives, and I also have no material reason for needing it on the record. They have a plethora of my other diagnoses to bill for.
I guess that’s good? I find the politicization of therapy really distasteful but I’d rather see something than nothing. I haven’t seen my son’s therapy place make any kind of statement at all.
The other alternative I looked at was a woman with extensive credentials who was practicing not as a therapist but as a life coach. She said on her website that she couldn’t bill her evaluations to insurance and my husband said, “She’s full of shit. I don’t recommend this person because while she may be qualified, she’s using the life coach thing to dodge insurance requirements and professional standards and is 100% grifting.”
(And yeah, you would fit right in there with most of the autistic girls/women I know!)