As well as having ADHD, I’m also autistic as fuck, so I can’t tell whether you’re being sarcastic and the actual meaning of your comment is “I probably do have ADHD but I’m in denial”. If you were sincere in your statement that you’re not neurodivergent, I’m curious as to whether you have theories as to why you have so many neurodivergent friends.

I joke that whether I click with someone is like a litmus test for neurodivergence; due to the particular bundle of idiosyncrasies that I am (influenced by both ADHD and autism), I’m a pretty intense person who people tend to either love, or hate.

It’s nowhere near as robust as a peer reviewed diagnosis (that’s a hilarious way to describe it, and I’m definitely stealing that phrasing), but I’ve ended up indirectly causing quite a few people to end up seeking out formal diagnoses.

To step away from the jokes a moment, I do think that “peer reviewed” diagnoses can be powerful, especially when it can be extremely difficult to access the formal assessment process. I am fortunate to live in a country with free healthcare, but a decade plus of cuts mean that most will wait months (or years) for an autism or ADHD assessment. I’ve found that adults who eventually get a formal diagnosis will start out being super anxious of themselves, often worrying that they are appropriating the label or something. No-one wants to be the weird person who seems to be jumping on the neurodiversity “trend” (though in my experience, people who are doubtful in this manner are the furthest thing away from that kind of online trend jumper).

If anyone who reads this comment doesn’t yet have a formal diagnosis and worries that they may be intruding by being in this community, allow me to use the legitimacy bestowed upon me by the scrap of paper the doctor gave me many years ago to tell you that You are welcome here, formal diagnosis or not. Even if you never end up getting a formal diagnosis, you’re still welcome here.

The scientific and medical establishment is an important part of coming to understand neurodiversity, but so are the conversations we have here; we’re all figuring this out together.

How do u get a peer rewieved diagnosis?

Join a Dungeons and Dragons group

AAWOOOOOO

…username checks out

Rrrrrrrrruff!

I appreciate the edit to your comment.

I can understand where your frustration is coming from. I apologise if this is explaining something you’re already familiar with, but your comment reminded me of research about the “double empathy problem”: how the problems in socialising that autistic people experience seem to mainly present when they’re communicating with neurotypical people — these issues are much lesser when an autistic person is communicating with another autistic person. The theory also suggests that rather than these difficulties being attributed to communication deficits on the part of the autistic person, as has been the historic view, we might be able to better understand the problem in terms of a lack of mutual understanding between an autistic person and a neurotypical person — that is, neurotypical people struggle to empathise and understand autistic people as much as autistic people struggle to do the same with neurotypical people.

I find this quite an empowering perspective, because it disrupts the idea that autistic people are inherently broken or lesser (which unfortunately, many of us have deeply internalised over the years). However, I have seen people who take this notion and seem to twist it into the odd, prescriptive logic that you describe being annoyed at. I find it bizarre because to my eyes, research like this should cause people to be more hopeful about neurodivergent and neurotypical people mixing; if both parties are able to effectively communicate in other contexts, then it should certainly be possible to build mutual understanding.

It may take a little more work to build, but if anything, that’s all the more reason to do it. Empathy and communication are skills that can be honed, and there’s always room for improvement.

This is a long way of saying that I feel your frustration, and I suspect we have heard some of the same rhetoric. I’m glad that you were big enough to acknowledge that your bad mood negatively influenced your original comment. I hope that your day improves, and that you are able to be kind to yourself in the meantime.

Do you need conflict to feel seen, friend? How about you ask someone for a hug, instead. 🙇🏼‍♂️

That’s… not what the person said, but alright man.

Convert them. Everyone is weird in some way, find their weird.