still don't know if I officially count as autistic due to a fundamental split between "have found roughly 80,000 Relatable Autism Memes relatable, and not just like in a general sense of being introverted and nerdy, like extremely specific things such as the existence of Illegal Textures"
and
"born in 1980s when they basically didn't diagnose autism if you were capable of speech, lingering sense of stolen valor. in seriousness might 'just' have ADHD and dyspraxia."
like I'm aware that Relatable Autism Memes can be kind of Barnum-statementy on the level that almost everyone has a few offbeat interests and habits, but on the other hand I have ten thousand PDFs and cut the tags out of my clothes
the real answer here of course is that it doesn't matter. I would derive no benefit and some possible detriment from a formal diagnosis, and at any rate I'm able to organize my own accommodations through mundane methods like "not buying Illegal Foods" and "making friends who have similar opinions about which social rules are ethically necessary and which are arbitrary bullshit"
and all of these diagnoses are just based on aggregate impressions of symptoms and not on a good understanding of underlying mechanisms, there's a reason there isn't a blood test or brain scan for any of this, so literally does an "objectively correct answer" even exist
let's just say "neurodivergent" I guess
i'm glad you found things in it! i don't remember that section well enough to share my own thoughts on it, it's been a bit
