Autism, Dyslexia, and ADHD are like the type 2 diabetes of mental disorders. You can remove the negatives of them with changes in behavior. You cannot do that with Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, or Tourettes.
I dunno, I knew a guy, good friend of mine actually, who said he had Tourette’s. Admittedly, I really don’t know much about that, but if he had never said that, I wouldn’t have thought there was anything different about him.
Quite honestly, I am tired of everyone on the internet diagnosing themselves with crippling, incurable autism simple because they are little lacking in social skills and because they have social anxiety.
OK, maybe that exists to SOME extent, people might be diagnosing themselves as autistic when they’re really not, I dunno….but what about my case then? I grew up “lacking in social skills” and with social anxiety. I never diagnosed myself as autistic, never really gave it any thought. But I actually had a pysch evaluation once, about maybe 8 years or so ago, and they said “yeah, he’s autistic.” It was only after that that I really read up on what the signs of autism are, and then I thought “oh yeah that’s totally me.”