xiagan
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May 29, 2026 8:46 PM
xiagan
19703
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Not one of them and still sharing a lot of their spectrum.
DiracsDelta
A lot of it applies to ADHD as well…
KnaveOfSwords
Or Farmer Peters who's decent enough, but doesn't like the city and prefers to send his wife to deal with business there.
Or Sister Mary-Elizabeth who found the convent provided a life of quiet, same food, routine-through-prayer, and rosaries to stim with when all of that isn't enough to soothe her soul.
Or Old Bill who's funny little ways you don't comment on because he knows more about sheep than anyone else and you'll need that if one of yours comes down with something unfamiliar.
revooms
Syovere
You might need your eyes checked, mate.
Pokegeologist
Mom rejected my ASD diagnosis in the early 90s because I was social, had friends, did well in school, etc. Somehow most of my longtime friends are also on the spectrum. Strange how that works out.
activeracer28
1k years ago my ADD/ slight AU would have been a highly sharpened hunting/survival tool.
Pattern recognition, notices fine details, capable of processing numerous external stimulus, heightened sense of anxiety(survival mechanism) would have been very very useful. Modern world sucks.
shanasphone350
Sadly, most autistic kids ended up in the asylum. Difference is not bad. People did not know how to deal with it. Off to the looney bin. There is nothing wrong with autistic people. They are wired differently than some humans. NOT BAD, Different. Most function on a genius level, just different than most humans. I am so grateful we stopped the confinement. I am grateful to parents and others who are making space for this genius.
Hevach
A lot of what now comprises the autism spectrum wasn't even recognized as a thing until the 90s and most of it wasn't widely accepted as being under the same umbrella until 2013. So a metaphor: pretend that prior to 1993 conifers were not considered trees, fruit trees were shrubs until 2006 and flowering trees were just considered weird perennials until 2013. There aren't more trees now than 50 years ago, we just have a better definition of what is and isn't a tree now.
bekkayya
clearly, the tree is a chair /s
GlutenFreeCocaineWaffles
AuDHD: he is ever-restless and fixates with incredible intensity on things he sees as important, until it passes. Given time, he may have true sight and make a good shaman, but he will always be on the edge of the tribe, separate from those who cannot see what he sees.
...Also the mushrooms that make everyone else crazy will make him sane.
bekkayya
the legend is comforting and also fills me with MURDEROUS RAGE that parents are capable of loving their offspring so little that queerness or neurodivergence maths out to doing that in their heads. I will attempt to channel into making sure my community is systemically protected from this but no promises
Bam906
I have a friend whose son is autistic being only 14 but highly enthusiastic about those things he's interested in, both of them being hobbies of mine, both martial arts and law. She has done a spectacular job. That kid is going to go a long ways and most people won't even acknowledge him as being on spectrum. Is he? Yes. But he excels at it due to his environment and his mother realizing understanding and educating for it.
cullingg
I'm curious how ASD interacts with alcohol - from what I understand there a degree of overstimulation and alcohol can dull the senses
GratuaCuun
GlutenFreeCocaineWaffles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem
eepsheep
I was looking for this 💜 we communicate better with our similar neurotype. The first scientists and doctors thought we were dumb but only because they didn't know how to talk to us.
AlmightyElephant
I mean, two out of my four relationships have been with women who were diagnosed autistic. One of them I suspect may have been undiagnosed ADHD and my current partner also I suspect might be a little neurospicy (but again, no diagnosis)
DarkfireDragon
So...we're psychics but only for each other?
GuapoGuayaba
That is the whole schtick of Sense8. Great show.
FacelessAce
No, more like radio waves. You clash less with those on the same wavelength as you.
ApplesdaKitty
Folks on the spectrum respect each other's bandwidth.
JohnThatcher
Two halves of a whole idiot.
rydecker
When I was younger, people were just called dopes or spacey; very simple. People found coping mechanisms, not meds nor classifications to be special. It was better and worse....just a different time
NotQuiteWittyEnoughForImgur
Yeah, my "classification" of autism at 32 years old was, in no way, to make me special. Turns out spending all my life being called lazy or not showing enough initiative while I was in the Army was, in fact, due to executive dysfunction from my classification of being "special." Once I got that classification, I suddenly had an answer to fixing a problem that was always attributed to a failure of character. Now I know to create systems to help me function. I don't give a shit about being special
bekkayya
dude if you think we're seeking labels and medication to bE SpEcIaL I have a monorail to sell you. What is actually going on is that society has systemically denied us the words to describe ourselves and thusly barred any means of communal self understanding you dont even bother to be aware that you enjoy so deeply. Also what did you teleport here from 1980 what is this ancient bigotry? Fuck off.
Syovere
One of my classmates in high school was legitimately convinced I was an alien. the outer space kind.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
Think about all the guys of the boomer generation who had insanely elaborate train setups in their basements, or spend every hour of every weekend rebuilding some car, and were considered to be just really into their hobbies. But were still functional people because they weren't being as squeezed by society.
diemajorthrilldie
As someone who has worked almost exclusively from home since the pandemic and who got into painting miniatures to pass the time and now paints miniatures and watches videos of people painting miniatures and about painting miniatures and finding new ranges of miniatures with interesting features and aesthetics to paint and is literally assembling some models to paint right now at almost 2am I can sort of see your point a little bit.
SuperMermaidNinja2Turbo
Does this mean I’m a fairy?
ArchaeoEejit
A lot of the stories have only the mother realise the child is changed and others try to convince her its her child. It's probably how they explained some post partum. 'Changeling' was probably a bit of a catchall term for explaining issues with children and some were embellished over time. Other stories say the kids drastically changed size or began speaking.
bikergeek6249
Well people have certainly called me a fairy before. 🏳️🌈 🏳️🌈 🏳️🌈 (there's no bi pride flag emoji. Hmpfh.)
JohnThatcher
Steal there names. (If this is not possible, their shoe laces are fine too)
dracklen
Dance in the moonlight and smell the plants :D
ElbowDeepInAGoblin
At this point, if we add fairy to the list, it just means you're a chimera.
SuperMermaidNinja2Turbo
I guess lol
DarkfireDragon
Half fae.
LastoftheLillyCreatures
psych here. If that narrative feels more helpful than the one you use now, you are.
dracklen
I’ve been calling myself fae for a while cuz it resonates with me :). Plus the seelie court gets all the rad stereotypes without so much blood drinking ^.^
SuperMermaidNinja2Turbo
I dunno, I didn’t even consider I was neurodivergent until like a couple years ago, but it explained soooo much. I always felt weird and out of place. Being LGTBQ+ was part of it but that was only part of it. I dunno.
LastoftheLillyCreatures
disclaimer: we're speaking therapy, not science. But: "neurodivergence", "autism", "adhd" etc are all -imo- much closer to "fairy" than to "reality". Meaning: the knowledge/story that your brain might have some plaques that mostly aren't there in nt people (the best neurological correlate we have for adhd afaik) does basically nothing for your mental wellbeing. If the story of you being a fairy (or furry, or nd or autistic for that matter) does better than that, use it.
bekkayya
all of these things are a connected cluster. also grouped for some reason is immunodeficient disorders yaaaaaaaaay
LastoftheLillyCreatures
do you have a source on that? I'm not being snarky, I can imagine there's a correlation, just don't have seen any studies on that.
IamIntoleranceIntolerant
To be fair, it was also called Sir Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michealangelo.
androgenoide
Odd ducks, all of them, each in their own way.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
And the fact that people of no doubt equal prowess as all of them have lived and died in squalor never knowing how to read or write is, I think, the best argument against the idea that true merit or talent is all you need to succeed. No. Without opportunity, talent is useless.
CuddlyCynic
I remember reading a biography of John Wesley and going, "OMG, spectrum all the way!"
MaximumHamster
Suetonius's description of Tiberius screamed spectrum to me as well. Looked at people's feet rather than eyes.
FiftyShadesOfTiramisu
Maybe, maybe not. That remains for a time-traveling psychiatrist or neuropsychologist to determine. There is no point in armchair-diagnosing historical figures based on a cherry-picked selection of anecdotes and alleged quirks.
IamIntoleranceIntolerant
It isn't me diagnosing them. A whole bunch of psychiatrists have looked at their known behavioural patterns and come to this conclusion.
Technically, da Vinci fits more into the ADHD diagnosis, but still neurodivergent.
FiftyShadesOfTiramisu
I highly doubt that a whole bunch of psychiatrists have diagnosed Michelangelo postmortem. No psychiatrist worth their salt would diagnose a historical figure. Or even a living individual they haven't talked to in person. I know there are limelight/attention seekers like the Irish psychiatrist Michael Fitzgerald, who described hitler as a "criminal autistic psychopath" with comorbid ADHD and bipolar disorder. But this is also a prime example of why this is unprofessional and frankly unethical.
FiftyShadesOfTiramisu
Unethical because for every guy who claims mild autism gives you superpowers, there is another who claims the worst monsters in history were on the spectrum. And even the superpowers claim can be harmful. A positive stereotype / stigma is still a stereotype / stigma. Positive stereotypes can create immense pressure and feelings of inadequacy among all the higher-functioning spectrumites who don't have special powers and talents. Which, let's be honest, describes pretty much all of them.
IamIntoleranceIntolerant
They don't diagnose them as definitely being autistic. That is not possible unless someone is actually assessed. They assessed what we know about them and say things like "we are fairly certain that..."
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004m">https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/200">/">m">https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/06/01/1120348.htm
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC539373/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7289489/
Exercises like this help to normalise neurodivergency. There is nothing unethical about it.
FiftyShadesOfTiramisu
All psychiatric diagnoses come down to "fairly certain". That's as good as it gets in this field. It's already fuzzy when specialists have met and personally assessed a patient, and far more so when it comes to anecdotes about historical figures. And no, spurious claims that hitler was autistic / that an autism spectrum disorder can produce someone like hitler does not help normalize and destigmatize autism. Quite the opposite. Even if that were true, it's still unscientific nonsense.