Yeah I know.Tests are good! Especially retests. Saying as an example that I have been tested for Autism as a kid multiple times, but it kept going negative.
Turns out they updated the criteria a year after the last test I had, and I finally got the official diagnosis this year in February.
Anyways hello!
Agreed. My mom always suspected I was autistic, but nobody believed her because the misconception that autism is a man’s disability. Even though I’m a girl, my mom got me tested about five years ago, and yup I’m autistic with a low processing speed. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it’s nice to be able to tell people why I have trouble with social cues, talk about chickens a lot(one of my hyper fixations) etc.
Me personally, I see the issues with labels creating groups and different cliques that then form a "you're not a part of us, stay in your group" or "you don't fit every check mark of our group, you cannot be here" grouping things based on people's personal attributes tends to create a sort of tribalism/group preference IMO
I’ve found that tends to be primarily an issue in certain online spaces, where people get kinda gate-keep-y or fundamentalist, for lack of a better word. I find even vague labels to be helpful, because there’s a huge difference between “neurodivergent (ocd)” and “neurodivergent (plural)”, for example. I’m gonna look for groups of people with the same kinds of experiences as myself for some things, and people with different experiences for others! Singlets aren’t usually much help with system stuff, but sometimes it takes someone allistic for something else to make sense. It all just depends! Labels can be helpful for sorting/identifying, but I’m of the opinion that they never should be the most important thing or the basis of an identity. They’re like modifiers, I guess? Sorry, that got long! Apparently I’ve got Thoughts
Modifiers work too, and sometimes they help in getting the tools you'd need. This is a very good way of putting it, and I was struggling to find a way to word a response.
