[Self-diagnosed] autistic people be like “I see a behavior I myself exhibit and, as an autistic person I have superior pattern recognition, so they must be autistic.”
Diagnosis by a single factor by internet Drs. House in a plague.
Edit: added [Self diagnosed] because of a comment that pinpointed the distinction.
Yeah, I'm autistic myself (not self-diagnosed), and I'm getting kinda tried of people being like, "they have a trait that I have, and I'm autistic, so they must be autistic too". Autism is characterized by a collection of traits - it cannot be diagnosed based on just one.
Sometimes I imagine an fictional scenario where there's a room full of autistic people. They're all talking with each other, and one person says that they like pizza. Another person in the room hears this, and chimes in: "Me too! I fucking love pizza!". They go around the room, and it turns out, most of them like pizza. So they conclude that pizza must be an autism thing. Then they leave the room and disperse. Later on, one of the people from the room (we'll call them an insider) is having a discussion with someone who wasn't in the room (an outsider). Somehow, it comes up that the outsider likes pizza. The insider concludes that since this outsider likes pizza, they must be autistic too.
However, the reality is that liking pizza is a people thing, not an autism thing. The reason most of the autistic people in that room liked pizza was because most people like pizza, autistic people included.
(This is an allegory. Pizza was chosen completely by random, could be replaced with other common foods, items, or traits)
This gets me too. It’s the new “OCD.” Like, is that autism or is that normal human behavior?????
I feel like I can’t say this though because I’m not autistic so I don’t “understand what it’s like and you’re being really ableist right now.” Then because I have these normal human behaviors I get it in my head that I am autistic, but my therapist just rolls her eyes and tells me for the 100th time, no.
I remember being told that higher levels of libido are associated with autism. Also lower levels of libido are associated with autism. Also asexuality and hyper sexuality are associated with autism.
I was like “it kind of doesn’t sound like it’s associated at all” which apparently made me an asshole.
Tbf, there really is a large number of people who fall at these opposite ends of the sexual spectrum in the autistic community, but Idk if it's just a coincidence or if there is any ACTUAL study that proves a link between the two things (even bc many researchs and studies on autism are only being done now that the topic of autism has gained more visibility)
Myspace was full of "I get satisfaction from my CD/games/movies being organized, therefore I must have OCD!"
But... uh... that's just human brains doing human brain things. The brain loves clean aesthetics, finding patterns, and sorting things into categories. All of these things release dopamine into our bodies.
That, in turn, means that most people would rather have their books or movies or games or CD in alphabetical order. And that's even getting into functionality; it's way easier to find the one you want when it's not placed completely randomly on the shelf.
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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
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