Autism's confusing cousins

Internet, individuality, and “NPC-ification”

• Several comments tie the article’s themes to today’s internet: older forums felt personal and relational; modern centralized platforms (social media, Discord, etc.) flatten people into small avatars, encouraging “NPC” views of political or social opponents.
• Others argue this is less “the internet” and more mass adoption and regression to the mean: once everyone is online, norms tighten and difference looks like pathology.
• Centralization, spam, and “enshittification” are blamed for killing small independent communities and deep identity expression.

Diagnosis, identity, and late capitalism

• Many describe youth or hardship-induced anxiety being misread (by themselves or others) as autism; with maturity and stability, “I think I’m autistic” often fades.
• One camp says people chase diagnoses to feel unique or to have a ready-made identity. Another says it’s more about survival: employers, schools, and rigid norms punish small deviations, so a label becomes a shield to get minimal accommodations.
• Diagnosis can repair self-esteem (“I’m different, not broken”) and provide a map, but is also seen as a socially contingent construct, not a deep essence.

Value and limits of autism diagnosis

• Reported benefits: self-understanding, family understanding, better coping strategies, and sometimes workplace/school accommodations.
• Limits: for adults, often no treatment beyond pamphlets, support groups, and maybe CBT; high cost and long waits in some systems; stigma and potential downstream harms (e.g., security clearances).
• Several say self-education plus self-diagnosis can yield most practical benefits unless meds (e.g., for ADHD) are involved.

Overlap, comorbidity, and “confusing cousins”

• Strong discussion of autism vs anxiety, OCD, PDA, ADHD, social phobia, personality disorders, and schizotypy/schizophrenia:
  • Some endorse a “diametrical” autism–schizophrenia model (sensory input overweighted vs internal model overweighted).
  • Others emphasize shared social difficulties, high comorbidity, and a general “p factor” of psychopathology, arguing the opposites narrative is oversimplified.
• High ADHD–autism comorbidity is repeatedly noted; many describe life trajectories of undiagnosed neurodevelopmental traits → social failure → anxiety/depression.

Psychiatry, normality, and categorical skepticism

• Multiple commenters argue psychiatric categories are leaky heuristics created for research, billing, and service gateways, not natural kinds. They note fuzzy boundaries, overlapping criteria, and culture- and class-dependence.
• Others defend diagnoses as pragmatically useful: different clusters really do respond differently to treatments (e.g., exposure therapy vs personality-disorder‑driven patterns).
• There’s tension between viewing autism as a broad, continuous spectrum and its use as a binary gate to resources, with concern both about overextension and about erasing those with high support needs.

Social friction, masking, and neurotypical norms

• Many autistic or ADHD commenters describe exhausting “masking” and constant social friction: difficulty with unwritten rules, hierarchy, last‑minute changes, and interviews, even when cognitively capable.
• Some argue that for “high-functioning” people the main problem is not traits themselves but punitive neurotypical responses and rigid environments.
• Others push back that diagnosis is not a moral excuse: being autistic doesn’t justify being cruel, though it can explain how much extra work basic interactions require.

Social media, self-diagnosis, and trends

• TikTok, quizzes, and mental-health influencer culture are seen as major drivers of self-diagnosis and diagnostic fashion (Tourette, DID, OCD, ADHD, autism).
• Concern: trivialization and romanticization may obscure the realities of people with severe disability and fuel skepticism about all claims.
• Counterpoint: the same visibility also helps underdiagnosed groups (especially women and older adults) recognize themselves and seek overdue assessment.

Politics, incentives, and fears

• Some note that in places like the UK and Australia, autism/ADHD labels are shaped by funding structures: diagnoses open (or fail to open) access to overstretched services, influencing clinicians’ thresholds.
• Others point to US proposals for autism registries and harsh rhetoric about “burdensome” autistic people, interpreting current discourse about “tightening” autism definitions as potentially feeding eugenic or exclusionary agendas.

Class, access, and “who gets to be disordered”

• Several argue mental health support is stratified by wealth: affluent families get ADHD/anxiety/autism labels and accommodations; poorer kids get “lazy,” “bad at school,” or disciplinary tracks.
• Diagnosis is framed as both a real lifeline and a class-mediated privilege that can turn similar traits into either “eccentricity,” “illness,” or “character flaw” depending on social context.