Uhg

Post-canon fic.

That-little-bit-in-the-middle-that-canon-skipped-over fic.

Needs-to-keep-its-voice-down-because-canon-is-sleeping-in-the-next-room fic.

it's on? my about page?? that i have adhd???

Plus, let's be really clear: those terms are accessibility anchors for diagnosis. If you have a special interest, you may not be autistic, but if you realize that you're going from special interest to special interest, and that you really do have special interests rather than just liking stuff, maybe you're autistic!

And since ADHD and autism have stunning under-diagnosis rates, especially among Black and brown folx, CAFAB folx, otherwise-disabled folx, and a ton of other intersections, making those terms common and commonly-understood and not rigidly policing their use actually helps people figure themselves out.

I wasn't diagnosed as autistic until I was 35, and I just got my ADHD diagnoses & medication this year, at 43. I don't know if I would ever have gotten the assistance I needed, or started working on my own accessibility without much help from doctors, if I hadn't been surrounded by a community that helped me understand myself by using those terms.

Seriously, though, Forced Disclosure is toxic, stop gatekeeping useful terms, no one owes you (anon) an explanation of why they're using terms like special interest or hyperfixation.

FIRSTLY, Vaspider is right about everything.

Additionally, diagnosis for autism is a checklist. A CHECKLIST. You meet a certain number of criteria and you get a diagnosis. There’s no magic or deep algorithms involved. There’s specialized language, and nuance to standards, which is why professionals are helpful, but at the end of the day, if I’m diagnosing an adult or adolescents with autism, it’s based first and foremost on their own SELF REPORT. As in I say “hey do you experience X?” and they say “yes, and it causes things to be hard for me”. This isn’t rocket surgery.

The criteria for diagnosis has changed within your lifetime. It’s changed during my career. These diagnostic criteria are not carved in stone and frankly the conversations about what gets included in the DSM and what doesn’t are laden with politics, power moves and other less-than-scientific forces.

All this to say that someone might genuinely, legitimately struggle with a number of ADHD or autism traits and not meet diagnostic criteria. That doesn’t mean they don’t HAVE them, it means if I want the insurance company or employer to pony up some support I need to come at it from a different angle. We can still work on those issues IF those issues are causing harm to the client in question. (I honestly do not give a shit whether their parents or whatever think special interests or hyperfixations are annoying. They can go suck eggs.)

So NO, you can’t reasonably say that only ppl who jump through the correct gatekept hoops get to use those words, because those are NOT the only people who have those experiences. Pretending otherwise hurts a wide array of people and makes accurate care even more difficult to access.

There’s a party at the Magic Kingdom! Let’s hit the dance floor!

There’s a party at the Magic Kingdom! Let’s hit the dance floor!