this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2026
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Autism

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I personally dislike calling myself neurodivergent (lemmy.ca)
submitted 21 hours ago by floralmortal@lemmy.ca to c/autism@lemmy.world
33 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I have several disorders which are located inside of the brain (which obviously includes autism, hence me posting here). I dislike calling myself "neurodivergent" for many reasons. For one, people use this term as a replacement word for autism, and I have many conditions besides autism.

For example, I'll see posts saying, "neurodivergent people sre more likely to do XYZ." There are so many disorders which fall under the neurodivergent umbrella that it isn't humanly possible for neurodivergent people to be more likely to say or do something than other folks; just say autistic in this context.

I also find that my personal experience gets watered down by calling myself neurodivergent; it feels like a modern version of being called special. I have several conditions which fall under different categories; psychiatric, neurological, and neurodevelopmental. To call all of that just neurodivergent is not very specific and doesn't tell a person what my needs are (plus, they'll just assume I'm autistic).

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[โ€“] Digit@lemmy.wtf 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

"neurotype".

It's better, but still not an ideal fit, in being "types", as if there there are category buckets where it's all the same in each bucket.

At least gets away from the subtextually implied "there is a normal [correct right way] and you are not it", like "neurodivergent" does.

[โ€“] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago

The world is a spectrum while language can only express categories.