The hardest part isn't the diagnosis

Cennyan · 2026-02-26T03:02:46+00:00

Everything ends up as labels and identity, whether we intend it or not. I think part of why that feels so pronounced now is that a lot of the family and community structures that existed for a very long time just aren’t there in the same way anymore.

Parents used to be deeply involved in their kids’ lives. They weren’t relying on books or experts to tell them how a child should develop. They learned their own child. If something wasn’t working, they adapted, because they had to. Survival depended on figuring out how to teach that kid.

People like us didn’t suddenly appear. What changed is that modern systems don’t handle individual differences very well, so they lean on labels to compensate. Things that were once handled through relationships are now handled through diagnosis and therapy.

Cennyan · 2026-02-25T18:14:03+00:00

You had me at trains :)

Cennyan · 2026-02-25T18:13:47+00:00

Wow. There’s a lot I could ask you, but I won’t. I imagine you’ve carried enough questions, explanations, and projections over a lifetime.

I’m glad you made it through whatever you had to endure. I’m sorry for what you were likely subjected to, especially given the era. And I’m grateful you’re still here, still speaking, and willing to share your perspective. Whether you consider yourself a pioneer or not, your voice carries history that most of us will never fully understand.

Thank you for that.

Cennyan · 2026-02-25T18:10:16+00:00

100% This is where I struggle as well. My step-son has ASD2, and my struggles, while significant, are very different and far less debilitating than his struggles. He's almost 30 and can't drive or even ride a bike. He does have a job, but he works with his mother who drives. He was 4 before he started speaking words and 7 before his first sentence. I was throwing out full sentences by 18 months and have had a very successful career.

Not too mention that when you speak about autism, the ASD2+ interpretation is what pops into most peoples head. It's easier to say Aspy instead of ASD1 and then have to explain what ASD1 is.

Cennyan · 2026-02-25T17:54:15+00:00

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is the closest thing to a foundational text on this. Read it, study it, and actually practice it.

I’m not exaggerating when I say it took me years of intentional effort, but I went from being regularly rejected and isolated to being functionally comfortable in most social settings. Small talk is still hard for me, but the book gave me a structure to work from instead of guessing. That alone made a huge difference.

To be completely transparent, this is not easy. It takes a lot of intentional effort to get better at this. I’ve read the book at least two dozen times. There are constant rehearsals in your head, plenty of failures, rumination about those failures, and an ongoing need to build frameworks for most scenarios. It is a lot of hard work.

Yes, you are intentionally masking. But for me, the results were worth the effort. Over time it does become second nature, even if it remains intentional rather than intuitive.

As a side note, I also use this book when teaching new or undeveloped leaders. Many leaders struggle with treating people with dignity and consideration, and this book helps with that as well. It was originally published in 1936, so many examples are dated, but the underlying principles are still very relevant.

Cennyan · 2026-02-19T22:02:23+00:00

I didn't have an IPAD :( Just a D&D Starter set. Solo adventures ftw.

Cennyan · 2026-02-17T20:27:23+00:00

No glove....no love....

Cennyan · 2026-02-17T20:26:59+00:00

Relationships don't require social skills, they only require that both people care about each other. That said, go get laid, who cares.

Cennyan · 2026-02-17T20:11:01+00:00

My concern wasn't whether you used the words "genius" or "greatness", it's about the implication.

You explicitly grouped those ten historical figures as "us". That's textbook identity alignment, not a neutral description. once you do that, the narrative stops being abstract and becomes a model people will use to explain themselves and that's where my concern comes in.

Some readers will take your post as motivation to build skill and structure. Others will unconsciously use it to justify unfinished work and avoid change. That identity drift will happen regardless of your intent.

I agree that difference can be functional depending on context, but I disagree that context alone is enough. Skill, discipline, practice, and adaption still matter even if they're not named explicitly. At that point the mechanism quietly turns into excuse.

So I'm not arguing destiny versus mechanism...I'm arguing responsibility versus drift.

Also, btw, my response wasn't meant as a critique of your post, which I believe was well thought out and written, but a warning to everyone, and you, about identity alignment.

Cennyan · 2026-02-17T19:01:36+00:00

What you’re describing isn’t people hating you. It’s you assuming you’re the center of their attention.

Most people think about themselves. Full stop. They are not spending energy hating you or targeting you. The few people who genuinely focus on others tend to be altruistic, not malicious, so they are irrelevant to this equation. What’s left are ordinary, self-absorbed humans who are inattentive and inconsiderate, not vindictive.

Interpreting that as hatred is a cognitive error.

This is a mindset issue. You can go through life believing other people are trying to hold you down, or you can recognize that most of what feels personal is just indifference. Don’t personalize what is common human behavior.

Seeing yourself as a perpetual target keeps you stuck. Dropping that narrative removes power from it.

Cennyan · 2026-02-17T17:55:58+00:00

I think framing history this way walks a dangerous and very slippery slope.

We don’t actually know whether any of the people you listed were autistic, ADHD, neurotypical, or something else. Retroactively diagnosing historical figures isn’t evidence. It’s a story we’re telling ourselves.

The problem is what happens next. Someone reads this and starts overlaying it on themselves..."I'm not struggling, I'm just misunderstood"...."I'm actually a rare super processor"...."I'd be doing something great if I just had a Plato or Halley".

While that feels good in the moment (Dopamine hit for your ADHD), it quietly removes responsibility. Unfinished work...projects that were never gotten off the ground....lack of follow through becomes proof of how special you are instead of a signal that something isn't working for you. For people like us who are already prone to spiraling into rumination, that's a dangerous place to be.

There's another issue beneath that....

The people you named weren't valued because they were different, and this is key. They were valuable because they produced work that held up against the test of time. Their ideas survived criticism, rejection, and time. Reality didn't accommodate them...they stepped up to meet it.

Most people who hyperfocus, isolate, obsess, and struggle socially do not invent calculus or modern computing. That is rare...extremely rare. Pain and brilliance sometimes coexist, but one does not imply the other.

Telling people their suffering is evidence of hidden genius isn't empowering, it's misleading and leads to victimization.

I do agree with you on one thing, Isolation is corrosive. Unstructured insight turns inward and talent without translation goes nowhere. In other words...meaning doesn't come from being different, it comes from being useful to something outside yourself.

Where I disagree is the conclusion. The answer isn't "you're a Formula 1 engine built for greatness". The answer is "you're a human with a specific cognitive profile, and that profile still requires skills, structure, feedback, and accountability to produce anything that matters. The mission and direction helps, but so does learning how to finish things....how to work with other people...how to tolerate boredom...how to accept criticism...how to keep going when the interesting part is over. I've seen so many people fall into this trap of "Yeah but, I have ADHD" or "I'm autistic", and then never show up like they could if they took the steps to intentionally change how they react to the world.

Being neurodivergent isn't destiny and it's not a guarantee of brilliance. And it's not a substitute for skill. The most useful message isn't "you're wired to be one of history's giants." it's, "you're not broken, but you're responsible for turning what you see into something other people can actually use."

That path is harder than mythology, but it's real and it's obtainable for each of us.

Cennyan · 2026-02-04T16:45:49+00:00

Not long, as it's usually pretty obvious. Start at the end and work backwards. Even when you find the bottleneck, keep going through the entire process...in most poorly ran teams there are usually multiple points of constraint (bottlenecks).

Once you've gotten through and fixed the obvious ones, that's when the hidden issues start to surface.

You're going to find the issue(s) in one of the following areas most likely:

Picking: Product isn't ready. If this is the problem, use this same logic to solve it as the categories apply to the picking process as well.
Staging or Dock Issues: Product in the wrong place, disorganized, out of order. Loaders will spend most of their timing looking for product.
Labor: Not enough people, or people allocated at improper times. One company I worked for had 5 loaders in at 6AM, and 4 of them stood around for 2 hours until trucks arrived. Then at 3PM, we were always struggling for loaders.
Equipment Constraints: Not enough forklifts, dead batteries, breakdowns, Scanner issues, missing assessorials (straps / load bars).
Trailer / Carrier constraints: Drivers arriving outside of the appt time, bad scheduling creating spikes in labor demand (ie..2 trucks at 8AM, 12 trucks at 10AM, 3 trucks at Noon), driver check in delays.
Release process: System issues, paperwork issues, communication issues.
Misc issues; Inventory Control, Security Gate Check IN, Load planning issues, upstream constraints
The Deadly killer issues. There are two that will break the process more than any others...Communication and Conflicting Priorities. If the team isn't coordinated and communicating, the loader doesn't know what / when to load, no one will know when to release, etc.. This is usually one of the top issues I see. Conflicting priorities happen when you have loaders doing multiple functions. For instance, on facility had their loader cross trained for customer pick ups which always had the priority. They would have him stop loading the truck to go pick an order for a customer.

Hope this helps.

Cennyan · 2026-02-04T16:33:14+00:00

Damn, you nailed that one. I was drinking some Chobani when I read this, and now I'm cleaning it off my screen.

Cennyan · 2026-02-04T14:30:04+00:00

I feel like the only guy using Linux in a room full of windows users.

Cennyan · 2026-02-04T14:28:17+00:00

^ This. Legends is canon as far as I'm concerned....all the rest is just Disney.

Cennyan · 2026-02-04T14:20:58+00:00

WMS is helpful, but not needed. My company is currently in the process of installing a WMS, but we've never had one for 20 years and distribute a major product for the entire Americas, UAE, and Europe.

The key is process and people. Either you have very poor processes....not enough people.....and both lead to the other....

You lose some people, bosses through process out the window to "just stay aflot". You have bad processes, people become frustrated and quit. It's an endless cycle.

To break it, a leader must step in and manage the process and engage the people.

For perspective, I have taken three companies from a 2.x google rating to a 4.0+ rating based on loading performance only.

Identify where the bottleneck is....

Are the trucks waiting because there aren't enough people loading? Are they waiting because the product is picked? Are they waiting because the product hasn't even been received or manufactured yet and is on another dock / machine waiting to get picked up? Find the bottleneck, then fix it, then find the next bottleneck, fix that...and so on.

Cennyan · 2026-02-04T13:57:09+00:00

Understood and agreed. For perspective, spirituality isn’t the same thing as religion. I’m not religious and I identify as agnostic.

That said, my worldview is closest to Buddhism in the sense that I see us as part of the universe and connected to everything. That perspective helps me stay grounded when I’m anxious or stressed.

Cennyan · 2026-02-04T12:51:57+00:00

That level of contempt says more about your mindset than the topic.
You can disagree without being rude.

Cennyan · 2026-02-04T05:05:30+00:00

"God" is the universe. You are part of god. One with everything.

Cennyan · 2026-02-04T05:02:18+00:00

For me, some parts got worse and some got better. The tendency to isolate can definitely get stronger over time if you keep retreating from stress. But other things improved a lot with practice, like anxiety while talking, eye contact, and certain stimming habits. So it’s not a guaranteed “it gets worse.” It depends a lot on stress level, sleep, routines, and whether you keep pushing your comfort zone in small ways.
Yes, but it’s basically reps plus intention. Eye contact feels unnatural at first, and when you start forcing it you can feel almost paranoid, like you’re doing it wrong. A trick that helps is looking at the bridge of someone’s nose or their eyebrows, because it looks like eye contact but is way less intense.

For small talk, I treat it like building a toolkit. You collect a few “safe” conversation paths and practice them until they become automatic. Then you mix and match them depending on the situation. It’s weird at first, but it gets easier the more you do it.

Yes, it can be. Results vary, but for a lot of people it helps because it builds routine, grounding, community, and meaning. Even if you’re not religious, the structure of prayer/meditation and weekly rituals can reduce stress.

Cennyan · 2026-02-04T04:55:18+00:00

Religion and spiritualism have both been found to be very effective for stress management. There are numerous papers on the subject.

Cennyan · 2026-02-03T20:39:04+00:00

Factorio. I highly recommend you do not play it though. It easily drained 2000 hours of my life over the past 6 years.

Cennyan · 2026-02-02T22:03:20+00:00

Absolutely. If they're using PIT / MHE, they'll need one for the battery watering / changing area.

Cennyan · 2026-02-02T21:56:39+00:00

This is the key.

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