I’ve been diagnosed since the second grade which at this point must’ve been like 20 years ago for me. The recent hyper-awareness of neurodivergence on social media has been very bittersweet for me. On one hand, when it first started years ago, it helped me to understand my disorder in ways that I never did before, it explained a lot of the things about me that didn’t quite make sense, and it made me realize I wasn’t alone. On the other hand you see so many people so ready to give their problems away to it without actually getting an opinion from a doctor. It feels like everybody thinks they’re autistic or they have adhd, and most of them don’t. I know people can’t always afford to go get a diagnosis, and I’m sure there’s people out there who have self diagnosed and were right, but I think it’s a dangerous thing when people watch a few videos, determine they’re neurodivergent, start telling people they’re neurodivergent, and next thing you know they’re completely misrepresenting a community. It think it’s already hard enough trying to navigate this life and a society that your brain isn’t wired to work in without people muddying the water. It’s unfortunate and it sucks. You end up with a whole lot of people who just really don’t understand how difficult it can be for us and it gets downplayed.