Illustration: Lia Kantrowitz
Dear Allison and Amy Rose,
I’m a reasonably well-adjusted 30-something who knows herself pretty well. But because of some of my personality traits — for instance, I have a talent for retaining pop-culture trivia and minutiae about acquaintances (though never their names!) — my friends often feel the urge to tell me I’m neurodivergent. Most of them are neurodivergent themselves, and based on their own experiences and what they’ve seen on TikTok, they love to speculate that I have autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, OCD, or some other condition.
I’ve never sought out or received a diagnosis along the lines of what they’re mentioning. I’ve never felt I wanted or needed one. If there were anything to diagnose, I’d still believe I’m high functioning enough not to need intervention and I have coping mechanisms to help me thrive.
I know my friends mean well, but I have qualms about armchair-diagnosing people and making generalizations about these conditions. Do you have any advice on how to curb this commentary, especially when my friends are probably just seeking connection and understanding? Any conversation I play out in my head sounds snobby and patronizing.
Sincerely,
Not That It’s a Bad Thing
Hello, Not That!
The issue here feels clear: You’re on the spectrum. Which one? All of them. I’m kidding, of course — I don’t know you at all. Even if I were your lifelong best friend, it wouldn’t be my business to diagnose you based on your personality traits, as if it were as breezy as determining your star sign. (I’d reserve the right to tell you if I was worried about something going on in your life, but that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening here.) I’ll take you at your word that retaining trivia isn’t thwarting your ability to function day-to-day and that you don’t believe clinical support would benefit you right now.
You have a very contemporary problem. At 21, I was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication for it. This was such an immediate boon to nearly every aspect of my life that I couldn’t even be mad that I’d already mostly finished college. Despite the daily revelations my treatment provided — finally, I wasn’t knocking over all four cups of coffee I’d forgotten I’d made each morning — I didn’t tell anyone about my diagnosis for years. In 2010, the stigma around attention disorders was profound. There was an assumption among many people that, if you received an ADHD diagnosis, it wasn’t because you actually had ADHD. It was because you were a shortcut-seeking liar under the influence of Big Pharma, which had gotten you hooked on cheating pills. In my day, we did our drugs straight from the hose!
All the conditions you mention above came with their own respective suspicions and misreadings. Some of those biases were bolstered by ignorance about how women and people of color show signs of neurocognitive difference. This — along with broader medical discrimination and other barriers to care — still frequently leads to missed, delayed, or incorrect diagnoses among these groups of people. (Misdiagnoses tend to confuse one mental-health or cognitive condition for another.) Mary H.K. Choi has written elegantly for The Cut about finally coming to understand she had autism spectrum disorder, which she was diagnosed with at age 43.
When accurate information and assessment have been historically hard to come by, it can now feel as though every other post you see — or conversation you have — is about sometimes-conflicting or overbroad signs that you definitely have this, that, or the other condition. (And, unfortunately, when access to relevant, useful clinical support is prohibitively expensive or otherwise out of reach, many people lean on some cursed combination of TikTok and unreliable AI chatbots to better understand their brains. USA!)
When getting an answer that works for you takes a lot of effort and then dramatically clarifies your life, you might want to talk about it nonstop. As you acknowledge, your friends are likely riding that high. That still doesn’t give them the right to foist generalizations onto you about your health.
So: How to put an end to irritating conjecture that your extensive knowledge of, say, Survivor is a hidden indicator of OCD? I’d try to keep in mind that these people likely mean well. Maybe getting medicated has meant their room is semi-clean for the first time in history, or they can run errands without their house keys evaporating. They have known miracles. They want this for you too! What do you mean you’re fine, given the work they had to put in to get here?
Look, I’d also be annoyed if “touch of the ’tism” TikTok were a regular feature of my offline conversations, but you’re right to laugh off your friends’ commentary if you can. It’s not worth wading into the quagmires awaiting you otherwise: conversations that assume and/or stigmatize a given condition’s symptoms and signs; declamations about the societal perils of self-diagnosing online, especially when it’s possible someone in your cohort has done exactly that; and any number of other headaches.
Instead, redirect the conversation by saying something like, Oh, I’ve seen that kind of thing online too. I get where you’d notice an overlap here, but I don’t relate to it. If you think your friend is looking for an opening to discuss their own situation, maybe add, But how is your diagnosis feeling now that you’re [XYZ amount of time] into it? Just keep it pushing. The novelty behind this instinct will fade at some point, especially if you don’t engage.
If your friends are being overbearing, the bit’s getting stale, or you’re starting to resent or avoid them, be forthright. You can say, Not everyone with a condition thinks the same way, and I don’t automatically have what someone else does, regardless of our similarities. I appreciate that you’re looking out for me, but I’d prefer that you not bring this up anymore, even if it’s meant as a joke. It’s possible your friends need to hear this directly, and it’s not patronizing to be straightforward when polite hints aren’t coming across. (To that end: Maybe this is their attempt to communicate that, wow, that’s a lot of Katseye factoids you’ve got there? Said with love!)
X
ARS
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