Typically the difference is that people with autism and or ADHD experience things more frequently or more intensely than others.

Yes, all these things are normal for most folks, but how often and the severity of these symptoms are diffrent.

For example, I have ADHD, and one of the symptoms of that is I’m easily distracted. For most people, this would sound fairly normal, but even when its something important, or something I want to do, my brain is moving on to a billion other things all at once rather than focusing on the task at hand. Medication helps immensely with this, but it still happens even on my meds at times. That is not normal.

Also the autism spectrum is a spectrum for a reason. Some people appear to cope better than others and some can’t cope at all. Masking is normal but for someone with autism it can be exhausting because some people with autism never stop masking. They are constantly aware they aren’t “normal” and it stresses them out.

Its hard to understand these kinds of feelings if you’re Neurotypical. Our brains work differently from others, which might sound like “I’m special” but honestly, I’d rather not have ADHD. Shit sucks dude. I fucking hate not being able to do things like a normal person. Its a curse.

People ive met with ADHD or autism, its just nice to be seen and feel like were understood which is why these memes are often posted or are popular with those crowds.

It’s normal to pee. It’s not normal to pee 200 times a day.

Apply that to any ADHD symptom and you’ll understand.

Girls used to be 16x less likely than boys to be diagnosed, now only 3x less likely, because traditional ADHD criteria excluded girls and women from their studies. Girls are sociallized differently and thus present different symptoms. Girls are also more heavily penalized for typical ADHD symptoms and are forced to learn to mask better.

A lot of the backlash against women speaking about their ADHD symptoms on social media is due to misogyny and gatekeeping. When women present their experiences, it’s often seen as attention seeking behavior and not treated as an account of how the medical system has once again failed women.

Edit: a very good starter would be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1AUdaH-EPM

You have a scale of 0 to 100%. Mine is like 200 to 4000%. There is a lot of literature and research on autism. We work differently and the way your post starts made me feel very attacked. And suddenly completely out of energy, although I love informing about it.

I guess that’s because exactly that is our daily struggle. To all the damaging things we experience add on top that we’re accused of faking and also ‘that’s how it’s for everyone’.

If you want to get into it but not start reading books I can recommend the book ‘invisible differences’ very much. There’s a pdf on the internet floating around.

I know you wanted to ask innocently, however keep in mind asking about something and implicating something is not really a thing to people suffering massively exactly for that reason can be very hurtful.

There’s degrees to these things. At a certain point they’re severe enough to be considered a problem beyond just “normal human foibles”. I for instance don’t like being outside at home because the HOA I live in doesn’t allow privacy fences and your neighbors for 8 houses in either direction can see into each others back yards. It stresses me out to the point that I avoid it as much as possible and probably makes everyone else think of me as a weirdo (which also stresses me out). Whether that problem falls under autism or ADHD I’m not qualified to say but it’s not normal behavior.

I feel like online spaces like lemmy over represent some behaviors.

1. Reduced stigma led to more diagnosis and less hiding
2. decreased socialization and internet escapism increased the percentage of the population exhibiting these symptoms and aided in self diagnosis
3. people like to make groups to simplify their world and feel a sense of belonging, see: astrology, personality quizzes, omegaverse, sports

Its a big complicated mess with no clear answer. We all do exhibit these feelings to a certain extent, the magnitude and ceiling for our ability to cope and adapt to them however feeds our definitions, yet everyone can look at this and feel a little but of ourselves.

Are the images AI upscaled or purely AI-generated?

People have stopped socializing, at least not in a real, meaningful way. Discord groups of other shut-ins feeding off each other’s insecurity doesn’t count.

The lack of socialization means a lack of social validation so to feel any value at all, we all have to figure out how to carve out new identities in a much more lonely and dark world. Self-diagnosis of conditions and syndromes can give you insulation from criticism and give you a sense of community and belonging, so less effort is placed on managing or treating the condition and more effort is placed on affirming and defending your condition.

I’m not saying the conditions aren’t real, they exist on a large spectrum that almost everyone falls on to some degree, but what’s changed is the view of the conditions or syndromes as an obstacle to life that needs to be managed or beat. Instead it’s a badge of identity that people work to justify and preserve, often without realizing it.

I’ve been in and out of the mental health system for years, I’ve done it to beat depression, PTSD and anxiety and have made great strides by accepting the hard truths of the things I need to do to make it easier to live with problems outside my control. But these are tools I embraced because I wanted to go outside, meet people, be more social and have more opportunities.

Not a lot of young people want any of that, they’ve been disillusioned by the promise of the future because the internet just feeds them the bleakest picture of the world that it can, and people don’t generally seek out balancing perspectives on their own, and even resist any attempt to tell them that there’s a lot of important reasons you might want to stretch your mental and social muscles.

Nearly everyone I talk to under the age of 25 or so says they can’t imagine living past 40, with many saying that they actively have plans to not live past 40, which blows my goddamn mind.

Every single one of you whiny, nihilistic shits out there is going to hit age 40 and say “Oh fuck, what have I done with my life?”

I felt like this which is initially why I didn’t get tested. Even tho I can see how medication has helped me, I still worry that I’m imaging it.

Some of us are just sitting here nodding along to 90% of the memes and struggling continuously with basic daily function but also past puberty and thus completely unable to even get checked for any kind of diagnosis due to a crumbling and outdated healthcare system.

Yeah most of it is just human symptoms. I definitely have it more compared to my friends though who cant keep up in conversations with me because I go so fast and switch topics in a millisecond. Its fun when I meet someone who can also do this.

Also. A large amount of people online do have adhd because of the dopamine hits triggered by arguing and getting comment responses. Go in the real world. Bob at the tire store is probably normal.

White college educated males were considered the default in a lot of early and mid 20th century experimental psychology due to the availability of test subjects and biases of people running the experiments. The definition of neurotypical behavior came from a subset of the population.

ADD and ADHD are known to hinder progression through the education system. So, the cohort of people on that part of the spectrum were underrepresented. The bounds for being normal were skewed.

Also, medical intervention is typically only looked at when the mental condition causes a reduction of quality of life. Over the past generation, the need for a formal collegiate education has become greater in developed countries due to shifts in economics. A kid which would be considered energetic and absent minded a few generations ago would have a far greater chance in being economically successful compared to now.

I was in denial about being autistic for around a decade after I first had suspicion because of exactly the reasoning you provide.

To provide some insight to my experience is that I had to manually decode all the non-verbal communication with logic while keeping track of the verbal stuff and monitoring my own expression back when I was masking. That shit is exhausting. Masking isn’t just picking a personality to wear based on the occasion, it’s doing that while it doesn’t come naturally and consciously tweaking behavior. Jokes on us, we give of the uncanny valley vibes when do that because it “feels off”.

If there’s something loud around me I will intensely try to hear what people say to me but I just can’t because the surrounding is louder.

I was so bad at throwing and kicking balls that I was made fun of despite actually practicing both football and handball.

I went to sleep scared for a long time because I imagined people breaking in because of slightest squeek in the house.

It’s also hard to explain how easy it is to have conversations with other autistic people vs normies.

Completely relate. Pretty normal… Except for… list pending.

Here’s one:

https://piefed.cdn.blahaj.zone/posts/6k/Lb/6kLbDigyQuftk4k.jpg

Doesn’t everyone do that now and again?! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

I do. Not autistic. Do have ADHD, but not sure if it affects this. Sending memes requires very little conscious thought besides “oh hey that person I like communicating with, might like this meme” whereas responding to the actual text requires reading said text, processing it, and coming up with a response. Depending on the day, person in question, and the subject matter, this may take a lot of effort or none at all. Depending on the day, person in question, and the subject matter, I may consider it a high priority or not.

But some of these issues I think are also a matter of how much you do it. At least something I’ve noticed with ADHD, particularly the executive dysfunction part of it: It’s normal to not want to get out of bed the second you wake up, but is it normal to stay in bed for 4 or 5 hours before your bladder finally forces you up, while actually holding back the need to pee for 2 or 3 of those hours?

As for the fear of being perceived image:

1. Everyone does this to some degree, but maybe people for people with a disorder it happens so much it affects their life in a negative way?

2. Literally happens to everyone I know of. I think there’s things I do better on autopilot than consciously because I’m so used to doing them - and if someone’s watching, I become conscious.

3. Pressure to conform or mask - I think this is most people too, to some degree. Maybe for people with a disorder the pressure to mask is so strong it overtakes their brains and they feel they aren’t completely functional in social situations because of it.

4. Hyper aware of threats - again, I think this is everyone is aware of threats, that’s evolutionary. But how aware is “hyper aware”? If you can’t stop blocking out trains of thought that go like “that guy on the other side of the street looks like he has a bulge in his pocket and hey maybe it’s a gun, and though he’s not at point blank range, he IS close enough that if he shoots multiple times, it might hit?” Then I think it’s an issue.

5. I double check too, I’m just forgetful. I used to not be suspicious of all sounds, but with my ex-wife living even in the same country as me, you never know… So it’s justified IMO lol

6. I think that’s most people. If you LIKE being stared at, you’d probably be great at being a public figure of some sort. Actor, politician, whereever you have to talk in front of a camera or a bunch of people, or both.

Deep down we all have some insecurities, and that can lead to a fear of being perceived, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s autism. I used to be super awkward into my teens. Definitely had a fear of being perceived. As I grew less awkward, the fear of being perceived got smaller. Started hanging out with friends more, and by the age of 18 I became a clown. Not a literal clown, but I’m literally the comedic relief character in any group of friends. No longer afraid to make myself look stupid on purpose for a joke, etc.

I think these memes use these super common “actually everyone does this” traits on purpose. Makes it easier to relate, whether or not you actually have the disorder - though if you have it, chances are that you do these things a lot more, or they affect you more.