I've got another question, how do women feel about the overall trend of people self-diagnosing as autistic/on the spectrum?
I have complicated feels on this one personally because I'm currently running off a self-dx and I fucking hate "mental illness is trendy" LARPers.
I had two other autist women friends of mine tell me I'm definitely autistic, due to our glaring similarities and watching my behaviors over the course of years. I rejected it at first until it became very obvious to me... I had this idea in my head that autism was the low-functioning drooling retard disease, and had cognitive dissonance about how similar I actually am to my brother who is diagnosed. I didn't realize my sensory issues, sperg-outs, extreme emotional dysregulation and poor executive function, narrow interests, childishness, restrictive eating, skin picking, and other things I'm too embarrassed to talk about here are actually more than just "trauma symptoms" or the ADHD and other alphabet soup labels I'm currently diagnosed with. Autism fits much better and explains EVERYTHING instead of just a couple symptoms, but most psychs so far have pulled the "you don't seem autistic" or "but you talk good and make eye contact"(which I learned how to do and force it) shit with me because they're not specialized in diagnosing (adult women with) autism.
I'm still in the process of getting a proper diagnosis as an adult, which partially terrifies me due to horror stories I've read of folks being straight up abused or losing rights due to the diagnosis itself! Even my children have the diagnosis and benefit from therapy they receive, and special help in school. For me in school I just stayed isolated and bullied and kept to myself, drawing and reading all the time and sperging out about horses and dragons etc. I wasn't disruptive in any sense so no one thought to check. I would've gotten the dx in childhood except my mom is herself an undiagnosed autist and was extremely neglectful and abusive of me and my brother growing up(like she would beat us for chewing food because she hated the sound, for example). He displays all the usual traits, is on disability and needs a caretaker even in his late 20s; and I relate to him a lot and am learning I should also be asking for help too because I have the same issues, but I just try harder than he does. I also learned to mask(shittily) due to having my mom parentify me a lot and treating me as her "best friend" instead of being a fucking parent. It was a matter of survival for me, except in the long run it's crippled me because I'm suffering with feeling like an abnormal freak and have deluded myself into thinking I'm some form of "broken/traumatized-normie". Meanwhile there's nothing normal about me which causes continued social isolation except for my few friends who are also on the spectrum lol.
I think the folks wanting the label because it's a "quirky thing" or they like "nerd stuff" actually fucking infuriates me, because it is an actual disability that has severely restricted my life and crippled me. Then I see these normies on the clock app who are clearly functioning and LARPing as having autism and DID(another thing I'm diagnosed with due to severe trauma, and it's nothing like the LARPers make it out to be) or other very severe disabilities and making it out to be "cool", whereas I struggle with wanting to KMS regularly due to the isolation living with these disorders causes.
Also seconding previous posts about how it's NOT easier being a woman. The pressure to sexually "put out" followed by the men becoming abusive and leaving, then mocking you for being a single mother is a real thing. I can't say more without PL'ing, but it's definitely a thing.
Which has been reported to the police accordingly, with THE LORD as my witness I am not a zoo, this was attention bait, I am sorry again and forever will I be for the harm I caused to the people who were attracted to me during the period last month, lets not bring me up next to the heavy hitters like Sappho or Kero, I knew them, I am not them. I really do not want to end up in the same spiral of doing worse and worse things everytime somebody calls out "DYNO IS THIS" or "DYNO DID THAT" because the attention makes me feel so self-accomplished. I am NOT a "monster like him". I don't even think I'm half his age. And I'm fully aware of this being a schizo rant, I do not want to come back to this life, I want to be a normal teenager who has a normal life, not a cat killer. LET ME NOT FAIL THE LORD YET AGAIN AS HE HAS GIVEN ME A SECOND CHANCE AT A NEW LIFE, I CANNOT FAIL HIM