You're Not Autistic, You're just Privileged.

Get 25% off on Paired premium! Start your 7-day free trial by clicking the link here: www.paired.com/nowwhat25 Here’s the 9 Signs You Are Probably NOT Autistic video I mentioned here: https://youtu.be/0ZomGtlmfXE Or if you need something light after this one: https://youtu.be/YJ1zF2Q2cuc This is my first post after 100,000 subscribers. I don’t even know what to say!!!! Thank you sooooo very much 💛💛

Two dudes with opposing political views found the common ground through being ableist. How heartwarming

I find it odd that particularly the first guy seems to think he's saying something new or revolutionary and not regurgitating the basic 'I don't believe you, you're just lazy' position that people who are neurodivergent have heard their whole lives.

ive seen so many comments like "you only wanted a diagnosis so you could get special treatment" and i'm like "buddy what special treatment? special treatment where?" lol

The fact that he thinks being autistic is only chosen for "pick me" quality shows how ignorant he is. It's like arguing nobody likes strawberries, you're just eating them because you want to be seen with red food.

being autistic is most of the world being a sensory meat grinder and having other people be like 'no way you're autistic you're handling this fine' while your hand is in the meat grinder and you've trained yourself not to flinch

“you want the diagnosis to make you feel special” no, i want it to make me feel normal. it’s literally the opposite!

5:51 oh my god. what a horrible thing to say. "you're not autistic, you just dont work hard, have no useful skills, and will never do anything valuable with your life." what a terrible person this guy is

As someone with ADHD I’d really like to not have executive dysfunction and not trip over my words or shut down. But since I can’t have that, I’ll take people not rolling their eyes when I say I have ADHD.

I was diagnosed with ADHD at 30. When I told my parents, they had a comeback to every symptom with, “everyone does that,” or “well your sister had it worse.” They don’t realize how much effort it took to get the good grades and keep my big emotions inside and then how utterly burnt out college made me and the paralysis I experience when it comes to doing the smallest tasks around the house. My diagnosis helps me understand me; it’s literally not hurting or impacting anyone else. 🤷‍♀️

God the “people faking autism are delegitimizing people who are really autistic” always upsets me. Like no, the ‘fakers’ are not delegitimizing anyone. The people who ARE delegitimizing are the ones who attack autistic people because they think autistic people are faking because we don’t fit stereotypes. edit: changed ‘re’ to ‘are’

Cried my eyes out to my Mom about a year ago and said "mom I think im autistic" (I was 28) and she immediately said "does being autistic make you violent and mean?" When I tell you my heart absolutely utterly shattered into a million pieces that doesn't even cover it. I am neither violent or mean, I am overwhelmed and sick of my Mom making her ocd and ither iasues MY fault. 😭

That first guy thinks he's so "out there" with his opinions, I think he just wants to feel special.

As an autistic asian person who’s not super high class and LGBT+, its time to come clean. Over the past 17 years I have been faking everything because I want to get hate crimed so bad (/sarcasm)

"Autism is actually ok and not bad to have" "STOP ROMANTICIZING IT!!!"

this discussion is so very similar to the one we had at the trans community for years. people who think for a seconds about the subject say "you're trans (specially nonbinary) because you can't admit you're a privileged white person" and "you are the reason people are transphobic, you're delegitimizing real trans people" which is absolute bs. Transphobia exists despite anything trans people do, and no trans or questioning person will ever be at fault. same thing with autism and neurodivergency. the extremely few that actually fake for attention are NOTHING in the big picture. Autistic people are not at fault for ableism, you can't delegitimize autism by saying you genuinely think you're autistic..

“You just wanna be special” No, I tried for so many years to fit in and be like everyone else to the point that I’m severely burnt out(idk for sure, but this seems like autistic burnout)

the only thing that pisses me off more than someone being ignorant is someone being confidently ignorant

My daughter got told in front of her math class by the tutor that he didn’t believe she was autistic (she didn’t bring it up - he did a slight Segway with ‘you claimed to be autistic dont you’ when she had been a bit sassy to him) - he then refused to giver her the extra exam time allotted to her during her mock because he just didn’t believe her because, and I quote “you can look people in the eyes”. I obviously made a formal complaint about this tutor - it was specifically asked by her that her autism status not be revealed to others without her consent. So we were pretty angry. Just because she can look people in the eye, her therapist and psych evaluation that lasted years is all a bunch of crap - idiot.

One of the biggest signs that made me consider that I might be autistic was really specific. I've been writing a comic for over 10 years now, and I recently wanted to create a comic dub to put up on YouTube Shorts to advertise it a bit more and give my beloved characters some voices. The actor I hired for the main character was really excited for the role because they said they were autistic and related a lot with the character. What they didn't know was that the character was based off of *me*. Looking back on it now, it's painfully obvious that I had unconsciously coded the MC as autistic. Here are just some characteristics I could think of off the top of my head: 1. She masks heavily (around strangers especially) 2. Can't understand why people don't state their thoughts clearly 3. Asks clarifying questions to the point of annoyance without meaning to 4. Stims with her necklace when in deep thought or zoning out 5. States her opinions bluntly in a way that's perceived as rude to many people (again, without meaning to) 6. Often misunderstands how to interpret and use sarcasm, and takes many statements literally 7. Goes completely non-verbal when she's intensely scared or stressed She even starts the story with the hobby of researching how people interact and how relationships work, all to aid in her understanding. But even then, she just can't seem to grasp it, like a never-ending math problem that doesn't have a real solution. She's not a rude character by any means, as I've tried to write her as an empathetic and thoughtful person as well, just in a non-verbal way: 1. Tries to comfort someone by simply sitting next to them as a way to show that she's there for them (this is one I do a lot myself) 2. Gives someone a gift based on something they told her months ago 3. Considers that her words could be interpreted negatively, so while she states her opinion bluntly, it's usually paired with a clarification or assurance that she harbors no ill intent. 4. She obsesses over a situation where another character got hurt, blames herself, and makes a long list of ways she could have prevented it. I've gotten compliments for her character before, which has been a shock to me. I didn't get bullied too severely as a kid, but I always had the nagging feeling that my peers didn't particularly like me, which was why my friend group was so small. And since the MC was largely based off of me, the cognitive dissonance caused me to think "If you like this character so much, why was I mistreated?" As I look back, it's extremely likely that those people may have also been autistic and were interested to see a main character that thought and acted like them, since those kinds of characters are usually either forgotten, used as a throwaway joke, or somehow "fixed" later in their arc. All of this is to say that my writing helps me quell my doubts when I think I may not be autistic, since it shows well over a decade of the main character of my story, who is heavily based on my personality and struggles, being very obviously autistic. Edit: It looks like some people are interested in reading the comic! It's called Crossing Worlds, the link is in my channel bio!😊