To think “neurodivergent” is being used too casually and too often?

ND isn’t about being quirky. It’s about finding parts everyday life challenging. 90% of autistic women will also be diagnosed with a mental health condition, autistic women account for 25 to 35% of women being treated for anorexia and therefore traditional treatment isn’t appropriate because it doesn’t work and autistic women with high IQs are 13 times more likely to die by sucide.

I hate to think how many women have been seriously failed by mental health services along because their neurodiversity wasn’t recognised or understood.

Well said.

Unfortunately I doubt op cares much.

People like op come on, make bold ignorant statements but really don’t want to listen to anyone’s experiences.

I always find these threads interesting as the poll vote always has its majority agreeing with the OP, yet the posters who contribute mostly disagreeing.

I suspect OP, that most who agree with you can’t be assed posting because it’s a touchy as fuck subject.

This ^

Neurodivergence can cause huge difficulties for ND people. We're not just being precious snowflakes. We have shorter lifespans, higher suicide rates and higher addiction rates. We're more likely to have mental health difficulties, struggle to access healthcare and be unemployed. We're often socially isolated and chronically lonely. We're bullied, rejected and ostracised in schools, workplaces and by so called friends and neighbours. We're more likely to be living in poverty. We also have particular physical health problems that the NHS doesn't want to know about - EDS, hypermobility, allergies, MCAS, POTs etc. These often cause lifelong, chronic pain. It's shit and I honestly wish I'd never been born, as does my ds. We're hidden from view though. I never talk to NTs unless it's absolutely unavoidable. NTs do not know there's a whole world of struggling people out there and how their excessive noise and crap means we're living shit lives.

This.
It's about time everyone is accepted and reasonable adjustments are made
The world is not just a neurotypical world
A very good example is I have to travel from only one airport because my ND DD is familiar with it and knows there are no lifts, without special assistance we would not get on that plane. The "quirks" or "preferances" cause a high level of emotional distress and need to be recognised and be accepted

Strongly disagree.
As a 46 yo from a Communist country, there was literally NO peer, friend, acquaintance or relative who would be ND. Do you know why?
It was within norm to be ostracized, mocked, threatened to be removed from your "home" (and some of the heavily affected kids were), punished by solitude, sometimes by removing food and water (yes, true). All accepted.
Now, I have Asperger's. My bastard "parents" fortunately didn't notice, therefore didn't punish much. The adults, who were around us then, would be criminals now. Obviously low contact with remaining elderly "parent". Just another way to look at it.

I guess the question is how well do you cope "outside the mainstream"? And how well do those around you cope with you? I mean yes in theory you are right, problem is there is basically very little support available for anyone and if you don't have a diagnosis, there is zero! If you are one of the lucky ones who does life fine, just with some variation fair enough, but for all those who don't, no diagnosis means they are screwed.

Lets see if OP returns.

Same old ableist shite. Everyone has moved on from disability bashing now, other than on Mumsnet apparently.

Diagnosis, not label.

Language is important. We need words to describe everything. Maybe you feel annoyed about the overexposure if you and others assume that ND’s are a tiny minority.
if the numbers are higher than previously assumed then it makes sense that you would hear more people describing themselves, more regularly and vocally

Honestly it really is!! Is someone in government trying to cut treatment for neurodivergent people so is on a campaign to swamp the internet forums with “what a load of crap this is we should blah blah”. There are just too many of these threads for this to be organic….

Anyway to OP. Lots undiagnosed? Yes. diagnosed? No. As I have said before I think there is an issue with self diagnosis and perhaps a tad over diagnosed in young children….But there is possibly an under diagnosed in the adult population perhaps paradoxically also people who have self diagnosed based on exactly what you think neurodivergence is…

”I do that sometimes…I must be ADHD to the eyeballs” 🙄

I might have still been in my well-paid public sector job if I'd had a diagnosis 25 years ago. Instead I was dismissed under a capability process because I'd had repeated spells of sick leave for 4-12 weeks at a time.

It was only decades later that my therapist advised me to seek a diagnosis, and reckons that I was actually having autistic burnout. I scored massively high on pre-assessment tests and said therapist is so positive that I'm ND that she's said she'll refund all my fees if I'm not.

If the term "neurodiverse" were saved for parts of the spectrum that are well away from the average, and the degree of severity was properly diagnosed by the correct medical professionals, then time ,money and resources could be targeted at those who haven't the capability or resilience to develop their own coping strategies.
At the moment resources are spread so thinly over the vast numbers of individuals labelled as "neurodiverse" " that nobody ends up with any quality provision!
(Not the most publicised viewpoint and bound to be jumped on by the strident posters that stalk the SEND forums on here,but I suspect this is the quietly held view of the vast majority including the OP and the large vote count who support the original question. )

You do realise that you actually have to meet a criteria in order to even be referred let alone get a diagnosis?

It’s really not a case of us all being a bit different.

We are just discovering that the ND population is a very big minority. Not the tiny little % people thought it was.

things have to change. Education, the way work is structured. Everything. It’s all set out for NT and it makes every day life exhausting for the rest of us

My son is ASD. It helps to understand that some of his weird behaviour and reactions are "normal" to him- he's not doing it to be annoying (repeat ad nauseum in order not to blow up on him). So yes, he's ND. He needs a TA 1:1 in school and has a learning disability as well. When people say I'm ND even though they have no difficulty or diagnosis, they just want to say that they're different and quirky it really pisses me of. I would love for my DS to not be ND- it makes his life so difficult and ours as well. And I don't think he will ever be able to live independently. Nothing cute or quirky about that, it's just sad.

Or, cringle inducingly, "superpower"

I had a friend diagnosed with adhd, and it became, without exaggeration, her whole personality.

People who actually think they are neurodivergent, or are diagnosed, are absolutely fine imo.

It's this new lot of people who just want, what they perceive as, attention for being ND, and use terms like neurospicy, or this God awful one I saw on here the other day - neurosparkly, that piss me off.

No, there’s not. We’re all different. Always have been. But we apparently need labels now. 🤷‍♀️

I'd probably have agreed with you until my brother was diagnosed as ADHD in his mid thirties. The poor bloke has struggled since being a kid but was labelled as a class clown whereas now we'd see that as the hyperactivity part. He is now a primary school teacher and medicated. He can now think straight, fits in socially and is able to deal with his MH as soon as he spots his warning signs. He no longer thinks he is thick, useless and pointless as he was made to feel by our dad. Honestly had my brother been diagnosed as a kid he probably wouldn't have felt suicidal as an adult. It took an hour of a therapist first meeting him to ask if he'd been tested over years of education with nobody thinking something was up.

Currently pursuing diagnoses within my family for these reasons. We are all individuals with strengths and weaknesses but when the system doesn't allow us to thrive without the label then you must get the label (because you can't do X or have Y unless you have a diagnosis). I also think there is something about the pace / type of of lives that we lead now that is surfacing "ND" more obviously than it was before.

The problem is, theres no such thing as neurotypical

Yes I'm kind of with you op. there are obviously people who are genuinely ND but for example just because someone is shy these days they are now labelled as ND even without an official diagnosis but parents insist and push their dc must be ND because the child is shy. I think its actually going to get to a point where there are more ND people in the world than NT at this rate. why can't people just accept that we as humans are all different with different personality traits which are all part of being a normal human being.

ND people need diagnosis because the world is designed by NT people who need reminding to expand their definition of “normal” (ie acceptable ) and that the quirks aren’t an attempt to annoy or frustrate NT people and structures which can be the rigid barriers to society ticking along.

I might actually love you.