>>229482Agree with this completely. When somebody is "off" you can tell almost immediately. They talk too much, lack social tact (and this doesn't mean social awkwardness or "anxiety" more so being totally unable to read a room) or you can tell in their face or mannerisms.
Any healthcare "professional" or mental health type person would label me autistic when the reality is I've lived an alienated and isolated life for over a decade and this turned me into what I am today. I was a happy though shy child, but the world beat me down and I had no support, so I became twisted and neurotic.
Put anyone in my shoes and give them the experiences I did (or didn't) have and they'd end up mostly the same, probably with some slight temperamental differences pushing them in somewhat different trajectories but all within an expected radius.
Taking it to the extreme, a child raised feral will display insanely "autistic" and "neurodivergent" traits and be gassed up with all kinds of conditions and labels, irrelevant to the root cause of why they ended up like that.
I actually find it very condescending and useless. People go through things and it changes them, a bullied kid will become insular and maladapted to his social environment because the environment to him is hostile. He will then display "autistic" tendencies. This kid, already feeling othered by the world through social exclusion, will be further othered by a label calling him fundamentally different and other and alien. Now maybe some people find that comforting. I find it insulting.
It ignores the fundamental things all people need to not end up broken and twisted and replaces them with a generalized label you can slap on anybody without any understanding of the root cause(s) or how society or the environment or anything else might be at fault. It's instead "you're fundamentally different, you have x, y and z, and here's some ADHD medication while you're at it. this is your life now." It's lazy and stupid.