What autistic people really think about the word 'neurodiver

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I find it offensive and insulting.

I don't think it's offensive, I just think it's a bit vague, and the way it's used most of the time it's just another way of saying autistic, while occasionally being applied to ADHD, but usually concerning traits that overlap between the two conditions. I know that's not how the term was coined or how it's always used even now, but it seems to be its most frequent usage, and I feel like there's an element of the euphemism treadmill at work. First it was Asperger's, then it was "on the spectrum," now it's neurodivergent--all different ways of saying a person is autistic in a manner that makes it sound, for lack of a better word, more cool.

I thought neurodiverse applied to any condition, as it sounds like a broad sort of word that isn't just used in a binary context.

Neurodivergent makes me cringe a bit and makes me picture performative tiktokkers who do cutesy fake stim videos, but anything is better than neuro(blegh)spicy(blegh).

I think that the term Neurodiverse is a little too broad. I think that ASD would be a better term for us. Neurodiverse is a good idea if you want to include a wider variety of conditions.

I refer to myself as "autistic". To soften it up and use some euphemism, to me, would go against what autism stands for.

I think it's a convenient way for big tech companies to hire people with autism, and then make everyone feel warm and fuzzy about their "diverse" hiring practices while still mostly hiring heterosexual white men.

Plenty of people are neurodivergent. My mother is neurodivergent. I have Aspergers though... it's almost as if it was a meaningful distinction and it feels irritating when I'm looking for an autist to relate to and instead of finding autists like me online the people under the autism label online are just normies with hyperfixations or a personality disorder. I don't really know, I guess those kind of people can be truly autistic too but they're just, different from me. Maybe it's because I'm evil and f****d up and brooding and I'm the one with the weirder form of autism.

Whenever I use "Asperger's" in an internet search I always mean "people on the spectrum with no notable developmental delays" or "people with broader autism phenotype" or "people who have the social skills to interact normally with others even from childhood". Those of us who sit on the line between NT and autism. Those of us whose ASD feels more like a difference or a mental health issue than a developmental disorder. It's so, so difficult to explain, yet it's just common sense really.

If you're researching for historical figures with potential autism, only the "freaks" get the spotlight. Which then just stereotypes autistic people with being freaky mad scientists, rather than broadening the understanding of autism by also including potential autistic people with highly sensitive, quiet, and empathetic traits. And if Asperger's was still an existing label then I might have been able to find my answer. But no, the internet automatically connects autism with mad geniuses, and any historical figure who hasn't done anything clever is not considered autistic but just have a "highly creative temperament". There are autistic men out there who are shy, sensitive, pensive and empathetic too you know, they're not all flamboyant freaks like Mozart.

Wouldn't NTs also be considered "neurodiverse" and part of humanity's "neurodiversity" ??

Every human being has some sort of neurological wiring. The term is usually used to mean non-NT. But, as NT is a neurotype in its own right, it's part of the "diverse" neruological wiring of human beings.

So, it sort of defeats the purpose.

Neurodivergent (as in divergent from the NT norm) would actually be a more accurate term.

Me personally? I'm just a sperg.

At 14, it's like a prized term I've been looking for.
Yet for most of my life, I've been looking for what can explain something within me that made me not able to relate to too many humans...

... Yet neurodiversity did not provide enough. Because what I've been looking for was a form of internal neurological bias, born from whatever temperament, early development and biology.
Autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, developmental or cognitive issues, etc. It does not explain.
Even to make it more inclusive, mental illnesses and personality disorders could not explain what I've been looking for.
Even going beyond neurodivergent being and states, NTs and allistics cannot. Usual causes and effect of experiences, adversities and ideals cannot. Not even the usual 'reactions' from any circumstances...

Nothing is explaining what my case is about. Nothing is helping me hint where and how my needs are met.


At 30, it's lost meaning now I've seen and got what I've been looking for. That I finally had a hint after all these years.


In the end, what I'm pursuing is never about neurodiversity...
... Only that neurodiversity, to me, was a promise that something I've been looking for could be explained and help me.

It did not.
All my interest died along with the discovery of the explanation of what I've been looking for.
In a real sense, I outgrown the need for it.


And I think...
Overtime, since 2025 Christmas, everything related to it is slowly dissolving from me. Because nothing is sustaining me from ever looking at the word neurodiversity anymore.
Slowly but surely... The community, the concept... Even the mission or purpose of it.
Eventually, the thought around the word and how that applies me, my situation, etc. would shelved within the recesses of my mind.

I'd still root for team neurodiversity when it came to the grander scheme of things.
Yet it is no longer as personal to me.

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