Why is autism suddenly something trendy and quirky?

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Yes and professionals can be wrong, but it is possible to get another evaluation if you really disagree or feel the professional was not as knowledgeable in the field as they should be.

But yeah I don't think I've ever been on tumbler, I use facebook since most people I know are on it so it helps stay in touch, I like some of the games and I get intresting stuff on my post feed or whatever to read but don't go to the other ones like tumbler, or worse twitter as anything I hear of that makes me picture it as a cesspool of drama, angst and negativity. So yeah no idea what people say about autism on there.

I've never seen anyone on tumblr pretending to have Autism, but i have come across people on WP and other forums DESPERATELY trying to prove they're autistic when they don't.

Its trendy because of shows like the 'Big Bang Theory' and 'House' people see people like this



and they see how funny he is and they want to identify with him because everyone is at least a LITTLE like sheldon. but then they see people like This:




and all the sudden shes just an autistic person, a brilliant one, but you dont ever hear an NT quote Temple or talk about her.

its the medias swing on things

I don't think I have ever noticed anyone pretending to be autistic. I have seen a lot on Yahoo Answers of people asking if they are autistic and they list their "symptoms" but none of them are even symptoms. They just come off as being shy or anxious or self conscious or possibly introverted. They mention nothing about sensory issues or routines or stimming or difficulty with reading body language or picking up on social cues or taking things literal.

I think I have only known one person in my life online who faked it. He was an online friend and he learned about AS through me and he started to obsess about it and he acted worse and all of a sudden we were arguing and he would say "I have Asperger's" and my feelings quit mattering and he started to gaslight and blame it all on me. I think he hid behind it and he managed to finally get the diagnoses after being told he didn't have it. Then some other doctor manged to give him the label. Yeah I think he faked it and wants it. But he does have mental issues so his problems are real but it's not autism.

I haven't noticed this, though I may be less observant than you. How is it that you know? How can you know? As Fnord would say, "only a licensed professional... etc." doesn't this work both ways?

Really? I don't think most people are like him at all, and I would be surprised if they saw themselves in him. I don't think he is particularly like any autistic people I know.


So this man has been professionally diagnosed twice but you know that diagnosis is wrong? Is it possible that those professionals saw things in real life that you did not in your online interactions with him?

The only time I have seen someone wanting to be labeled with autism who clearly did not have it was someone who distressed about their mental illness. This person clearly felt that if their obvious oddness was attributable to autism, it would be less awful than the heavily stigmatized and feared mental illness they had been labeled with. The list of symptoms this person discussed sounded consistent with their current diagnosis and not with autism.

General thought: the presence of a few people like this online doesn't make a trend, or make Sheldon a role model.


This is completely consistent with my experience.

I have no idea. I have pddnos.
But there is a girl in my school who thinks she has depression, anxiety, autism, add/adhd she also thinks she is a genius and that she is a psychopath, i assume it is because she wants attention, as almost everyone else pretending to have some sort of problem they obviously do not have. Or then it is because they feel they will be "hipster" or "unique" or that if they had some problems it would make them seem more interesting.
I disagree, i think what makes a person interesting is who they are not what diagnoses they have or dont have.
And i just think it is plain rude to those who actually struggle alot with having an autism spectrum disorder.

No he had brain damage from being hit by a car at age six so he had problems and then he discovered AS and he said later on on another forum he was diagnosed with NVLD but he was still convinced he had AS and then he wrote a few years later a doctor finally gave him the label and he had been told by another doctor he did not have AS. I think he faked it because he got worse with his behavior on IM after he started to obsess about AS and I don't buy it. So I think he hid behind the AS label to not listen and to harass me and not respect me and to dismiss my feelings and gaslight by turning it around on me. Oh yeah he also denied eventually telling me he ever told me he was hit by a car and had brain damage. WTF.

I am sorry but if someone is going to act worse after finding out about AS, I will think they are faking it just to get away with their behavior and thinking it's a free pass to harass and stalk someone and to dismiss feelings and be nasty when they don't get their way and he was so hard to get rid of to get him to leave me alone. I still see him around online sometimes but I never correspond with him and I haven't used AIM in two years and he would occasionally IM me. Others had issues with him too and he would play the victim saying everyone is mean to him.

I do not doubt he had problems but it was not autism. He obviously had mental issues because no one acts like him.

This guy actually received a diagnosis?? That's quite worrying if he's not actually autistic.

I have heard you can get diagnosed with autism if you tell the doctor what they want to hear and if they are not that qualified or don't specialize in it, you can get diagnosed with it which is why my mom had an expert look it over when my psychologist thought I might have it when I was 12 because she didn't know a lot about it and wasn't qualified to diagnose something she knew nothing about. I have heard of parents getting their kids diagnosed with autism by exaggerating their symptoms and I always feel bad for the child. I can't imagine growing up thinking I am autistic and then find out I don't have it so how do I explain all these symptoms and what if they were just learned symptoms from childhood and what if I had been faking them all that time and then they became habits? It would be so confusing and heartbreaking and I would be so angry I bet.

But I don't know, he could have it but I still think he has mental issues. Having autism doesn't make us immune to having mental issues. It's very possible to exaggerate your condition even if you do have it and it's very possible to hide behind it to get away with behaviors and say "Oh that's my autism" and "Oh I have autism."

Not necessarily. Some 'appropriately-trained professionals' don't have a clue what they're talking about. I met one 'autism professional' who thought you couldn't be autistic if you could function in a mainstream class without a teacher aide in grade 1. He even used that as his definition of a 'cure'.

If you were unlucky enough to get assessed by someone like that, then your self-diagnosis may be a whole lot more accurate than the professional who disagrees with it.

Weird, I was on my own without an aide until grade 6. I realize I probably needed one before then and no one knew about it then.

And how is it that you determined they don't have autism? Especially over the internet...that takes some talent.

It's total BS to say that autism is a free pass to anything. If someone is trying to say, "my autism means I get to behave badly" then they are probably psychopaths, not autistic--it seems to me.



That makes sense. Do you actually know that he was diagnosed? Or that he had a head injury? Or the truth of anything that he said?

It sounds like this guy was a habitual liar about big things. I think that's a special sort of person and I would assume that everything that person said was false, unless it was independently verified in some way.

I am sorry that you had to deal with him.

No doubt about that: one cannot tell whether or not one has autism based on mere writing within Internet forums.

My brother says 4chan is the largest grouping of autists on the internet.
Everyone is anonymous there, but he's pretty convinced the majority are on the spectrum like himself. So could it be something you can tell through writing? Especially in an anonymous setting?

I have absolutely no clue and usually take people at their word unless they've shown obvious reasons not to believe them...

I saw him wrote online about a year ago that he got diagnosed with autism. He told me he had brain damage and got hit by a car so it affected his speech when I was 17. I don't know if he made his life up so good question. I just thought he was lying about telling me he never told me he had brain damage and getting hit by a car. If someone is going to deny they said things, then you are going to wonder what else they have lied about.

This is something I think about too. I was diagnosed by a clinical psychologist at an autism and aspergers clinic, so that would count as a specialist right?