Hacker News Reader

Comment by makeitdouble | Hacker News Reader

The line you draw between "weirdness" and "neurodivergence" is interesting.

Would neurodivergence have to be native (so, not grown "naturally") and at which point does weirdness fit on the spectrum ?

Recently I think people are more receptive to lower degrees of neurodivergence. I see it the same way people understand that you have a gradation between having difficulties climbing stairs and not being able to walk. We could probably have it more in the open that many are not full blown clinically diagnosed ASD patients, and I wouldn't see it as an issue to have "false positives" of diversity lumped into neurodivergence if it was destigmatized.

View on HN

At some point the question is “why?”. We can keep atomizing human variability into smaller, more graduated buckets of neurodivergence, but what’s the point, esp. for those that don’t really suffer negative impacts, and for which there isn’t really any remedy besides acceptance?

My guess is to try to improve human relationships. Trying to understand why someone has consistent surprising/inappropriate reactions might help. The flip side is someone who consistently seems to be surprised by how people are reacting to them and wants better connections.

I do know that people do not like me. Don't get me wrong, my coworkers all get along with me and I think most enjoy working with me but in general people outside of work don't want to be around me. Hell I couldn't even keep my wife interested enough to stick with me.

So how could we study what makes me turn off other people and have it make a difference in my life? It is unlikely that I would be able to change myself and there is almost zero chance that whatever it is about me that disgusts others will change their natural reaction.

In addition, I am not sure that this isn't how things are supposed to be. This may be part of social evolution that just makes the world tick.

I would prefer we stop classifying people and just let them be who/what they are without pointing fingers at them.

It’s all about realistic introspection. People with a disorder often prefer the disorder to change. I think it is a personal decision. If one feels the need to be closer/understand an individual or is not satisfied with the quality of their human relationships than understanding personalities including one’s own can help.

> So how could we study what makes me turn off other people and have it make a difference in my life? It is unlikely that I would be able to change myself and there is almost zero chance that whatever it is about me that disgusts others will change their natural reaction.

Highly unlikely, but you didn't rule it out completely. Plus there are others who also might be able to change.

Maybe this will be an unpopular opinion, but hear me out: it is the video platforms like YouTube, TikTok, etc. Before these platforms, it was relatively difficult to find videos of "ordinary" people in everyday situations. Sure there was funniest home videos and other carefully curated channels, but now it is easy. And with consumption of these videos comes the desire for a vocabulary to classify and describe them. Like how food is spicy or sweet and has different ethnic styles, or music has a tangled mess of genres and substyles, the teenagers of today are developing a classification of (videos of) human behavior. And part of this is non-neurotypical behavior - I don't know why, I haven't really investigated this, but it is clear that some (a lot?) of people enjoy watching content from autistic people, ADHD people, etc. For them, or at least the ML algorithms that feed them content, it is a genre like any other, and in the incestuous cycle of hunting for views, whether the origin was man or machine, at this point it has become branding.

What I'm not clear on is whether this translates to better real-world interactions. Certainly, it raises awareness of the conditions, but just watching a video does not necessarily lead to smooth conversation. Generally meetings with famous actors are pretty awkward and it is even less clear to me that someone who watches ADHD videos would necessarily enjoy meeting an ADHD person irl, particularly one that doesn't make engaging videos with millions of views.

so that people can identify themselves as being part of a group, and then find others who are also part of that group, just to have a community for support. if I want to find a group of left handed pansexuals who are into Pokemon Go, the Internet facilitates finding your exact flock.

Seems to me like enabling further segregating people would be a negative thing. Eventually groups become so isolated that conflict is inevitable

There is a mean trick to make people stop pushing their own group identity. Refer to them as their group identity instead of by their name.

Just a guess here - but to make diagnosed people feel more included and part of a group, the more people get diagnosed even if it's 0.01%, the more safe the others feel because they're not alone, it stops being a stigma

> but to make diagnosed people feel more included and part of a group, the more people get diagnosed even if it's 0.01%, the more safe the others feel because they're not alone,

I've worked with younger people in tech. I'm seeing a mix of effects, positive and negative, from increased diagnosis rates.

On the plus side, some people are using their diagnoses to find helpful support material, techniques, and advice.

On the negative side, some people get a diagnosis and then try to use it as an excuse for every personality trait they can fit under the umbrella of that diagnosis.

It's really difficult as a mentor to have to explain to someone that their diagnosis of anxiety or ADHD or autism doesn't give them a free pass in society for all of the things they struggle with.

I've had to explain to numerous people that having an ADHD diagnosis doesn't, for example, exempt them from the same performance review standards as their peers at work. This can be difficult to acceptance for someone who was given extra time on tests and possibly more leniency on assignments throughout high school and college due to their diagnosis. The educational institutions meant well, but the students took the wrong message from their accommodations and assumed it was always the world's responsibility to bend to their personal quirks rather than the other way around. Teaching people that their diagnosis is, to be blunt, not other people's problem is a difficult hurdle to clear for some. Many others get it right away, of course, but the internet rhetoric about neurodivergence leads a lot of people in the wrong direction.

> I've had to explain to numerous people that having an ADHD diagnosis doesn't, for example, exempt them from the same performance review standards as their peers at work.

I can’t speak for you, but that isn’t at all accurate as far as I know. I myself would not say these kinds of things to a coworker, and definitely not to a subordinate one or one that reports to me, as I don’t work in HR or legal department, and I’m not intimately familiar with actual existing accommodations for ADHD and other conditions under the FMLA and other disability discrimination laws and regulations in the US or other countries.

This is a legal minefield and accident waiting to happen. Tread lightly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_o...

> I can’t speak for you, but that isn’t at all accurate as far as I know.

> I’m not intimately familiar with actual existing accommodations for ADHD and other conditions under the FMLA and other disability discrimination laws and regulations in the US or other countries.

Why are you saying it's inaccurate if you don't understand the laws and regulations?

The FMLA that you cited and linked is for emergency medical leave, not for ADHD accommodations.

You're also making a mistake that I see a lot: Getting an ADHD diagnosis is not the same as having a disability. It is possible to qualify as having a disability due to an ADHD diagnosis, but it's a substantially more difficult standard to achieve and prove. The average ADHD patient will not and cannot qualify as being disabled due to ADHD.

This is exactly what I was talking about: There has been an explosion of over-confident opinions about how ADHD and other mental health conditions intersect the workplace that have no basis in reality. The amount of incorrect ADHD information circulating on places like Reddit and TikTok is leading people in the wrong direction in large numbers.

> Why are you saying it's inaccurate if you don't understand the laws and regulations?

I didn’t say I wasn’t familiar with them, I said I wasn’t intimately familiar with them.

> The FMLA that you cited and linked is for emergency medical leave, not for ADHD accommodations.

It’s about more than that, but that’s neither here nor there.

Needing to take time off regularly, irregularly, as needed, or working less than full-time at an ostensibly full-time job due to a medical condition that may or may not be a disability are accommodations that would fall under FMLA, and it would be a factor in someone being unable to meet otherwise-reasonable standards or expectations. The FMLA applies even if your medical condition isn’t considered a disability, for that matter.

That’s specifically why I said that I’m not speaking for you, because I don’t know what you know or don’t know, nor do I know what jurisdiction you operate in, but I know enough to not advise others about how to speak about coworkers’ medical issues - I just don’t do it! I don’t speak about coworkers’ medical issues, because it’s none of my business, and it’s a poor use of my time, their time, and the company’s time. It’s also not in my job description to comment on my coworkers’ medical issues.

I’d be happy to discuss this further and read any resources you may have on this subject, though. I don’t claim to be an expert, and I am amenable to reason.

> and read any resources you may have on this subject,

If anything, I'd suggest reading up on the details of FMLA.

FMLA is not, for example, a free pass to take time off as needed, or regularly.

The wording of FMLA is more about recovering from an illness. Someone who routinely becomes overwhelmed with work and needs extra time off is going to have a hard time arguing that it's actually FMLA protected leave.. FMLA will specifically exclude things like taking time off for routine medical care, because it's specifically not for those purposes.

> FMLA will specifically exclude things like taking time off for routine medical care, because it's specifically not for those purposes.

I am going to have to disagree with you there: continuing care and mental health days are covered under the FMLA as I read it.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/28o-mental-heal...

> LEAVE FOR MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS UNDER THE FMLA

> An eligible employee may take FMLA leave for their own serious health condition, or to care for a spouse, child, or parent because of a serious health condition. A serious health condition can include a mental health condition.

> Mental and physical health conditions are considered serious health conditions under the FMLA if they require 1) inpatient care or 2) continuing treatment by a health care provider.

> A serious mental health condition that requires inpatient care includes an overnight stay in a hospital or other medical care facility, such as, for example, a treatment center for addiction or eating disorders.

> A serious mental health condition that requires continuing treatment by a health care provider includes—

> Conditions that incapacitate an individual for more than three consecutive days and require ongoing medical treatment, either multiple appointments with a health care provider, including a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, or clinical social worker, or a single appointment and follow-up care (e.g., prescription medication, outpatient rehabilitation counseling, or behavioral therapy); and

> Chronic conditions (e.g., anxiety, depression, or dissociative disorders) that cause occasional periods when an individual is incapacitated and require treatment by a health care provider at least twice a year.

> REASONS FOR LEAVE

> Leave for the Employee’s Mental Health Condition

> An eligible employee may take up to 12 workweeks of leave for their own serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform their essential job duties.

> Example:

> Karen is occasionally unable to work due to severe anxiety. She sees a doctor monthly to manage her symptoms. Karen uses FMLA leave to take time off when she is unable to work unexpectedly due to her condition and when she has a regularly scheduled appointment to see her doctor during her work shift.

How is this stance different from one that says the same thing about your race or being deaf or requiring regular injections? Seems to me this is saying that some forms of bigotry are OK and the victims of it just need to deal with it. That neural disorders aren't as real or important because you can't see them and that makes it easier for some people who have them, but at a functional level, try to make more of it than they should. Because of this everyone with any level of these conditions should just suck it up where it doesn't jive well with our common hierarchical workplace organization.

> How is this stance different from one that says the same thing about your race or being deaf or requiring regular injections? Seems to me this is saying that some forms of bigotry are OK and the victims of it just need to deal with it.

I never suggested discrimination based on mental health conditions is okay or encouraged. I'm just pointing out that you shouldn't put it on your resume and you can't expect it to exempt you from having to do your job. It's simple.

I don't understand your analogy to race because that doesn't make any sense and certainly isn't relevant to what I said.

As for your example of being deaf: The reality is that any disability that prevents someone from doing a job, in a way that that cannot be reasonably accommodated, means that an employer doesn't have to hire that person for the job. This makes people angry in the general sense, but the truth is that there are jobs that require certain abilities to perform. If someone was, for example, confined to a wheelchair then they would not be considered for a job loading trucks. That's "discrimination" in the general sense of the word, but it's certainly not bigotry.

I think you've either misunderstood what I was saying, or you're upset that the world isn't as idealistic as you want. The reality is that if a condition prevents someone from doing a job and it can't be reasonably accommodated, the employer isn't forced to keep paying that person and ignore their inability to do the job.

Having ADHD is a hurdle, but not something that prevents most people from doing jobs. It makes them more difficult, yes, but not impossible. If the condition is so bad that it becomes disabling (legal definition) then that's a different story, but again you're not required to employ people who have disabilities that prevent them from doing the job.

The analogy to race was due to DEI training at work. They equate all things people have biases against as things you should work to overcome. Race is one of these as is sex, handicaps, etc.

The deaf example is actually quite good. People who suffer from neurological disorders have a disability (in the legal sense) that sometimes can't be accommodated in a very similar way. But they aren't considered to be disabled in the same sense and people don't recognize it. They instead just think the people have bad social skills and should try harder (my last employer's DEI training said exactly this). If you had a deaf or wheelchair bound person and people just generally decided that those are excuses for doing things that everyone else can do then it'd be comparable (I mean things that they can do, but can't do as others expect because, say, they can't hear the instructions from their boss).

I'm really not that concerned with a perfect world and I agree with much of what you are saying. I'd best describe my feelings as annoyed and concerned for how much society has doubled down on all DEI biases being unacceptable except for those against people with neurological disorders (both sides of that annoy me, the doubling down and the ignoring).

And I apologize for suggesting, if indirectly, that you were bigoted. I meant that more as a rhetorical statement but don't think I couched it as well as I could have.

> The educational institutions meant well, but the students took the wrong message from their accommodations and assumed it was always the world's responsibility to bend to their personal quirks rather than the other way around.

This is kind of a toxic perspective and could be why you have so many problems with your neurodiverse coworkers. If you believe they should never require accommodations and are always expected to conform to the rest of society, then you don't understand what that experience is like and how further debilitating it can actually be.

> If you believe they should never require accommodations and are always expected to conform to the rest of society

That's not what I said. The amount of toxic projection happening underneath these comments is wild.

Anyway, I did not say they shouldn't get accommodations. I said those accommodations do not exempt them from having to do the job.

The mistake being made is to confuse accommodations that help people do their job with "accommodations" that exempt the person from having to do the job.

Two different things! You can expect the first in the workplace. You cannot expect the second.

I’m sorry, no one is going to bend their whole life to fit whatever accommodation you require. If you have a covered disability and a company legally must provide some minimal accommodation, then sure. If you are a weirdo who needs their emotional support stuffed animals surrounding the office or you break into a panic attack, you will discover life isn’t fair pretty quick.

This is not my experience at all. Being diagnosed directly led to immense stigma over and over. You are literally giving people the language they need to stereotype you and put you into a bucket by getting diagnosed and telling people your diagnosis. Stigma is literally an iatrogenic consequence of diagnosis itself, never mind diagnosis stopping stigma! I hear "Autistic" thrown around as an insult maybe 10x more than I heard the same 20 years ago.

People feeling safe because they're not alone does not end stigma whatsoever either.

> by getting diagnosed and telling people your diagnosis

One of the things I try to emphasize with newly diagnosed young people is that they should not make their diagnosis an outward part of their personality.

There's a trend of putting your diagnoses in everything from your LinkedIn profile to your resume lately. I've been helping with resume review in a group and I've been stunned by how many times I've had to tell people that they need to remove their ADHD diagnosis from their resume.

I dont even like it on a personal level. People use these terms to describe themselves in very narrow buckets and stereotypes, and there is no logic to that at all. I saw a post on /r/ADHD for example thst went something like "Does anyone else svoid eye contact during sex" and everyones like "omg thats me too!". I mean...need I say more?

I get how it might be fulfilling to have a label to explain away all your behaviors but it makes no sense to do so and I find it extremely self-limiting

How does sifting people into smaller and smaller buckets work to make people feel more part of a group? Seems more like people who have felt marginalized in the past want others to feel marginalized like they did, and work to place people into smaller and smaller categories to do so.

And for every group there is an anti-group, another set of people for whom the group-included feel justified in feeling resentful towards in some way.

Because the buckets were always there and the main difference is their visibility.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/13/why-were-turni...

This fails the placebo test. People feel more included and part of groups even if the groups are assigned at random.

Acceptance comes from understanding, on both sides.

We have small and graduated buckets for absolutely anything that impacts how we socially interact with someone. Which town they come from, nationality, ethnicity, educational background, religion down to specific cult group, football team, wealth level, parent's profession, family composition etc.

Any of these has potential for negative discrimination, but we also use them for improving the interaction and mitigate confronting issues. The small and graduated buckets do IMHO help avoiding the negative impacts in the first place.

You didn't use this word specifically but this whole conversation has the underlying prior of the "everything is a spectrum" mindset.

In that context, everyone is neurodivergence because, afterall it's a spectrum we're all on and nobody is going to be deadest average. At some point we have to define at what point these spectrums become clinical. The kind of language you see in the DSM for stuff like this is "does it affect daily living/relationships/health in a negative way".

Being neurodivergent isn't a disorder, not showering because you're obsessed with programming probably is.

> At some point we have to define at what point these spectrums become clinical

Thing is, I'm not a psychiatrist, the author probably isn't, most of us aren't. The question of whether it becomes clinical is IMHO irrelevant to most of us.

We won't be standing in front of someone pondering whether they can apply for disability, the better question will be how comfortable they are at keeping eye contact for instance.

It's a philosophical question not a psychological question, so I see no reason to appeal to the authority of psychologists here, who are pretty throughly unqualified to determine this.

The term "clinical" implies qualified medical professional to me.

"We", as a society, are very much concerned with whether or not someone is eligible for various assistance programs.

We're redefining previously binary conditions as spectrums but the programs there to assist still available as a binary.

It's the same for any most conditions leading to assistance programs though.

Whether you're legally blind or not, legally deaf or not is binary, but each person is on a spectrum and when interacting with someone we might want to adjust to their level where it matters. You don't talk the same way to an elderly with only half of their hearing left, even if legally they're not deaf. Or choose your color schemes with color blind people in mind, even if they won't be registered for governement assistance.

That's where I see the distinction between the administrative part of it, which needs binary criteria because of the management nightmare it would be to have gradual scales for everything, and the human/everyday life side of things, where caring about the different shades matters a lot IMHO.

Autism is a result of neurons failing to "trim" or being over-connected. Being "on the spectrum" refers to the degree of above average physical over-connection of neurons. The opposite, when neurons fail to connect or lose too many connections is called schizophrenia.

People that are between the two, the vast majority of people, are not said to be either autistic or schizophrenic (you can't be both at the same time but can go from autistic to schizophrenic with a degenerative disease). Everyone is not "on the spectrum" for autism, again by definition no one that is schizophrenic is "on the spectrum" for autism at all so your comment is nonsensical.

> not said to be either autistic or schizophrenic (you can't be both at the same time

I've never heard this before and a quick search can't find any evidence of it.

The "over-connected" suggestion did pull up studies like this[1], but that's one effect of one set of genes sometimes associated with autism, and, of course, it was in mice.

I'd definitely like to learn more, but at first impression, a spectrum with autism and schizophrenia at opposite ends seems way too simple a model for human brains.

[1] https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/in-autism-too-many-brain-con...

You've really only redefined the spectrum. It's now a single spectrum from Autism to Schizophrenia. You can't be on two spots on the spectrum at once. You've still put everyone on a spectrum and my question still stands.

How far on the spectrum towards schizophrenia have to be before they are clinically schizophrenic?

I don't disagree with the tendency to place things on spectrums but I find that people fail to adress that some people are so far on any spectrum that they become clinical.

ASD has different levels of diagnosis. I've been told by a therapist specializing in ASD that there are a lot of diagnosed and undiagnosed ASD workers in tech. It's very possible the only reason they are "full blown clinically diagnosed" is because they haven't been tested.

At this point we could diagnose basically everyone on the planet with some flavour of neurodivergence. I’m sure there’s one that makes people good at sales, one that makes people ruthless CEOs, one that makes people programmers, etc.

But I just don’t see the point of diagnosing people with things unless it causes some kind of actual disability and dysfunction.

No, you can't diagnose most people. Yes, the diagnosis generally requires there to be disabilities related to it. Otherwise it doesn't meet the criteria.

That's the current medical way, but the author and this thread like to put up the idea that basically all if not all programmers and "weird nerds" are autistic but it's just massively under diagnosed. To which I disagree, if there are essentially no disorders in your life, you shouldn't be diagnosed.

The ASD spectrum has become incredibly broad to the point where someone who likes just programming too much is being classified in the same group as someone who can hardly speak, let alone look after themselves.

"The ASD spectrum has become incredibly broad to the point where someone who likes just programming too much is being classified in the same group as someone who can hardly speak, let alone look after themselves."

This isn't true at all. The ASD grading has different levels based on the level of assistance needed. Unless that programming is significantly impacting your abilities in life, you would be told that you display some ASD like behaviors but that you don't actually have ASD.

I know a therapist that specializes in adult ASD and they believe that many people in technology fields do have undiagnosed mild ASD. The strong logical basis to the work and other characteristics of the job may play a role in attracting people whose minds work a certain way. It also seems the few people I know who have been diagnosed later in life tend to be in technical fields. The observations and the theory behind it seem to make sense. But not everyone has it, and there is criteria that need to be met to diagnosis it (disabilities).

The issue IMO is we don't have a non medical but accurate word for "some flavour of neurodivergence".

The author tries to come up the "weird nerd" terminology, but it doesn't feel better to me. Extending the medical term to non problematic behaviours feels like a better tradeoff to me.

We already do that in spades: people can have myopism to varying degrees, and we don't avoid putting them somewhere on the scale until they need coke bottle glasses.

The phrase has sounded weird to me for some time but here it strikes me as especially so: "the spectrum"

Just one spectrum, 2 dimensions? Is that all we get? It's a linguistic short-cut, I get that, but I wonder how useful it is, how much nuance it conceals.

Picture a color wheel instead of a continuum.

Here's an image that shows what I mean: https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.4683716510.9542/raf,360x360,...

Yeah, a Kiviat diagram, or radar graph

https://blog.onepatchdown.net/autism/2023/01/13/autism/

Yes, 2 degrees, because autism is a neural "over-connectedness" in the brain that leads to common physical and mental symptoms like toe walking, double hair whorl, sensitivity to sound, etc.

The spectrum can essentially be thought of has the degree of neural "over-connectedness".

Yeah, "the spectrum" feels like squeezing lots of things into one diagnosis. Kind of the opposite of neurodiversity.

It also feels a bit tech-centric... probably tech is someplace autistic attributes are particularly helpful, but other subjects are probably most compatible with other kinds of neurodivergence.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com