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> Autism is a disorder, diagnosed in DSM V. […] Unless those cross a pathological threshold, it's not autism.

There is a natural category in the world that shares many members with those-who-meet-diagnostic-criteria-for-"autism", completely unrelated to any "pathological threshold". It absolutely makes sense to describe people as "autistic" whose lives are not suffering.

Beyond that, you really shouldn't be treating the DSM as some kind of authority: that's like treating a particularly unreliable dictionary written by a non-native speaker as an authority on a different language. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_the_DSM for more information.

The idea that the APA's claims are any kind of authoritative is quite insulting. They're systematically wrong, in quite horrible ways, and probably always will be. The DSM-V is a tool for coordination among (American) practitioners, and should not be considered anything more than that: it certainly shouldn't be consulted or quoted by the laity, who do not know the caveats.

Fairly solid take. And you haven't even mentioned the reproduction crisis and similar issues in the general field. That doesn't make the accumulation of knowledge in clinical psychology any easier either.

> Autism is a disorder, diagnosed in DSM V. Very few people in your life are likely to be autistic.

The autistic people in my life are all diagnosed autistic, do not presume to lecture me on my own situation. Autism has a strong genetic component, as you should be aware if you’ve taken more than a cursory glance at the topic. I am not, but I’m close enough to the “diagnosis” criteria to understand and empathise with people who are.

To suggest that all autistic people are “introverted” shows me your complete ignorance on this topic. Many autistic people are extroverted, just bad at social interactions (bad at reading social cues, body language and a host of other things). The two spheres do not overlap in the way you imply.

Also, yes autism is classed as a “disorder” and it comes with many challenges; however the way you are categorising it is demeaning and incorrect! It also comes with many strengths. I think of it more as the world was setup to make life easy for the neurotypical, and hence hard for the neurodiverse. Using words like “pathological threshold” are, regardless of clinical meaning (are you a clinician?), demeaning. I much prefer the framing of “differently wired”.

Software Engineering has a much higher than average number of autistic people. It’s welcoming to such, and most larger companies go out of their way to be accommodating. My own company has a proud autistic contingent.

It frustrates me to see such a comment as yours, reinforcing bad stereotypes and implying I am insulting someone by talking about autistic masking.

Ironically, my experience with people close to me is that obsession with labels is actually a pretty decent hallmark of autism. One family member, upon receiving a new "diagnosis" (usually self-diagnosed) actually changes their affect to become more like the textbook examples for that label. (And has done this more than once.) It can be very frustrating to deal with. This person has been diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, and the best explanation I've heard for their behavior is that it's masking gone rather wrong. This is an extreme example, but the general map-territory-label confusion is something I've seen a lot in people I know with a neurodivergence.

The need to identify and label is a n objectifying cope to an otherwise unfamiliar alien world.

Wanting to label things isn't a problem.

Identifying things such that they become their labels and are defined by those labels is really, really harmful. You see this in BPD, too (borderline personality disorder, which the person I mentioned has also been formally diagnosed with): if someone is "good" today then they can do nothing wrong, or if they are "bad" today, then they can do nothing right... independent of the actions themselves. The same behavior, in the same context, can be received in completely different ways depending on the label the BPD person feels like assigning today. That's not healthy.

What I was getting at above is that this style of interpretation of labels seems to be somewhat common among neurodivergent people, and it's a fallacy that doesn't do anyone any good. Labels as guides or to help set priors are fine. Labels as definitions are not, and when people get upset, it's worth checking in and seeing if there's a map-territory / label-definition mistake being made.

> Right now, we increasingly like to stick labels on things, and I'm not sure it's helpful.

All models are wrong, some are useful.

I don't think OP is neccesarily saying the poster has autism, just that the thing they are describing is similar to something a lot of autistic people describe, so maybe reading about it would be helpful. That can be true for everyone. We can all learn from the experiences of others.

> whether you're invigorated by interacting with people or tired by it, and especially by people you don't know well.

In my experience, that depends on the people. Even if I don't know them well, sometimes the interaction starts great, and sometimes it is exhausting.

From my perspective, some people are loud and annoying, and their communication seems mostly about establishing a dominance hierarchy. Other people are nice and calm, and they... discuss things, without necessarily making it about them being better than everyone else.

But I would probably call myself an introvert, because when there is a larger group of people, there is usually someone who makes it a battle for dominance, so from my perspective almost all larger groups suck. But I have also seen groups where no one was like this, and they were okay. They are just very rare.

The DSM is tragicomically bad for neurodiverse people. DSM III & IV were basically useless for most of the formative years of genX and millenials, and 5th edition is over a decade out of date. Citing the DSM V for psychology is like trying to win a philosophical debate by using Merriam and Webster’s. The map is not the territory.

> Citing the DSM V for psychology is like trying to win a philosophical debate by using Merriam and Webster’s.

This, the whole x is/isn't a disease because how the DSM describes it debate is basically worthless. I get that it's helpful for some people to finally have a diagnosis that's recognized, but ultimately it's a spectrum of symptoms and behaviors and needing a label isn't strictly necessary for treatment and can often come with additional baggage that is less helpful.

also, OP's experience also may be affected by the location/field/clique of people who are around you. For example - say, the fashion creative world in LA and NYC w/ value based on exclusivity - people actually ARE opposed to befriending/hanging out with you. Also apparently the entertainment world, if all social connections are managed by PR as seen by the recent Baldoni/Lively broughaha and the respective millions being spent associated firms.

I supposed the "find your people" recommendation above is apt