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Catherine's avatar

This post reminds me a lot of Autistic girls/women and "masking." I am on the spectrum, and I do this, especially in my childhood before I had an official diagnosis (also a problem for women on the spectrum). I did mimic and mirror my neurotypical female classmates to fit in better, even by dressing a certain way. Now, as an adult, I still do it, mainly in professional settings. However, looking back, it's tough to untangle what was masking and what was really me.

Here's an article about masking:

https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/costs-camouflaging-autism/

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Analisa Roche's avatar

Only distantly relevant, but I know two people who claim to have allergies to foods they "only" intensely dislike. As the parent of a peanut-anaphylactic child this offends me, but I also understand it to some extent. They feel like they aren't allowed to have preferences. At the same time, the more people who claim to have life-threatening allergies, the more my daughter's very real life thread is minimized.

In a related way, as someone diagnosed with OCD, it bothers me when people talk about their preferences as "OCDs". Like, someone will say they are OCD about pictures not being crooked, but they don't actually have OCD. Like my daughter's anaphylaxis, I think that people who claim to have more serious problems that they do not have can minimize the real diagnoses in those of us who do have them.

I think an appropriate action implied by the above it to take people's claims about their diagnoses *and* their preferences seriously - to honor them.

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