That first exception was the exact reason I dismissed my first Mental Health Professional’s suspicion that I might be autistic. I could understand others’ emotions and I could reliably recognize them. These are stereotypically weaknesses of individuals with autism and so clearly I must not be autistic.

Roughly five years after that question was raised I was finally evaluated at nearly thirty years old and diagnosed as Definitely Autistic.

As my (entirely layman) understanding of autism / Autism Spectrum Disorder has evolved I’ve come to realize that this set of DOZENS of symptoms that has collectively been associated with what is referred to as Autism cannot be independently relied on for the diagnosis of autism. The presence or absence of any single one of them, or even any particular group of them, isn’t a reliable indicator of the verifiability of a diagnosis.

(It is my impression that-) Autism is a large umbrella that has been given to a vaguely associated set of symptoms which may or may not be truly related to each other but do appear together an apparently significant fraction of the time.

(It is therefore also my impression that-) The diagnosis of Autism by a mental health professional is little more than a legal loophole for the purposes of seeking professional and medical accomodations etc. I recognize that some mental health professionals have studied this far more than I have but I don’t believe the common understanding of even the bleeding edge of medical knowledge is capable of determining the “healthier” side of what is referred to as the “Autism Spectrum”.

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I was mostly sober when I began typing this comment but I think I lost the point I intended to make about halfway through my last drink.