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I’d love to see more content on neurodiversity and trauma!

Have you ever heard of the double empathy problem? I think you might find this Ted Talk interesting. As an autistic person I found this talk very helpful. https://www.ted.com/talks/jac_den_houting_why_everything_you_know_about_autism_is_wrong/transcript?language=en

While the term “time blindness” is commonly used to refer to the time perception issues suffered by us ADHD folx, it is a bit of an ableist term. It appropriates ‘blindness’ from the low vision/blind community and frames it as something inherently negative. Something more descriptive and neutral like “time obliviousness” “difficulty perceiving time” or the like would be more inclusive

For OCD, could there be less heteronormative and cisnormative resources on sexual orientation OCD? I found OCDLA to be very helpful in demystifying symptoms and types of OCD, but I feel there needs to be a shift in language and perception of “HOCD” as it is commonly known in mental health/ND spaces (which says, 4 paragraphs in on the OCDLA site, “it is not exclusive to heterosexuals.” So.... why is the site still centring the term “HOCD” then, when sexual orientation OCD is a more inclusive term?). This misleading name deferred my realization that my OCD was back in a different form, triggered by the transphobic rhetoric and legislature happening across the US and the UK. This label also paints a picture that cisgender heterosexual people are more likely to be plagued by sexual orientation OCD when, as an example, if you are gay and come out, you are far more likely to receive messages like “are you SURE this isn’t because of trauma/your parents/a phase/etc.” which can send more LGBTQ+ individuals predisposed to OCD into having sexual orientation OCD rather than cisgender heterosexual people who do not deal with these seeds of doubt being planted in your mind by a bigoted society. There should be perhaps a resource for sexual orientation OCD made by and created for LGBTQ+ individuals, as despite how helpful OCDLA is, I don’t think they should be a source someone should go to for sexual orientation OCD, as long as there aren’t substantial edits made to their resources on “HOCD”. I also feel the framing of sexual orientation OCD to be insufficient as well. As a trans person suffering from “sexual orientation OCD”, the thing is, being trans is not a sexual orientation which makes the label somewhat inaccurate (although I do have OCD spirals around my sexual orientation, I have them with my gender identity too! These labels make things very muddy very fast.). Sexual orientation is who you’re attracted to, and gender identity is what you identify as—wildly different things. This is why the terminology has shifted over from “transsexual” to “transgender,” because while both are valid terms for people to identify with, transsexual can make people new to the concept conflate it with something similar to homosexual. OCDLA seems to have made this mistake, and in their site says “some people obsess that they are secretly bisexual, or that they are secretly transsexual or transgendered.” in their blog post called “HOCD: 30 Things You Need To Know.” This should raise some red flags and bring into question their usefulness as a resource as 1) gender identity is separate from sexual orientation, although they sometimes might intertwine and 2) transgender is an adjective (e.g. “Jane is a transgender woman” could also be “Jane is a young woman” as they are both adjectives). I hope this doesn’t seem purely libel thrown at OCDLA nor do I think it is not an invaluable resource for many. I just think that it is imperfect, as all things are, and feel that there should be more visibility around LGBTQ+ individuals who already suffer from the stigma of their identities and should not have to deal with additional stigma and a lack of resources where they seek mental health treatment, especially when OCD centres around shame. I really enjoyed that essay on Neurodivergence As Queerness and hope you could bring on more LGBTQ+ voices and their perspectives on neurodiversity, especially centring OCD when there has been a dearth of resources. I would suggest to bring a transgender guest on specifically, as there has been a wave of transphobic rhetoric these past few years which may trigger many trans people’s “sexual orientation OCD.”

TL;DR I think OCDLA should still be a recommended resource, with caveats. There should be efforts to include and centre LGBTQ+ individuals on discussions on OCD. This space so far has a good track record of uplifting LGBTQ+ voices and I hope that could continue with trying to uplift LGBTQ+ voices and how they fit into treatment on OCD in a sea of cisnormativity and heteronormativity. If there is a piece on LGBTQ+ identities and how that might interact with OCD, I hope this feedback illustrates why it would be paramount to commission a trans writer (particularly those who are further marginalized by class, race, and ones impacted by transmisogyny) as transgender individuals seem to not be included or heard by the current paradigm of “sexual orientation OCD” at all. This video by the International OCD Foundation which has multiple LGBTQ+ individuals on the panel is a good place to start (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYeJwwp1AhQ&list=PLx2UyPr4U3GIpn8ClhUfjG1wmIND7wKJs&index=19), alongside consulting with other LGBTQ+ people on this subject.

I was looking for resources about the combination of Autism and Adhd. Social media posts seem to focus on one at the time OR they are about the overlap, about how to know whether you’re both. But I was looking for advice on how to organise my life. Some specific tips have helped me a lot, but others are completely unnecessary because I’m both, and then there’s a gap, also precisely because I’m both. But maybe my question is way to specific. Thanks a lot for this website!

I’m an autistic person and tried to read that main “How to talk about autism” article. There is a lot wrong in that from the start. First of all, “autism” and “autistic” are not and should be not written with a capital A because they are not that kind of noun like someone’s name. There is nothing “very special” about it to deserve a capital; it’s a health condition like diabetes, cancer, covid or any other. Second, please stop with the “person first” idiocy. That’s being extremely touchy-feely. I’m autistic, you are autistic, period. You won’t revolutionize language by being pedantic. Third, that “no non-Autistic person can understand” is pretty ridiculous. I discovered my condition late in life and was very much helped by people who were not autistic and understood it much better than I did, but I spent my whole life confused as to what I have and simply could not understand it. Show some respect! I fully respect those people and think very clearly they know a lot better than I do. Then I stopped reading because you’re coming from too many wrong premises.

Disable the right-click hijacking so links can be opened in the background. It’s not get to have to deal with the distraction/forced context switch.

It would be nice if there was a search function (or if there is one, for it to be easier to find!)

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Your website seems to disable scrolling via keyboard keys, forcing the use of mouse. I would appreciate it if you fixed this usability issue.

Can you add PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance or Persistent Drive for Autonomy) to the list of Neurotypes? I’m happy to give references if you need them.

i struggle with writing and getting my thoughts out in a coherent order, but i wanted to leave this here: i mostly grew up in canada but am also from ukraine and my head is spinning nowadays with newsabout the world around me on top of grappling with what it means to have gone more than 30 years without help and understanding for my neurodivergency, floating there along amidst the mental and physical illness and loneliness. thank you, mykola, for this site as well as your writing on twitter. it’s been beyond helpful. i’m going to go cook something with my grandma now.

Would it be possible to add borderline personality disorder, dyspraxia and dyscalculia to the neurotypes you list here?

Today, I've learned this platform coda.io (along with notion apparently) are not super accessible to say the least. I was thinking there could ways how to mitigate this issue to begin with (I understand it might a bit late for migrating all the contents or it would require efforts of another magnitude slowing down future potential processes involved behind this feedback). I'd be happy to participate to a conversation on this topic. Cheers! Thank you ^_^

Noticed that you have emails and contact info displayed in the table below. Might want to hide that somehow in case there are nefarious people or bots who collect people’s personal information.

Hi! I came here by way of someone sharing a link to the excellent guest essay Neurodivergence as Queerness. I just wanted to comment on the one part where it connects the fight for equal rights for queer & disabled folk to equal access to adoption. I am a queer, neurodivergent person, and I am also an adoptee. I and many other adoptees believe that adoption is an inhumane, racist, classist practice that violates our human rights, and that it should not be upheld as something that anyone has a “right” to, or equated with reproductive justice. I think that it is entirely possible to decry SCOTUS decisions like Fulton v. Philadelphia that set a discriminatory precedent against queer families, while also working for the abolition of family separation.

Do you consider a personality disorder to be a type of neurodivergence? Specifically, EUPD? If Bipolar is listed as a neurotype, I don’t see why not. Would you be open to a conversation about this?

There are many neurodiverse people on other social media platforms too, like Mastodon (and the fediverse in general). It would be great if those could be submitted as well instead of just Twitter accounts. Thanks!!! <3

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can you make your website ADA compatiable. there are no accessibilty tools. why is that?

why the the world would you have a picture ( with no Alt text buy the way) of pills on your ADHD info page

this is the most stereotypical bullshit albelist ill informed website. serioulsy get some proper consultations. the term neurodiversity waters down a human being to a type- no two NT brains are the same. ugh

In the Privacy Policy, you state that using Privacy-Invasive analytics is “Just how the internet works”. I disagree and I urge you to switch more privacy-friendly alternatives for analytics, because Google doesn’t need to share the analytics with advertisers.

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Personally, I would recommend plausible analytics (https://plausible.io) or Simple Analytics (https://simpleanalytics.com)

I don’t have any negative feedback. This is a wonderful document.

Just found this and am excited to drive around more. I tick a quite a few of your subtype boxes. From the jump, the epilepsy subheading made me a little uncomfortable. It’s often debated within the epilepsy community, but many folx feel that the word “epileptic” is harmful or defining/labeling. “People with epilepsy” or a variation is sometimes a preferred alternative. Just food for thought! Thanks for what you are doing. Looking forward to reading!

Hello! I love the website. I have epilepsy and a lot of knowledge around it and experience explaining it to others (including people with newly-developed epilepsy, which is always nice to get to do). I’d be happy to help fill out your epilepsy section! I have a ton I could include :) (Also, I didn’t want to put my main email address into a public form, but I don’t check this one as often — just so you know if I take a while to respond).