> actually autistic people such as my wife and I cannot get the official diagnoses

If you don't have an official diagnosis, on what basis do you claim to be any more “actually autistic” than the other undiagnosed people that see themselves that way and are seeking an official diagnosis?

Because I had a diagnosis in another country a decade ago.

That explains how you know about yourself, but it doesn’t explain how you know that the others seeking diagnosis are not autistic.

It seems like a bad idea to stigmatize people for seeking diagnosis.

There are plenty of stories of actually autistic people who don’t get diagnosed until much later because the people around them dismissed it or didn’t support them because their difficulties were not so visible.

> because the people around them dismissed it or didn’t support them because their difficulties were not so visible.

Not to downplay any difficulties you or someone else may have had, but a counter to this I am seeing some people claim on twitter that they should just be able to state their diagnosis without getting one and want accommodations for it because of poverty or family would look down on it.

This is very dangerous. People just assume they see a characterization on TV and assume they have that. Symptoms can be shared between different classes of syndromes. ADHD and High Functioning Autism both can share, on the surface, similar sensory processing issues, anxiety, and obsessive thinking in my experience; but I imagine the therapy and day to day accommodations that one with ADHD needs is much different that one with Autism (honestly I barely remember the therapy I got in school and I am hoping more people can chime on this).

Sure, but seeking diagnosis from a trained professional should mean that the differences between those cases will be detected. I acknowledge that IRL it is a messy field and there is high variance in quality of practitioner. But seeking help shouldn't be discouraged. It should be up to the professionals to determine if someone actually has "Autism" or "something else" (or nothing). And also to do some amount of triaging! Criticism of the process shouldn't generally be targeted at individuals seeking help.

Well... isn't this part of it? A lot of people are more or less satisfied with the coping mechanisms they've established and don't really need to get a diagnosis because they don't want further treatment. And I don't think this is unreasonable, especially when treatment mostly takes the form of helping you establish coping mechanisms.

> Not to downplay any difficulties you or someone else may have had, but a counter to this I am seeing some people claim on twitter that they should just be able to state their diagnosis without getting one

How is this in any way related to the comment you are replying to? It seems like you misunderstood.

I did misread it, my bad.

> ADHD and High Functioning Autism both can share, on the surface, similar sensory processing issues, anxiety, and obsessive thinking in my experience

ADHD and autism also have significant comorbidity, though its possible only one or the other is initially diagnosed when they coöccur.

Yeah, I'm one of them. But this is a real problem that psychiatrists themselves complain about. Many have even stopped doing autism diagnoses due to the sheer number of people who come in over some simple behavioral tick and demand their autism badge.

Until you experience it yourself, you can't understand just how frustrating and demeaning it is.

It does makes sense, sadly.

I’m surprised people are seeking diagnosis just to have the label. What actual benefits are they getting?

An excuse to not have to live up to standard societal "norms". An explanation for why life seems hard.

Life is indeed harder for some exactly for the reason that societal norms are being imposed on them. Think corporations and the norms they impose on all the industries. I personally work hard to mask my differences but it does take a lot more effort on my part. All these efforts could have been used to be more productive and efficient.

Why should people need an excuse not to live up ‘standard’ societal norms?

In any case someone can be wrong about having autism, but not wrong that they have a particular challenge that others do not.

Self-satisfaction that they are complicated people who are 'working on themselves' because our medical system affords it. It's now commonplace to hear people say things like "It's my OCD acting up" when they don't have obsessive compulsive disorder. And where does that go? Think of the huge numbers of people who take ADD or ADHD meds for 'neuro enhancement' while the larger swaths of people who truly need treatment for those can't afford it.

Would a lesser demand for those meds make them cheaper? I would think it would be the opposite. Many of those meds are available as generics as well.

Isn't what he says actually proving he is on the spectrum? The thought process sounds familiar.

So, here’s what that sounds like without the emotional content:

You are a self-diagnosed-autistic person (SDAP). You are upset that other SDAPs are consuming resources intended for ‘actual’ autistic persons. You would prefer to consume those resources yourself. You are trying to get a professional diagnosis as ‘autistic’. You have thus far been unsuccessful.

Are those the facts which you intended to convey?

People tell me I’m autistic all the time. I do not accept this label. I will not agree to the diagnosis, treatment, or aid of any sort. I don’t care if it’s in a book. I call it rationality. I see information where other people see emotions. I realize that this is a deficit in relating to many other people and the world at large. If I were to change one thing to adapt better, it would be stronger recognition and avoidance of emotional people, and closer connection to rationals. Emotional people can be very convincing to get what they want from rationals.

It is an emotional issue for us, because it's effectively a DDOS of the psychiatric services that is preventing us from getting the support we need, and preventing a number of other things that we could otherwise do.

And no, we are not self-diagnosed.

Be specific. What exact resources do you want access to?

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that I was answerable to you.

Do you treat all marginalized groups this way?

I don’t think I have an adequate understanding of how you perceive yourself to be treated.

But, to attempt, I’d first say that I don’t ‘treat’ groups. I interact with individuals. Also, I don’t know exactly what ‘marginalized’ means, but that sounds like something having to do with the way that others have treated those individuals.

So I’d probably say, on an individual basis, I think I treat most people the same. I tend to have a penchant for reaching out to people who I observe to have been ignored or mistreated by others because I find that they are often very happy to be treated normally, and make great friends. I’m not really a big fan of interacting with anybody that demands to be treated differently, if that’s what you mean.

So, yes, I think I’d say that I probably do.

This is an internet forum with strangers. For the record, demanding personal details is taboo.

Since they're a stranger, what's taboo about it? I can't imagine anyone being doxxed by the additional information requested...

They didn't demand, they asked. If you seek to represent your position on internet forums then you're going to need to tell people your position.

As access to specific resources is a central part of the complaint it seems perfectly reasonable to request more details. They can be general, like "I can't book a psychiatrist" or "I need specific drugs that are in limited supply".

> I realize that this is a deficit in relating to many other people and the world at large

I’m not sure why, but I keep coming back to your comment, even an hour or more after you posted it. I feel sympathy for your lack of balance. I am reminded of these Supertramp lyrics:

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful

A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical

And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily

Oh joyfully, playfully watching me

But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible

Logical, oh responsible, practical

And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable

Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical

Thank you! I had only heard this from Scooter, and didn’t know the original source.

https://youtu.be/4YxTa1AUqps

Wow, that version and the original could not be more different:

https://youtu.be/low6Coqrw9Y

I don’t hear the remake using anything but the first verse of lyrics from the original.

I don't think that "autistic" is more of a "status symbol" than, say, "gay".

And yes, it is wonderful that finally, autistic people get their voice, their agency and are (sometimes) getting treated as equals (even if different). Sadly, in some places, "autistic" is still being used as an insult, usually based on a harmful stereotype that autism is in any way related to the lack of empathy.

I love that the world changes to at least consider autism as a neurodivergence, even if not act upon that. Decades ago, it wasn't the same. Being traumatized by noise level was my problem, and even when I was in primary school, begging to let me go to some more quiet place, I was not allowed. Other kids were OK with the noise level, so why do I have a problem?

If a person needs some accommodation (say, reducing volume in their workplace), it shouldn't matter if they are "truly autistic" or "non-autistic, but highly oversensitive to noise". And converse - if someone declares themself "mildly autistic" but does not require special accommodations, they won't take precious resources from you.

I wish you success with getting the necessary accommodations!

Probably will lose an account over this, but...

> I don't think that "autistic" is more of a "status symbol" than, say, "gay".

Uh..aren't they both pretty big status symbols? Gay, queer, disability, "this is indigenous land". If I work as a disability officer, it's probably somewhat important my email byline has a disability (or two, of three).

"I have to prove my status" (as someone who is a disability officer) and "this person is a disability officer, they dont even have a disability or their pronouns in the signature?!".

It's true, gay people only come out as a sweet status symbol to own all the hets. /s

> If I work as a disability officer, it's probably somewhat important my email byline has a disability

It's not.

> Uh..aren't they both pretty big status symbols?

I wonder what makes people deluded enough to believe that.

I don't know how anyone could see mild autism as a status symbol?

I have no idea what I am, but I know I'm not "normal" - at least as normal as most in America. I definitely think different and require a strong filter to function in normal society. Things like schedules and meetings overwhelm me mentally, or at least are the most tiresome stuff I do where to others they are trivial.

I also simply cannot push through "busy work" tasks even if I see immense payout in the end. I dropped out of high school without a plan simply because it was such a mental torture to sit through useless classes every day I could trivially test out of.

But, when I get an idea or project or goal in my head I am utterly relentless to a level I don't see in many others.

When I was younger I could kind of patch through this and find professional paths that worked alright with my quirks. Now that I'm older and have a family and "real" career with 7am alarm clocks/etc. I find life to be fairly unbearable from a mental aspect.

I'd really like to know what causes this in me. I've always been this way, to my extreme detriment, when I was younger I would cry myself to sleep just wanting to be "normal". Is it mild autism? ADHD? PTSD from childhood trauma? I dunno, but it's both relationship and career impacting and having to build your life around it sucks - knowing what your dealing with sounds amazing to me.

I just can't imagine wishing putting life on "hard mode" like this is on anyone, or anyone wanting to live it...

I was hanging out with some friends. One of them, is not neurotypical; she says her family were farmers. In that way of life, it doesn’t make demanda on executive functioning like modern life does.

The other side too: there are plenty of thinkers and critics of modernity to make a case that the modern way of life is not really that healthy for neurotypical people — or more precisely, people with good, or great executive functioning, even if they are rewarded the most by modern society.

I argue that, the hard mode is not necessarily your neural wiring, but that our civilization and way of life is terribly skewed.

Sounds like ADHD to me, FWIW!

Hope you find some tools and understanding in the coming year.

I really feel for you. My ex-boyfriend had Asperger's and was similarly had issues applying for programs and getting regular specialized medical/therapy visits because of how sensationalized "neuroatypicality" had become. My heart sinks whenever I read another article about how TikTok users decided that nervous tics are not only popular, but deserve to be imitated and even diagnosed to feel legitimacy. I know "social media bad" is a played-out theme these days, but it really makes my blood boil imagining all the personal development these people are missing out on by trying to roleplay as a less-fortunate individual and record it for online clout.

As individuals, they're probably not intentionally doing this. Autism has just expanded to being so vague that people think it may actually be the reason they're not happy, or the reason they're secretly special. Walking into an autistic identity by imitating people whom you know as autistic could subjectively feel like dropping the pretenses of being normal and expressing your true autistic self.

An autism diagnosis is actually not vague; it's only the public perception of autism that is vague.

And I really would be quite happy with that if it weren't for the fact that it's become popular and draws a ton of unwanted attention now.

People crave attention. Some people and kids do what they need to do to get attention. Look at the kids of Hollywood actors and how their afflictions affect their behavior.

That’s not to dismiss people who actually suffer from actual differences, but some of it is the same old “rebellion” in different clothing.

I wonder if craving attention is like being lazy.

I won't say I have ADHD, but I am very lazy. For my entire life, I've found myself unable to just snap out of laziness and choose to stop being lazy. I don't believe that I'm selfishly lazy, because my laziness often causes obvious, preventable problems for me, and I still can't find the switch inside myself to turn it off.

I wish we could set aside the labels and say "I'm lazy and I want to buy therapy to help me deal with being lazy." Maybe there is also a reason people are not getting their need for attention satisfied in whatever way they're supposed to.

I satisfy my need for attention by being good at programming, and then talking to other programmers about programming. I notice most people (general population) don't have any particular skill worth showing off like I do. I don't know what the actionable to fix that is, though.

I'd take it a step further.

Instead of forcing people to fabricate various illnesses to get performance enhancing medications, just make it over the counter.

Antidepressants, over the counter.

ADHD drugs, over the counter.

Anti-anxiety drugs, over the counter.

As long as you're at least 21, you should have the right to ingest whatever you want.

I personally wouldn't recreationally take any of the above, but I think everyone has a right to make their own choices.

In America there's a billion dollar industry in convincing everyone their broken. As far as I'm concerned I'm the best me I can be and that's it.

You miss two of the biggest points of formal diagnosis. Legal rights to accommodation (IEP, workplace) and getting insurance/healthcare money. If an autistic person can’t hold down a job or even live independently only really being diagnosed offically will get them the support they need. I’ve had to ask for accommodation to have noise cancelling headphones in a certain workspace where I was unable to really focus and having my demands backed by legislation and a diagnosis made it much easier to demand that.

On the point of medication though I largely agree, the current system is insanely paternalistic. Like having patients be forced to follow up with doctors about medications they’ve been on for 5 years. However society doesn’t truly want to deal with the true costs of freedom like somebody being able to easily legally acquire a lethal dose of anxiety meds.

The two of you sound like you're being dismissive of mental illnesses that cause immense suffering and are accusing people of just seeking attention or performance enhancing drugs. That's pretty fucked up.

I have ADHD and mostly agree with GP's proposal.

ADHD medications don't really restore anyone to 'normal'. They're a compensatory measure ('performance enhancer') which is reserved only for some people mainly for bad reasons (the war on drugs, lack of public and accessible infrastructure for addiction treatment). They can be used to help people with certain deficits meet certain demands (typically productivity in work or school), but it's not like they counteract ADHD. They help with some aspects of the disorder (difficulty sustaining attention) and make other aspects of the disorder (difficulty being deliberate and judicious about when to switch tasks) worse.

Gating them heavily behind many appointments and preventing pharmacies from providing any refills makes stimulant medications harder to access for people who have ADHD, especially during bad times when it's relatively poorly managed, which forms a vicious cycle. (ADHDers sometimes refer to the total fees associated with missed and late appointments and other such mishaps as 'the ADHD tax', and it's not unusual for that sum to exceed what an ADHD patient actually pays in copays, especially when they're first trying to get things under control.)

Expanding public access both to stimulant medication and to addiction treatment could, imo, help more people live better lives (including both ADHD patients and people who don't have ADHD) and allow treatment of ADHD to focus more on people who actually have ADHD , and on all of the management aspects of living with ADHD (which are much harder and collectively at least as important as medication).

(At the same time, under the policies the GP described, I would continue to consult with a psychiatrist, because adjusting psychoactive medications without professional assistance is a stupid thing to do.)

I'm not trying to be dismissive.

Their are tons of people who really do need medication.

Their are others who shop doctors to get the meds they want.

For example, it's common for kids struggling in college to get an ADHD diagnosis so they can study for longer hours. As far as I'm concerned as long as your adult, ingest whatever you want. But I don't think being unable to study Chem for 12 hours a day is an illness.

Why stop adults from doing what they want.

No one stops you from rock climbing, even though that's also dangerous.

Nicotine is a very effective ADHD med, and it's available over the counter. (No, I don't mean in tobacco.)

I have inattentive ADHD and Aspergers, and wearing part of a nicotine patch for half the day really helps with focus issues. (Any longer and I don't sleep well, though.) I also take l-tyrosine and Avmacol, and drink tea.

Since I started this regimen, my work performance went up significantly and I got a promotion to a position I'd been wanting for nearly a decade. My wife is also a bit less upset with me and I feel subjectively more able to think ahead and plan.

I don't even know how to respond to this.

Do you think someone with depressive tendencies should be able to overdose?

Please look up some of the package inserts. This isn't some globuli smartie medecine you are talking about. It's only legally available because the suffering caused by social isolation is less bearable than some of the side effects.

You can be happy if you only get malnutrition from them, if you are unlucky you'll end up with chronic diseases or cancer

Ok sure but the notion that you are the best you you can be is also originating in America too

I'm pretty libertarian on most political charts, but offering benzos to people OTC seems like one of the last things I'd be trying to legalize.

If we had no drug enforcement whatsoever, sure. But as long as we do benzos may be one of the most dangerous forms of substances we have short of straight up opiods.

> I wish we could set aside the labels and say "I'm lazy and I want to buy therapy to help me deal with being lazy."

You can absolutely go to a therapist and say exactly that. You won't be turned away. Generally therapists are more interested in helping people versus labeling people.

I've spent all my adulthood thinking I'm lazy and something is wrong with me and I need to work harder at it. I can't be bothered to tell all my life story right now, but look into ADHD. It's been a revelation the moment I've learned my condition has a name and there is a chance for a normal life for me. Good luck

Are you sure it's not executive dysfunction, which can be a symptom of ADHD and/or autism? Your first paragraph sounds exactly how I'd describe myself before getting diagnosed with autism.

This is sadly all too common in the disabled community in general.

I am not ignorant. I understand that many, perhaps the majority, of disabilities that exist in the United States are of the “invisible“ kind.

However, the number of individuals who want to elevate their very common, and human, difficulties in life, to a “disability“ is ridiculous. If I had to diagnose most of these people, I would call them narcissists.

Funny because narcissism can be debilitating. Narcissistic personality disorder completely ruins a persons ability to have even just one healthy human interaction or relationship.

Narcissism != Narcissistic Personality Disorder. A person that lacks narcissism will have a lot of problems.

Actually that’s interesting because logically it implies that anybody seeking diagnosis is in fact impaired.

I never mentioned that a narcissist would seek a diagnosis for their disorder, only that their disorder can be debilitating.

Debilitating to themselves but infinitely more harmful for the people they interact with. Maybe a diagnosis would open them up to some mitigations on their behavior. Narcissism personality disorder cannot be cured but sufferers can learn to do less harm.

You are fighting trend of making up diagnosis by making up diagnosis based on single assumed data point?

It's more than just "attention", it's about feeling individually special.

Perhaps that is a bigger need that ought to be addressed separately instead of mixing it in with the mental health industry.

This may be the domain of the matchmaking industry, which basically exists to keep people feeling alienated.

Ironically many autistic people seek to avoid or moderate attention rather than craving it.

This happened with gluten intolerance although seems to have had the positive effect of raising the profile of actual gluten intolerance (like coeliac disease) and vastly increased the availability of gluten free products. I wonder if there could be a similar upside for people with "actual autism".

I think we are seeing that effect with regards to mental health and autism. It seems to me that there is at least a greater understanding. Growing up, I was likely right on the bubble of being diagnosed. Unfortunately, instead I was just labeled a bad kid.

Now I have a child with an official diagnosis, and I see a lot of the traits from my childhood, and things that I struggled with and her, just magnified.

I think if I were to go through the school system now, someone probably would have at least suggested that I get tested. Rather than berating me day after day and labeling me a bad kid

The gluten intolerance thing is complicated by FODMAPs (certain carbs that tend to ferment in the gut and to which some people are especially sensitive for reasons that are poorly understood). In practice, a gluten-free diet is often also a low-FODMAP diet, but companies don't label their food as "low-FODMAP", so people might make the switch, get actual relief from actual symptoms, and assume that gluten was the issue because they've never even heard of FODMAP sensitivity.

In my experience, the biggest issue with autism isn't so much raw awareness or availability, but that almost none of the "autism industry" caters to autistic people themselves. I sometimes end up excluding phrases like "your child", "the child", "the student", "my son", "my daughter" etc. from searches for information about autism because there's just so much stuff that's laser-focused on the concerns of presumed-neurotypical people around an autistic person.

Yeah, I used to laugh at the gluten intolerance epidemic. Then as an experiment I cut it from my diet. I was not at all intolerant, I just wanted to try it.

I could not believe the difference. For example, I never realized that some foods made me tired. Now when I eat breads or pastas, I notice i am tired afterwards (not immediately but after a time).

Very strange.

Supposedly carbohydrates are a precursor to serotonin, so getting sleepy from carbs could be expected. The neuroscientist Andrew Huberman talks about this in his podcast, eating low carb during the day can maintain alertness, while eating carbs at night are useful to prepare for sleep.

A heavy portion of carbohydrates will raise and lower your blood sugar levels. The crash is the tiredness. I would nearly fall asleep at my desk after lunch if I had pasta, and it took some time to make the connection.

It does not do that for me. As in, I don't get tired after eating them.

So I think, it is quite likely that it does affect other people differently. And it makes sense for them to cut that stuff out while I don't have to.

There are different kinds of intolerance. Some people have mild allergies to gluten, which is very different from celiac disease.

Why do you think this has anything to do with gluten? Is there perhaps another substance in bread and pasta that is known to contribute to sleepiness after eating?

Good point. I don’t really know if it is gluten. I hadn’t thought of that!

Interesting, but I think it has gone the other direction. It seems to me that the autism diagnosis has been unilaterally bad for rational people, and something like a green light for exploitation by emotional people. I hear people calling others autistic all the time to diminish their rational points in an argument.

Autistic people are not more "rational" in the sense of having better arguments.

That wasn’t my implication. I was saying that the term is being abused rather than just over-used as in celiac.

I don’t claim to know what ‘autistic’ is, and I’ve never heard a clear definition.

I appreciate the frustration, but doesn’t this mean that there is a larger percentage of people trying to get help for mental illness that otherwise would not be? Sure trying to get diagnosed with something because it’s trendy is ridiculous, but it also means these people are talking to a professional and may uncover other mental health concerns

No, it means there's a deluge of status seekers deceiving themselves into thinking they're autistic and then clogging up the system with their diagnosis requests. As I mentioned in a sister comment, many psychiatrists who have autism knowledge and training have stopped doing diagnoses because of this, thus exacerbating the problem.

I have trouble understanding what status seeking ends would be served by getting a diagnosis.

You get to put it in your social media bio. That's all a lot of them want. They don't want treatment, they don't want to get better, they just wanna be able to tell people they have it. It's a whole thing on Til Tok right now.

Why do you need to waste your time and money when typing “#actuallyautistic” into the box is free?

What status is conferred by having autism?

No clue, but it's a thing.

You keep talking about "status seekers", but you can't define what you think they believe they're after in trying to obtain that status?

If nothing else, makes me wonder if I missed out on a "welcome packet" or something I didn't know I was supposed to get. :P

It's the government's fault for refusing to expand licensing enough that there's a reasonable supply of doctors for even intake apointments.

Well, maybe that’s what’s happening. Or maybe a lot more people have realized they’re likely autistic than in the past. Getting a diagnosis seems like a lot of trouble to be “trendy.”

The people trying to be trendy are not the people seeking medical diagnoses in my anecdotal experience, but the fetishization of mental disorders on the internet as social media profile badges among young people is not helping anything.

Sure. Probably not. But I think anyone who's booking an appointment with a doctor at least have some basis for believing they might meet the diagnostic criteria.

In a lot of cases on Tiktok they turn it into a quirky "twitching" and saying cute things. You barely see anyone where it doesn't come across adorably. Most of them are faking it for attention.

The notion that a neurotypical person exists is kinda silly. What does that even mean? That’s like saying this snowflake here doesn’t look like all the rest.

If NT is a snowflake, someone with an actual disorder is a piece of hail, or a speck of dust.

NT is the large part of the bell curve. It’s called typical because they share mental ability traits with over 80% of the rest of humanity.

> The notion that a neurotypical person exists is kinda silly.

Supposedly they don't. Mental health professionals could probably diagnose neuroses or psychoses in most adults.

In an N-dimensional system, as N goes up, every member in a normally distributed population is increasingly likely to be at an extreme along some dimension (this is related to the fact that a hypercube's volume is disproportionately close to edges and corners as dimensionality goes up). Even if you just stick to the big 5 psychological breakdown, the probability that someone is in the middle 80% on every measure is only about 1/3, so it's not surprising that most of us are a pretty big distance from normal overall.

I completely agree.

> The notion that a neurotypical person exists is kinda silly.

It's not at all silly. Not more than what's a good car. For some, a Toyota model is a good car. For some, a Mercedes model is a good car. A Dodge is a good car too perhaps. But a boat is not a good car. A Formula 1 engine is also not a good car.

Your statements are inexplicably linked to your own biases. They are true for you, but only you.

An F1 car wouldn’t work for a family with kids but I’d love to daily one of those.

Nothing is absolute. Nothing is typical. An “NT” person in Japan is not the same as one in the US. Where do you draw the line? I posit you don’t. There isn’t a line. There isn’t a typical case. We are all so vastly different, often in ways we cannot see or understand.

> An F1 car wouldn’t work for a family with kids but I’d love to daily one of those

Even assuming you could handle it (which is a huge assumption), you can not drive an F1 around on city streets. Ground clearance means will get hung up on the first driveway or minor road work you run into.

Not with that attitude you can’t.

I didn't say F1 car.

Of course there are differences, but in terms of large traits and behaviors over the majority of the population there are a lot of similarities. Saying no one is NT hurts those who absolutely aren't.

“No one is neurotypical”

“I’m not neurotypical. That statement hurts me”

“It seems that we are in agreement on your first statement. Please help me understand how the second statement can be true.”

Given that diagnoses are based on physiological divergences that make it difficult to function in society, a neurotypical person is one who does not have these traits, which is most people.

Originally it was a way to differentiate between autistics and non-autistics, and then suffered language drift. It would probably have been better to just start off saying NA for "non-autistic".

It didn't just mean Non-Autistic though, people who are non-(autistic, bipolar, schizophrenic, adhd, etc, etc, etc.) are NT.

Im pretty sure all the other ones you talk about refer to them selves as "actually autistic people".

No. They don't. That's the whole purpose of this "actually autistic" movement. And the infuriating thing is that it shouldn't even be necessary.