Everywhere I want to say this, I get talked down to. But I really wanted to put this out there and see what others with similar brains think.
All my positive traits as a person feel overlooked by others and roped in with more negative ones to get me under the umbrella of neurodivergence. I've never experienced a single benefit to having an ADHD diagnosis (2007, so yeah, a while ago), and when my daughter was diagnosed with autism it appeared to be a superhighway straight to professionals throwing up their hands and saying "well, what can ya do?" The very normal things I wanted to work with her on suddenly became autistic traits she couldn't be helped with. Years later she got a dyslexia diagnosis, and since moving schools and with that (and not an autistic label), she's doing better than they ever told me she would.
When I and my parents were in the ADHD world mindset, I was sure I could only do ~creative~ subjects. (Which is so stupid, obviously you need creativity for most/ if not all STEM fields.) I completely ignored a huge part of my strengths, science, to pursue random opinions and subjective art. After decades of that, I'm burned out. I've circled back to realizing how much I am fueled by my analytical brain. And no one thought that was possible, because I was "artsy." (I wasn't actually, I was just really good at drawing and reading.) This was so devastating that it led to my barely graduating high school, failure in multiple colleges, and near decade of stay at home parent life bored out of my mind with a crushingly small amount of self esteem. All of that is so hard when despite it all, you still think you're smart. Those pills did not fix me, Mom and Dad.
My heart aches for just learning about science for the rest of my life. Yet I'm stuck in the burbs putting on a face to others simply because they also have children? Sometimes I wake up and shake my head thinking, "how did this happen?" And I feel even more confused when some of those moms chirp that they have ADHD or autism and I still don't relate to them.
So what I'm trying to say is, I find it really hard to latch onto any diagnosis. I totally understand you can take this all and say well yeah, you have both, you just switched them around... But seriously. Any time I've ever "used" my diagnosis for ADHD, or suspicion of autism to solve social interactions... it's never been positive. And I'm so tired of the negatives.
I'm not trying to disrespect anyone out there who finds it helpful. I just want to know if you have ever felt this way, too.
Edited a few min later to add some stuff.