this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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I‘m sick and tired of rich schmucks selling their lack of empathy as being neurodivergent. Nah man, you don‘t struggle with social cues. You simply don‘t care about others. That‘s a huge difference.
Technically antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder are neurodivergent...
Those are personality disorders, not forms of neurodivergence.
Wtf is neurodivergence if not a divergence from normal personality and thinking?
They are different things.
Neurodivergent people process information differently but have all the correct parts to process. They may interact with the world in slightly different ways but do not have a personality DEFECT.
People who are narcissists are missing a primary component: empathy for other humans. Their minds are fundamentally different than neurotypical and neurodivergent people.
Are you making this up?
I'm going by the parts of the words: neuro meaning of the mind/brain and divergent meaning deviating from normal. I don't see why "neurodivergent" wouldn't include all of ADHD, autism, personality disorders, and mental illness as these are all brain differences.
Yes, they are making this up.
From the point of view of a person without ADHD, an ADHD person is almost retarded. Can't concentrate, achieve goals.
Or BAD - jumping from a depression to a psychosis, sometimes they are like a wounded deer hiding in their room, sometimes they are running around planning to blitzkrieg the planet, what is this if not a defect. (There's one woman, I wonder if I should reach her or if I'm having my own BAD psychosis even thinking about that. She's also not the only woman who can be affected strongly by that decision. In other words, I'm inadequate and unable to control myself and clearly see the reality behind impulses.)
Or, well, an autistic person struggling with hints and cues and aesopean language and unable to deduct reality from superficial signs, - from the point of view of those who can they are pretty much defective. (Also me.)
They are just bunching together a few of Ds as "just different" and the rest as defects. "Disorder" is not a word meaning "just different". It does mean a defect.
Please don't use slurs :(
Sorry, but you might find that people really willing to hurt you will manage to say it without any slurs.
Neurodivergent includes all those categories except the disorders or illnesses. Here’s why:
Things like psychopathy are caused by structural differences in the brain that make sufferers incapable of experiencing the same set of emotions as most people. Many negative behaviors are caused by lack of inhibition or empathy for others.
People with autism and adhd process information differently and respond to the world differently as a result. In severe cases this can lead to an inability to engage but will generally result more in inappropriate engagement.
Behavioral health conditions are a mix of psychological and neurological issues that require a wide variety of interventions.
These are very different things.
Thank you for your explanatory responses. I decided to look up an authoritative definition for myself. According to what I found, it isn't a medical term and doesn't have a medical definition, so means whatever people say it means. Which is I guess how language always works, it is just that it is a new word with roots that imply a broader meaning.
The lists generally exclude personality disorders, but this doesn't seem logical to me, although I am not a neurologist. I thought all brain differences arise or manifest as differences in the brain structure.
https://www.umassp.edu/inclusive-by-design/who-before-how/understanding-disabilities/neurodivergence
https://www.uhhospitals.org/blog/articles/2025/06/what-does-it-mean-to-be-neurodivergent
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neurodivergent
I'm happy to hear that you looked up some of this for yourself. I figured that it was the definitions that were catching you more than the concepts.
The DSM has some very odd references in it. For instance, "retarded" is a technical definition that exists and is a possible diagnosis even though society has long moved passed that concept. Mental health is weird.
Yes totally it bothers me a lot when words mean something different than what it seems like they should mean...
Weird i didn't think the R slur had any place in medicine any more.
I have plenty of bad memories involving that word :(
I do bad things all the time so does that make me a psychopath? Sure I feel bad all the time and bury my guilt under copious amounts of alcohol but it still works don't it.
No. You feel bad which means you are capable of empathy.
I seem to recall hearing that there were genetic/epigenetic components that predispose some folks to those personality disorders. I'm not disagreeing with you and I don't know if the research I saw was corroborated. I just think it's an interesting idea that you're not born with NPD, but you can be more vulnerable to developing it.
I think that what you are noting is that narcissism can be caused by differences in brain structure, like in psychopathy, or by differences in upbringing, like in sociopathy. In the first case, you're born that way. In the second case, trauma and such made you that way.