“Vaccines cause autism”
No. The original 1998 paper that sparked this was retracted. Its lead author had his medical licence revoked for fraud. Over twenty years of follow-up studies involving millions of children across multiple countries have found zero link between vaccines and autism.
Autism has a strong genetic component and shows up in the brain long before any vaccine could cause it. Rates of diagnosis have gone up because we got better at recognising it — not because it's being manufactured.
“Everyone's getting diagnosed now — it's over-diagnosed”
The opposite, historically.For decades, ADHD, autism, and dyslexia were chronically under-diagnosed, especially in girls, women, adults, and people of colour. The “flood” of new diagnoses you're seeing is mostly people who were missed by the old, narrow diagnostic criteria finally getting recognised.
A lot of adults are getting diagnosed in their 30s, 40s, and 50s because they grew up with whatever was called “weird”, “lazy”, or “too much” and never had a name for it. That's a correction, not an epidemic.
“Kids grow out of ADHD”
No. The outwardly visible hyperactivity often becomes less obvious by adulthood (you stop climbing furniture, you start tapping your foot under the desk instead). The attention regulation and executive function differences stay.
Most children with ADHD will continue to meet criteria as adults. The ones who appear to have “grown out of it” have usually just gotten very good at compensating — and are exhausted.
“It's just an excuse”
An explanation isn't an excuse.Knowing why something is hard for you doesn't make it less hard — it just stops you from blaming yourself for something you didn't choose. That frees up the energy you were spending on self-hatred, which you can now spend on actually coping.
If someone uses a diagnosis to stop taking responsibility for anything, that's a character issue, not a feature of the diagnosis.
“It's a superpower”
Sometimes. Not always. Be honest about both.There are genuine strengths that come packaged with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and other neurotypes — NeuroSpice talks about them a lot. But framing neurodivergence as “only” a superpower erases the people who are genuinely struggling and don't feel super at all.
The honest version: it's a different operating system. There are things it does much better than the standard build. There are things it does much worse. Both are true.
“It's not a real thing — it's just a personality”
The brain is measurably different. ADHD, autism, and dyslexia all show up on brain imaging and in neuropsychological testing. ADHD medication works the way it does because of a real, physical difference in dopamine signalling. Autism has a large genetic contribution.
“It's just who they are” and “it's a real neurological difference” are both true at the same time. A diagnosis doesn't erase personality. It names a part of it.