Seems like every time I turn my head for a few minutes, some new psychological definition pops up to describe us, both as individuals as well as collectively.
Part of me thinks this is a wonderful thing because it means there's ongoing exploration of the multi-colored spectrum of human experience we travel through!
There's a certain hidden irony there because often the people at the forefront of these new movements are the same people who are loudly clamoring that the (rest of the) world needs to be more open-minded and inclusive of their differences.
Ultimately, we all just want to feel understood.
Ultimately, we want to be "part of" something that allows us to feel a little less alone and isolated.
So — particularly if we have felt "lost" for a really long time — it becomes very tempting to join the next "Club of Psychological Acronyms" that comes across our paths... and then to "swear allegiance" to that particular group's interpretation of The Truth... in the process perhaps forsaking the previous explanation we had.
I have always felt very uneasy about throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Much of the time, it doesn't make sense, and only seems to serve someone's need for solidarity, far more than their need to find answers to, and understanding of, life's mysteries as they uniquely apply to them.
I like to step back and examine what's at hand through metaphor:
"Having a runny nose" can mean many different things, even though an outside observer sees only one thing; one symptom. You might have allergies. You might have a cold. It might be sinusitis. You might simply suffer from nonallergic rhinitis. Emphatically jumping on the bandwagon of one thing, to the exclusion of the others makes no sense, just because you are given a description!
As the same time, we would be wise to look at new (and old!) information with a critical eye, rather than just jump on the next pop-psychology bandwagon to come down the pike. We would also be wise to keep in mind that multiple things might be concurrently applicable!
These days, it has become increasingly "De Rigeur" to slap an "Autism Spectrum" label on anything at all that can be described as "neurodivergent." I'll be the first to say that I am very happy that the world is paying more attention to Autism! At the same time, looking at the HSP population and making a broad-brush declaration that "HSPs are just on the autism spectrum" is ultimately a bit disingenuous, just like earlier declarations that "HSPs just have Asperger's" were disingenuous.
Why do I say this?
Well, even if we very generously concede that there might be two Autists who are successfully "masking" for every one who's diagnosed, the math still doesn't work. That would give us about 5% of the population "on the Spectrum" while 15-20% of the population are HSPs.
And that's not about "how I feel," it's simple data analysis.
In closing, I'll add that it's certainly possible that I am "On the Spectrum" although I don't really fit the diagnostic criteria all that well, typically described as slight-to-borderline. But there is absolutely do doubt that I match up with the HSP descriptions.
I can make a similar case for certain aspects of living with ADHD... which I most definitely do, and have been since I was a small child. But the typical kind — the "inattentive" kind, that's all about daydraming and zoning out of reality.
It's a genine diagnosis and separate from being and HSP... and yet the two are also deeply enmeshed.
As always — and this is NOT medical advice — Do Your Own Research!
