I have several disorders which are located inside of the brain (which obviously includes autism, hence me posting here). I dislike calling myself “neurodivergent” for many reasons. For one, people use this term as a replacement word for autism, and I have many conditions besides autism.
For example, I’ll see posts saying, “neurodivergent people sre more likely to do XYZ.” There are so many disorders which fall under the neurodivergent umbrella that it isn’t humanly possible for neurodivergent people to be more likely to say or do something than other folks; just say autistic in this context.
I also find that my personal experience gets watered down by calling myself neurodivergent; it feels like a modern version of being called special. I have several conditions which fall under different categories; psychiatric, neurological, and neurodevelopmental. To call all of that just neurodivergent is not very specific and doesn’t tell a person what my needs are (plus, they’ll just assume I’m autistic).
Yeah, it’s just the best word I have currently, but it really is a big catch-all for a lot of disabilities/conditions. Neurodiverse is a little better as it doesn’t necessarily specify that some state of being is more “normal” and we diverge from that “normal”. But it’s not any more accurate really and not a medical term. Even Autism and ADHD are both catch-alls for several conditions and aren’t very specific at all. Just not good terminology that isn’t a stand-in for “defective” or steeped in Nazi blood like “Asperger’s Syndrome”.