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).
The term and idea of neurodivergency originated within the autism community but its not true that its a replacement word for autism as it also includes adhd, ocd, bipolar, dislexia… Anyone with some atypical neurological configuration.
But i get you, and your case shows why its important that the classical medical terminology stays separate from the neurodivergent ones. The way i see it one has a more socio-cultural purpose, the other an instructive medial one.
Under neurodivergence we who are different celebrate how similar we all actually are in contrast to the dominant neurotypical masses, it does not differ between our actual challenges on purpose and it can be a great way to explain ourselves to neurotypicals without having to go into the details of the diagnostic labels they may not understand or only know bias about. So in may ways it is a “i am different/special” label used in a positive “but that shouldn’t matter” kind of way.
When the context is about getting the right help, the term does nothing. But what does carry weight are the right diagnostic criteria which professionals help has experience with and knows what set of tools are relevant.
It is known that technically speaking, adhd is part of the autism spectrum, but the good reason on why its kept distinct is because giving people with mild adhd the same access to help as an autism diagnosis might get you would exhaust the system and make it harder for those on the spectrum with severe challenges to find any help at all.