07/10/2025
“Why are so many kids autistic now? It’s gotta be the vaccines, or the tablets, or Cocomelon or whatever else TikTok told me to be scared of 🙄”
No, babe. What’s wild is y’all acting brand new when you grew up surrounded by undiagnosed autistic people and just called it something else.
Your cousin wasn’t “lazy,” he just couldn’t function without routine.
Your uncle didn’t “make you nervous,” he just struggled with social cues.
Your grandpa with the rigid breakfast schedule and assigned chair? Hyperfixation and sensory preference.
The classmate who was brilliant but never spoke? The sibling who melted down over tags in shirts?
The kid who knew more about trains than your teacher did?
The adult who wears the same exact outfit every day because it feels right?
Y’all didn’t miss autism. Y’all just mislabeled it.
Autism isn’t new. Diagnosis is. Awareness is. Acceptance is.
But sure, keep blaming Tylenol and screen time while generations of people got written off as “weird,” “bad,” or “slow.”
It’s not a rise in autism. It’s a rise in people finally being seen.
