Autistigmatism

Autistigmatism: noun [aw tis TIG ma tiz im] - the tendency to perceive any abnormality of character as autism.

I have yet to trademark the name, but it is a malady that seems to affect a lot of parents I know.

Autistigmatism is a vision impairment that causes parent of ASD children to see autism everywhere, especially in assholes.

Since learning my daughter has PDDNOS, I have snap-diagnosed dozens of friends and relatives as being on the autism spectrum. Several times, I have found myself at Starbucks with another parent of an ASD child, and we will watch a perfect stranger having a conversation with another perfect stranger. And we'll nod knowingly: "that guy should get assessed."

So much of my world makes sense these days. I work in I.T., and I used to just pass off half of my coworkers as plain nuts. But now I know the truth. They should get assessed ...