"After years of inarticulate unease in social situations, they felt freed by the framework of neurodivergence, and embraced by the community that came along with it."

"Since then I’ve heard accounts from people who received midlife diagnoses of binge eating disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety. Nearly all of them said the diagnosis provided relief. Sometimes it led to an effective treatment. But sometimes, simply identifying the problem — putting a name to it — seemed to help...."

From "Autism, A.D.H.D., Anxiety: Can a Diagnosis Make You Better? As our diagnostic categories expand to include ever milder versions of disease, researchers propose that the act of naming a malady can itself bring relief" (NYT).

"A few years ago, critics began to say that this trend had overshot and was beginning to do real harm. Some say that enlargement of the tent has come at a cost to the most severely ill people, who have lost the attention of the medical establishment. Others say it’s not helping people with milder illnesses, either, especially if they are young. Diagnosis, they say, can set in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy.... Researchers, digging into the downstream effects of diagnoses, are beginning to see this effect play out over the long term. Diagnoses do lock you in...."

Not mentioned in the article: transgenderism.