I’m of two minds on this issue. What I think people find most irksome is the increased prevalence of self-diagnosis, especially WRT Asperger’s wherein it seems some people use the disorder as a way to score some Geek cred or prove how smart they are. I also agree with Manda JO that there are a cadre of parents who want a label to be a martyr and ‘prove’ how dedicated they are to their kids. This is especially infuriating to me since I have a profoundly retarded cousin and have seen up close how life altering having a child with special needs is.
At the same time, the backlash aganst this, the attempt to negate the problem with claims like ‘that could have described me and I turned out OK’ and ‘I guess we have to put a label on anyone who’s different’ piss me off. There’s a difference between being eccentric and Asperger’s and if you turned out OK then you almost decidedly would not have been labelled as a child no matter how much you think you would have.
Speaking as someone who, to put it more crassly than monstro, is fucked up in the head and has been cycled throgh diagnoses of Social Anxiety Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder, Schizoid Personality Disorder, and now Asperger’s induced Social Anxiety Disorder, there’s no joy in it. It isn’t something I cling to as a way to make myself feel special. There are only two people on earth who know: my psychiatrist and the dean of the medical school I had to withdraw from. It’s embarrasing and debilitating. I have no friends. I never had friends. I don’t know how to make friends. I’m alone all the time, even when I’m with other people. Almost all the non-verbal communication skills you take for granted I lack. Most of the interactions I have with people end when they make a face I don’t understand and then I assume I pissed them off and withdraw.
All that said, if you spoke to me when I was 12, I would have said that I was happy. I had a computer, a TV, a radio, and books. And, as much as people like to view the mother in the OP through the lens of a self-centered, drama driven Real Housewife of Asperger’s County, I often wonder what my life would have been like if my mother had been as proactive. Would I be better off if she had taken me to a psychiatrist/psychologist instead of just saying “He just likes to do his own thing” or “He marches to the beat of his own drummer” and then going to the cathedral down the block every week to pray that my lack of dating wasn’t because I was gay.:rolleyes:
Anyway, sorry for the polemic, especially because I had to tap it out on my IPod and it’s probably riddled with typos.