Why do so many people define Asperger Syndrome as a mental health condition?

[Fridgemagnetman]

I'm on the "no" side of the fence. I don't believe it is a disability at all. I believe it is a way of thinking, almost a personality type.

I think at the core of autism/hfa, there is a fundamental independence. For aspies, this manifests as the inability to accept brainwashing, seeing things as they are, not following the crowd, not accepting the way of things because we are told to do so. Always questioning, researching, not thinking main stream. For more extreme cases I believe that this goes one step further and those in this category don't fully accept this physical dimension, that they are here and elsewhere. I believe it is a way of thinking that drives our neural connections.

I believe my aspergers is me. I am not part of the crowd, and whether I like it or not, no amount of brain surgery or drugs would ever change that.

However, I only recently talked to someone who doesn't share this belief at all. Who things aspies are "crazy". It is these people who define it as a "disability".

The definition of disability is to "a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities."

But if you think about it, being an NT, dismissing people as crazy and not even trying to understand the world around you, is a limitation. A mental condition that limits a person's perception. I genuinely believe that NTs are the 'disabled' ones. I am pretty much alone in this belief, but it is what it is!

An aspie trait that we don't proselytise?

A belief to be cherished and kept quiet about, except in select company.

You're 42. I therefore believe everything you say as I once read hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

It's not a mental health condition, and it's also not a learning disability. Asperger's is a neurodevelopmental disorder.

Disorder often with comorbid 'tidying up'

 

[Streetwise]

hahaha! I like it lol
We are the awesome ASS teehehe
But why cant it just be AUTISM? Without the negative, derogatory ending. Or even just Neuro Diverse.[/QUO what about? shock horror! the term! neurologically different ,how I think i's sensible to me

 

[Streetwise]

phone has done it again read the last three sentences in jennas post above

 

[Fitzo]

I do not consider myself to be mentally ill just because my brain works differently to some others. I have, however suffered from mental illness at times as a result of the stress caused by trying to 'fit in' with others.
It is widely believed that Bill Gates and Elon Musk are on the spectrum. Does anyone consider them mentally I'll?

 

[Divrom]

Condition functions as a perfectly adequate alternative to Disorder.

I don't like it either, but
Autism
Spectrum
Syndrome
would make for an even more awkward acronym...!

 

[dragoncat16]

It's not a learning disability in itself. I found myself always learning things faster than my peers.

It's not an illness of any type, mental or otherwise.

It is a condition that limits social interaction and connecting with others. It is so debilitating because living in society requires frequent interaction. Perhaps I am different from others here, but I have been able to excel at tasks that do not require the interference (to me that's all they contribute) of other people.

 

[Rasendra]

i dont like the term disorder, in medical terms it means an illness that disrupts normal physical or mental functions.
Now how can one define what is normal?
I dont think i have a disorder that disrupts my mental function. Its most of the NT humans that disrupt my function lol they are the disorder

Lol, I love this.

I also disagree about Autism being a mental illness. Many of us may have mental health in addition to Autism but Autism itself I don't see that way.

 

[Judge]

Sandy Hook mass murderer Adam Lanza didn't help matters.

Because of him so many more NTs now know of Aspergers Syndrome, however under the worst possible circumstances.

 

[Southern Discomfort]

Factually speaking, it is not a learning disability and it is also not a mental health problem.

The reality of it is though is that there is no service set up to deal with people with neurodevelopmental conditions only. There's mental health services and there's learning disability services. It's the case that some people can fall through the cracks if they have neither. For years in the UK it would be the case of "passing the buck" between these two departments but it was eventually decided that the mental health services should handle people with neurodevelopmental conditions like autism. Hence why you're finding yourself in with people with mental illness.

It's not ideal and there should be a smaller third one to cover this group of people but at this time there isn't. It would take years to establish and cost the taxpayer millions in organising it nationwide.

 

[Southern Discomfort]

Tunnel Vision short sighted ignorant lazy are words used to describe psychiatry that I've heard
which is strange because the dsm-5 describes it as a developmental disorder, it's also the government trying to give people less money

It doesn't really matter what the DSM 5 calls it though since UK psychiatrists use the ICD 10.

 

[Amy Susan Rose]

I think at the core of autism/hfa, there is a fundamental independence. For aspies, this manifests as the inability to accept brainwashing, seeing things as they are, not following the crowd, not accepting the way of things because we are told to do so. Always questioning, researching, not thinking main stream. For more extreme cases I believe that this goes one step further and those in this category don't fully accept this physical dimension, that they are here and elsewhere. I believe it is a way of thinking that drives our neural connections.

I totally agree, Bella, and become frustrated when people at least don't consider this aspect. I do believe we are more in touch with our spiritual component. Those who would disagree who are on the Spectrum, I believe, just haven't discovered this facet of their state of being. And especially, as you mentioned, the extreme cases. It's so much more difficult for them living in the material world: "In many different tribes disabled people were heralded members of the community, their “gift” [9] of a different reality “challenged and energized” [10] the rest of the tribe community. These members of the community were called heyoka, they “evoked the magic of chaos” and had an indescribable amount of wakan, a holy, mysterious, or incomprehensible power." “Everything in Nature goes in curves and circles”: Native American Concepts of Disability – History of Medicine in America

 

[Mr Allen]

Way back when I was first diagnosed, I looked it up online (October 1999, no Google yet, sorry @xudo and @Judge) and various US based wrestling forums I posted on at the time had members who also looked me up and found out I was an Aspie and proceeded to call me stuff I can't even tell you it was so bad.

 

[the_tortoise]

I think the lines between various types of brain things can be blurry....but there are distinct types of brain things (or distinct ways of classifying them, depending on context and purpose of classification), and based on our limited knowledge and currently simplistic classification of all brain things regardless of context (which I find very paradoxical), I agree with you that ASDs are not mental illnesses.

(That said, to highlight how I think about it outside of the simplistic classifications.....

There are people with schizophrenia who show lifelong symptoms of developmental disorder which have given rise to a theory that there is at least one type of schizophrenia that is a developmental disability involving psychosis...An alternative explanation for this is that there are people with schizophrenia who also have developmental disability as a separate brain thing that has been overlooked only because they have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. (But the alternative explanation calls attention to the fact that our definitions are somewhat arbitrary -- they lack contextual relevence in the name of being objective, but are informed heavily by unacknowledged contextual variables (like the affected individual's personal circumstances, what their life is like and what struggles they do or do not experience in the world; the individual perceptions and biases of clinicians and researchers, which are informed by cultural perceptions and bias; and also by the way that health and social support systems are organized) because we don't actually know what causes the symptoms that we attempt to group and separate into distinct disorders/conditions....How does one know the psychosis is unrelated to the developmental disability symtoms when it isn't really understood what's happening in the brain, or in the body more generally, to cause any of it?).

There is also a condition that is not officially recognized in diagnostic manuals (as far as I know) called "Multiple Complex Developmental Disorder" that is considered a childhood developmental disorder and includes thought disorder/psychosis as one of the core symptoms.....I suspect the group of children described as having MCDD has the same brain thing(s) as the adults with schizophrenia + a history of developmental disability. )

However, I only recently talked to someone who doesn't share this belief at all. Who things aspies are "crazy". It is these people who define it as a "disability".

I generally define ASDs as disabilities but it's not because I think that ASDers are broken or defective or "crazy" (or psychotic or experiencing thought disorder....such an interesting name "thought disorder" -- it never stops seeming odd to me that thoughts can be considered disordered, no matter how strange and detached from reality those thoughts may be).....there are a lot of reasons why, and I am not entirely certain about what all they are yet, let alone how to explain the ones I am certain of. But I will say:

I think of the term "disability" literally, as denoting a lack of a certain ability/abilitiesthat the majority of other people have ..... or of being unable to do some task or activity a particular way that most other people can do it (even if one can do the task/activity but only in a different way) in a world where if one can't do the task in that particular way that most people can do it, then one has no opportunity to do it at all.

ASDs can also be gifts, as they can confer abilities most other people don't have.

To me the disability and extraordinary/unusual ability parts of autism that I experience are neutral and factual and I think that disabilities and extraordinary/unusual abilities are both totally normal and common and acceptable parts of human diversity -- neither automatically good nor automatically bad. They just are.

 

[xudo]

Way back when I was first diagnosed, I looked it up online (October 1999, no Google yet, sorry @xudo and @Judge) and various US based wrestling forums I posted on at the time had members who also looked me up and found out I was an Aspie and proceeded to call me stuff I can't even tell you it was so bad.

Google began in 1995, and the search engine came into existence in 1998.

 

[the_tortoise]

(October 1999, no Google yet, sorry @xudo and @Judge)

Google existed then. I distinctly remember using it in elementary school to do research for a school project, because it was the best search engine I had ever used and I was delighted to have found it. (My feelings about their search engine have changed drastically since then -- I think a lot of how they have changed things unequivocally sucks, and now the main search engine is basically the same as everyone else's, in my opinion.)

Look it up on Google's official website, or do a search for "google started year" or "google launched year" and you will find countless reputable sources that confirm this. To get you started, here is a picture of the Google search engine start page from 1998: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-google-looked-like-the-first-day-it-launched-in-1998-2013-9

 

[hutchie]

Aspergers isn't a disability, it's society's dis ability to adapt or help each other and learn from each other, instead we're expected to conform to society's expectations. Narrow mindedness, some discriminations etc are allowed, protected even, as its everyone's right to be like that.

 

[pjcnet]

It's not a learning disability in itself. I found myself always learning things faster than my peers.

It's not an illness of any type, mental or otherwise.

It is a condition that limits social interaction and connecting with others. It is so debilitating because living in society requires frequent interaction. Perhaps I am different from others here, but I have been able to excel at tasks that do not require the interference (to me that's all they contribute) of other people.

Thanks for your reply. I understand your reasoning stating that it's not a learning disability in itself, however both my adult brothers who have full autism can't count to 5 or do most things expected of a "normal" person and they will require 24/7 care for the rest of their lives. You can try to teach them to count as much as you like and you might succeed to get them to repeat 1,2,3,4,5, if you can keep their attention for long enough (a difficult task in itself), but 5 minutes later it will be totally forgotten again, you can try to teach them forever more, but they will never ever learn this or many other things. In this situation they most certainly have an inability to learn things that a "normal" person would be expected to learn easily as a young child so I would say it is a type of learning disability in their case.

People with higher level autism, E.g. Asperger Syndrome may not be classed as having a learning disability, but it's still a milder form of autism. Even though I'm brilliant with computers and technology, average people couldn't understand me talk until I was around 7 years old and I was very backward learning many things as I grew up. I have come a long way over the years and overcome many hurdles, but there are still certain things that I can't learn to do to a reasonable level even now that most people would expect an average person to achieve, perhaps this isn't the case for all aspies? I agree that aspies is not an illness of any type, mental or otherwise, but I believe it does at least come bundled with a learning disability in some cases.

 

[Crossbreed]

..., however both my adult brothers who have full autism can't count to 5 or do most things expected of a "normal" person and they will require 24/7 care for the rest of their lives.

I have two adult children with comparable limitations.

That is not more autism. That is a complication on top of autism that we seem to be more susceptible to, neonatally. Base autism is more like Aspergers, having only a deficiency of NT social instincts. (We have always been present in society.)

LFA, with its cognitive deficits (beyond that of just NT social instinct), is injured Aspergers. (It is those numbers that are inexplicably on the rise, and has brought our whole spectrum into the medical spotlight.) Restated, it is only the low-functioning component/modifier that is the learning disability.

 

[Rasendra]

People with higher level autism, E.g. Asperger Syndrome may not be classed as having a learning disability, but it's still a milder form of autism. Even though I'm brilliant with computers and technology, average people couldn't understand me talk until I was around 7 years old and I was very backward learning many things as I grew up. I have come a long way over the years and overcome many hurdles, but there are still certain things that I can't learn to do to a reasonable level even now that most people would expect an average person to achieve, perhaps this isn't the case for all aspies? I agree that aspies is not an illness of any type, mental or otherwise, but I believe it does at least come bundled with a learning disability in some cases.

Some definitely have learning disabilities also but part of it may also be the difficulties with executive functioning? I know I struggled with some things in school, though I was probably smart enough to skip a grade I ended up being held back do to difficulties communicating and struggles that I believe had to do with executive functioning. However I may also have had a learning disability that unfortunately no one seemed to take any interest to try to figure out.

Either way it seems they are still not the same thing. You can have autism and a learning disability at the same time. Or you can have Autism with no learning disability. There seem to be plenty of people that have Autism as well as learning disability or mental health issues.